Melinda Gates Explains How She's Just Like Most Women
Time|May 13, 2019

In her new memoir, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, the philanthropist examines the challenges facing women around the globe, in the U.S. and in her own home—and offers lessons for fighting back

Belinda Luscombe
Melinda Gates Explains How She's Just Like Most Women

Do you worry that it’s difficult for women to relate to you on the subject of inequality because you have so much wealth and power?

One of the things I try to do in the book is break down the differences between myself and other women. Part of the reason I share some of the most difficult moments I’ve had in life, including abuse [by a former boyfriend], is to help people understand we are all more similar than we are different. My dream with this book is that people will start to see me totally for who I am and not as whatever label they might put on me— a wealthy woman who is out of touch, or I don’t know what.

What was the hardest of your vulnerabilities to share?

The abuse I experienced when I was younger. I only started telling family and friends about that a few years ago. I didn’t realize it would be another level of difficulty to write it down on the page and word it in a way that I thought was my truth and then to speak that in the world. That was the hardest page for me to write. I wrote it and wrote it and rewrote it until I got it right.

Do you think the man in question will recognize himself?

I don’t know.

It wasn’t until 10 years ago that you started considering yourself a feminist. Why?

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 13, 2019 من Time.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 13, 2019 من Time.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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