Chapter four entitled “Lifting Their Eyes” Girls in Schools
In chapter four, Melinda tells the stories of women and girls who have talked about their dreams of getting an education and the barriers that they had to overcome in order to go to school. She tells of the ‘agents of development’ in Mexico, Bangladesh and Kenya successfully building schools for girls despite the barriers. Each case proved that girls’ education brought many benefits to the entire country.
Melina talks about the “Incomparable lift of school”. “Girls education can have transformative effects on the health, empowerment, and economic advancement.
She says, ”When kids learn something new, they see they can grow; that can lift their sense of self and change their future. “ (p 93)
“All the women I’ve talked to and all the data I’ve seen convince me that the most transforming force of education for women and girls is changing the self-image of the girl who goes to school. That’s where the lift is.” (p 108)
“The secret of an empowering education: A girl learns she is not who she’s been told she is. She is the equal of anyone… with rights she needs to assert and defend.” This is how the great movements of social change get traction: when outsiders reject the low self-image society has imposed on them and begin to author a self-image of their own.” (p 108)
“I’ve seen two sets of curriculum in many school districts across the United States – one group of students studying Algebra II while the other were taught how to balance a checkbook. The first group would head to college and careers; the second group would struggle to make a living.” (p 93, 94)
“People who’ve been treated like outsiders often come to school thinking they don’t deserve more and should never demand it because they won’t get it. Good schools change that view.” (p 93, 94)
Vickie, a woman raised in Kentucky, now working for the Foundation said “Where I grew up, a lot of people didn’t want excellence in schools. It scared people.” “The day I came home and told my parents “I’m going to college” my stepfather said “Don’t ever plan on coming back because your values are not our values.” “Is what we have not good enough? Are you saying we’re not good enough for you?”
On discovering that you were not who you were told you were:
Tell us about a time when you realized you were not the person that other(s) expected you to be.
i.e. - Did you ever find yourself rejecting an imposed image of yourself and author a new image for yourself?
Tell us about a time when you discovered you were good at something and it affected your attitude, (your self image) about yourself.
Melinda tells the story of the young girls called Musahar, (means literally “rat eaters”) the “untouchables” in India. From the time they were born, society was constantly telling them they are completely worthless. Sister Sudha Varghese set up a school for these young women where she taught them; “You have the same rights as other people. And you must have skills to defend your rights.” (p 111) Here they learned self-defense and ultimately won gold and silver medals in the sport of karate on the national stage. The minister of Bihar offered to pay their way to the world championships in Japan. (p 108 – 112)
It gave me chills when I read about the story of the Musahar girls overcoming hardship beyond belief. Their spirits soared well above their oppressors.
Melinda says “One of my favorite lines of scripture is “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” I (Kevin ) like to quote it this way with the lyric from Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times they are a Changing’ “For the loser now will be later to win”.
Does this have meaning for you?
Tell us about a particular time when you felt the times were changing and the loser proved to later win.
Tell us about a particular incident that really struck you in chapter 4 - Lifting Their Eyes – Girls in Schools.
Melinda writes: “A low self-image and oppressive social customs are inner and outer versions of the same force.” (p 112)
“The first defense against a culture that hates you is a person who loves you.
Love is the most powerful and underused force for change in the world. You don’t hear about it in policy discussions or political debates. But Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Mohandas Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, and Martin Luther King Jr. all did hardheaded, tough-minded work for social justice, and they all put the emphasis on love.
It’s a mark of our culture’s uneasiness with love that political candidates never talk about it as qualification for holding public office. In my view, love is one of the highest qualifications one can have. As one of my favourite spiritual teaches, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, says ‘Only love can safely handle power.’”
(p 113)
Share your thoughts about this idea that “only love can handle power”.
Why do you think many politicians do not outwardly lead with love?
Chapter five entitled The Silent Inequality - Unpaid work
Breaking News! - It was announced May 3rd that after 27 years together Bill & Melinda were divorcing. This news may affect the way you view Melinda’s stories about trying to form a more perfect partnership with husband Bill.
In this chapter Melinda shares many personal stories about her own struggles to find her own voice and equality in her partnership in her marriage and as a co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She does this because “first, I believe that women gain equality not couple by couple but by changing the culture, and we can change the culture by sharing our stories…. Second, I’m sharing my stories because it seems false to me to work on issues in the world while pretending I have them solved in my own life. I need to be open about my flaws or I may fall into the conceit of thinking I’m here on earth to solve other people’s problems.”(p 148)
On page 134 Melinda describes a “crisis of self” when she no longer was using her education and skills as a business executive; she was living isolated because her husband travelled so much and she was now in a large house where she didn’t feel at home raising a new baby for the first time.
She asked herself “Who do I want to be in this marriage? And it pushed me to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do. “
In a big or small way, describe a time when you, (or someone close to you), experienced a “crisis of self”.
Did you realize what it was at the time? What did you learn from it?
On page 131, Melinda shares ideas from the book “Journey of the Heart”. John Welwood writes, “Anything that one partner ignores, the other will feel a greater need to emphasize.” (p 131)
“This dynamic is what allows some partners to ignore things that they actually do care about, because they know their partner will do the work for both of them.” (p 131) “But leaving to your partner something that you also care about leads to separation”, Melinda writes.
On page 147 Melinda shares Bill’s words “… we never want to have something where one of us is cast in the carefree role and the other is in this bothersome role. Better to have it as a mutual challenge.” In Melinda’s words “We try to make sure we don’t make one person do the dirty work... when you come together to share the unpleasant work, its an attack on hierarchy.”
Melinda talks about a group headed by Gary Barker called “MenCare” which urges men around the world to take on caregiving tasks and presents persuasive data on why men should want to do that. “Men who share caregiving duties are happier. They have better relationships. They have happier children.” (p 129-130)
When the youngest Gates child started school in 2001, Bill and Melinda found an ideal school 30 -40 minutes away. This meant a lot of time driving for Melinda. After bringing it to Bill’s attention he offered to do some of the driving. “’Seriously? You’ll do that?” “Sure, he said, “It’ll give me time to talk with Jenn.” (126) Bill took on driving twice a week even though the school was the opposite direction from his work, adding over an hour to his commute. A month later, Melinda noticed many more dad’s driving kids to school. Melinda asked one of the mom’s “hey what’s up? There are a lot of Dads here.” The mom replied “When we saw Bill driving, we went home and said to our husbands, Bill Gates is driving his child to school; you can, too.” (p 125-126)
Tell us about examples where male (good or bad) role modeling has shaped other men’s behavior.
Tell us how you have shared the dirty work to create greater fairness in a partnership.
On pages 137- 139, Melinda writes about the lessons she learned from her parents and those Bill learned from his Mom and Dad. Bill Gates Sr wrote in an academic paper shortly after his 21st birthday in 1946, “The most outstanding idea in Gatesland is the idea of the perfect state in which women will have all equal rights to men. The female would be as common in the professions and business as the male…”
Reflect on your life growing up with your caregivers/parents.
Describe how the division of roles and responsibilities in your household were different, (or the same), to those of your caregivers/parents?
How did society or culture inform how their roles evolved or changed over time?
How did your parents, (or grandparents), influence the relationship you had/have with your family?
Please share with us a particular passage that spoke to you from chapter 5 The Silent Inequality – Unpaid Work.
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