This week, Melinda French Gates strikes out on her, leaving the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that she cofounded 25 years go. She is committing her philanthropy to gender equality, a subject that is increasingly under threat.
She experienced first-hand how women and girls’ issues are the first to fall off the global agenda, how she was told countless times that “it was not the right time to talk about gender equality”. And this is espoused even though research demonstrates that investing in women benefits everything from building stronger economies to improving the durability of peace agreements. Think of that. Peace agreements are “more durable when women are involved in writing them.”
On the global stage, there is a rise in violence against women, increasing use of rape as a tool of war and a rise in malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women caught in the maelstrom of poverty and starvation. In the United States, she writes that maternal mortality rates continue to rise, that in 14 states women cannot terminate pregnancy for any circumstance, and that there is still no national paid family leave. Teenage girls are experiencing depression and suicide at unprecedented levels.
Yet, only about 2 percent of charitable giving in the United States goes to issues for and about women and young girls. Ms. Gates is making a commitment to change this playing field with her new foundation, Pivotal. She notes that unless we step in to fund and solve the these pressing needs for women and girls, her 1-year-old granddaughter “may grow up to have less rights” than she has.
Melinda French Gates has the experience and the means to move charitable giving in this direction. She has the commitment to make change and we know she will be successful.
But more than that, each of us can and should pay attention to how we can encourage and support gender equality. We do not have to act like a man or dress like a man to be equal.
PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN DO. pivotalventures.org
Lucy and Claudia