The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapter 9 and Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 9 and EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “Let Your Heart Break: The Life of Coming Together”

Chapter 9 emphasizes the importance of helping marginalized people—notably, sex workers, so-called untouchables. Poverty often drives women into sex work. Gates recommends empathizing rather than judging these women. In 2003, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched Avahan (‘call to action’), an HIV prevention program. The program, which aimed to halt the spread of HIV across India, became one of the world’s largest HIV prevention projects. A single sex worker infected with HIV can spread the disease to hundreds of clients, including truckers, who then infect their partners and future children. Condom use is key to curbing HIV transmission, but many clients refuse to use them. In 2004, Gates traveled to Calcutta and met with sex workers, who spoke about the poverty, stigma, and violence they faced from their lovers and clients. They also voiced their desire to spare their daughters from having to do sex work.

How Empowerment Starts

Avahan’s goals changed after Gates and her staff spoke with sex workers. Before the trip, they aimed to promote condom use, STD treatment, and HIV tests—but they soon realized that their goals did not align with those of the sex workers themselves, whose primary concern was violence. The threat of violence from lovers and clients is what kept many sex workers from using condoms. Avahan’s goals thus shifted from HIV prevention to violence prevention. Participants set up a speed-dial network that brought groups of women to the aid of women in trouble. News of the program spread to neighboring towns, prompting more women to join the violence prevention network; the program went on to operate across the country. This prompted Avahan to build and rent community centers, these hubs allowing sex workers to share information and resources, and to feel a sense of belonging.

Finding Our Voices

The voices of people on the margins generally go unheard. The marginalized can offer fresh insights, making them important agents of change. For example, women are nurturers in many societies. Bringing the nurturing power of women to the political table can usher in peace, as evidence by Liberia—where a female-led peace movement succeeded after decades of failed attempts by men. Women in Liberia urged men not to retaliate against past wrongs and voiced their ideas about how to run a healthy society. Together, the two strategies brought about peace. The Avahan program, alongside the peace process in Liberia, call attention to the importance of amplifying women’s voices. The strong voices of those who confront grief head-on can result in equality and dignity for all. By contrast, the loud voices of those disconnected from their grief can only promote dominance and self-interest. Change can come from absorbing pain and exercising compassion for those who are suffering.

When Women Come Together

When women raise their voices in unison, they can better demand making their own decisions regarding family, marriage, and self-advancement. Empowering girls and women doesn’t equate to disempowering or excluding boys and men. Rather, societies must strive to bring everyone in and leave no one at the margins. The key is to do away with factions or sides as a whole.

Epilogue Summary

The Epilogue illustrates Gates’s hopes for humanity. She believes that women’s empowerment is just a milestone on the road to connection. Connection fosters feelings of responsibility for others, with love being key. Love unites people and ends their desire to marginalize others. For Gates, recognizing this is the true moment of lift.

Chapter 9 and Epilogue Analysis

Chapter 9 and the Epilogue focus on the theme of marginalization. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funds programs that empower women on the margins of society, including sex workers. Sex workers live at the center of large cities, yet they are ostracized from mainstream society; this isolation exacerbates their shame. While doing research for Avahan, one of the foundation’s most successful programs, Gates met with Indian sex workers to discuss their needs. Aiming to evoke empathy rather than judgment, she emphasizes the desperation that leads many women to sex work. Poor women lack options to provide for themselves and their families. The women with whom Gates spoke shared their hopes for their children—their determination to spare their daughters from having to make the same difficult choices they did. Sex workers are at the very bottom of India’s social hierarchy and are considered untouchable. Gates modeled empathy by physically touching these women. This simple, uplifting gesture encouraged them to strive for change: “So I gave lots of hugs, and I listened to stories—harsh tales of rape and abuse, and hopeful stories about children […] Then a few of the women started singing the civil rights anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’” (245). The women later banded together at Avahan centers to share stories and support each other. The centers became incubators for social change:

They gained a sense of belonging, and the sense of belonging gave them a feeling of self-worth, and the feeling of self-worth gave them the courage to band together and demand their rights. They were no longer outsiders; they were insiders. They had a family and a home. And slowly they began to dispel the illusion that society imposes on the disempowered: that because they are denied their rights, they have no rights; that because no one listens to them, they are not speaking the truth (252).

One of the most remarkable aspects of Avahan is the way it centers marginalized voices. The program initially set out to curb India’s rapidly climbing HIV rate; condom use, STD testing, and HIV treatment were at its core. But program leaders shifted their goals after speaking directly to sex workers, who told them that violence, not HIV, was their primary concern: “They faced constant violence from their lovers, from their clients, who were themselves poor and marginalized, and from the police, who would harass them, arrest them, rob them, and rape them” (245). The inclusivity that defines Avahan underlies all aid work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It also reflects the influence of Dr. Rosling. Before dying of cancer in 2016, Dr. Rosling reiterated the importance of interacting directly with people in need. He drew a picture of two perpendicular roads and implored Gates to seek out those who lived furthest away from the intersection: “‘If you live near the crossroads or if you live near a river, you’re going to be okay. But if you live on the margins […] the world is going to forget about you. Melinda,’ he told me, ‘you can’t let the world forget them’” (240).

The Moment of Lift promotes equality. Gates’s hope for the future is to end inequality by bringing the marginalized to the center, love being key. Aid programs, donations, and activism are important, but creating lasting change also demands a “revolution of the heart” (258). Social movements gain momentum and moral authority when people open their hearts to the plights of others. Gates’s views on aid work are rooted in her faith, in Christ’s love for humanity:

They did everything they could to hurt him and humiliate him. And they failed. His ability to absorb pain was beyond their ability to inflict it, so he could answer their hatred with love. This, to me, is the model for all nonviolent social movements, religious based or not (258).

Those who can absorb pain and put aside self-interest are imbued with moral authority (in the public eye). Their power comes from speaking universal truths. Women must collectively raise their voice and push for equality as lasting change can only come from an appeal to morality.