​The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
By Melinda Gates
Bluebird
Reviewer: Sadie-Jane Nunis

Advice from Forbes’ Sixth Most Powerful Woman in the World

YET another book about gender equality? The answer is yes and the reason is because it may be a long-drawn conversation, however, it is obviously something that needs to be continuously discussed as little improvements have been made thus far.

Enter Forbes’ sixth most powerful woman in the world, Mrs Melinda Gates. If you have never heard of her before (probably because you have been living under a rock), she is Mr Bill Gates wife, you know that billionaire principal founder of Microsoft Corporation? She is also co-chair for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US.

Mrs Gates brings to the forefront in her book numerous stories of women facing adversity, especially in the areas that are critical pertaining to lack of access to contraception for example. She also highlights the importance of changing the mindset of society in order to focus on how to further empower women globally.

This is a book that I read with interest as I have done earlier Today’s Manager issues about how and why women need to work towards breaking the glass ceiling. So this is a topic close to my heart. In The Moment of Lift, there are many strong statements that she makes in this book. My first favourite states that many societies state that outsiders tend to be their problem. She reiterates that it is not the outsiders that are the problem but instead that the problem is really the need to create outsiders.

My other favourite is when she states that it is time that powerful people stop using their power to push people out and instead, use their power to reel people in. This book is for every woman of any age. Start them young and hopefully, reading this book combined with strong female role models, we can have more empowered women sooner.