Final book club session blog notes , Wednesday June 9, 2021
Melinda Gates speaks highly of Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor of international health. (Look for Hans Rosling in Ted Talks) Following her last visit with him in 2016, she said “He knew what was true, and he wanted to give me the lesson of his life one last time.” (239) On a piece of paper he sketched two roads crossing and a river intersecting the roads where they met. And he said “If you live near the crossroads or if you live near the river, you’re going to be okay and as he marked the four corners of the page he said “but if you live on the margins, the world is going to forget about you.” “Melinda, you can’t let the world forget about them.” (240)
The diagram was a depiction of both geographic and social isolation from the flow of life. (240)
Melinda believes strongly that women must leave the margins and “take our place not above men or below them but beside them at the centre of society, adding our voices and making decisions we are qualified and entitled to make” (262)
In Chapter 8 Creating a New Culture, Women in the Workplace, Melinda tells of a most influential woman in her life that she only met once. In a final job interview at IBM, Melinda was offered a position and then moments later this same woman advised Melinda to take a position with Microsoft where there would likely be more opportunities for Melinda. Here is a woman who put another young woman, a young college graduate’s interests first, before her own recruiting interests. The woman said, “I’m a passionate advocate for women in the field of technology and I want to pay forward the generosity of my mentors and role models. (202)
Melinda was successful at Microsoft but in a short time, she found that the work was draining. She didn’t feel like she was able to be herself. She was struggling with the culture. She admits, “By trying to fit in, I was strengthening the culture that made me feel like I didn’t fit in.” (210)
Does this resonate with you? Have you ever been in a culture where you felt like you had to change yourself in order to fit in?
Charlotte, her friend and colleague at Microsoft said “it’s not okay for women to cry at work, but it is okay for men to YELL at work. “ She asks, “Which is the more mature emotional response”? (211-212)
Men also face cultural obstacles at work that keep them from being who they are. (215).
An unhealthy work place culture for women results in less pay, fewer raises, slower promotions, women being told they’re a “bad fit”; don’t have what it takes; lack of training, mentoring and sponsorship.
Gates says “Opportunities have to be equal before you can know if abilities are equal. Opportunities for women have never been equal. People see the effects of poor nurture and call it nature. This is how gender bias plants the evidence.” (222)
What barriers affect women in the workplace? Research suggests that women often have more self-doubt than men; women often underestimate their abilities while men over estimate theirs; women fear failure more than men. Women are more averse to risk; women are more likely than men to face backlash if they show assertiveness (outside social norms) so they have come to fear backlash and be less assertive. There is social approval for women who don’t ask for much, who show self-doubt, who don’t seek power; who wont speak out, who aim to please. (You’ll recall the popular depiction of the perfect 1950’s housewife)
Melinda tells Susan Fowler’s story, a high performing employee who experienced various forms of sexual abuse while working for the company Uber. After seeking help, she was advised by Uber Human Resources that she should transfer teams to avoid further sexual advances by her manager (saying he had an excellent work record and wrongly suggesting that this was a first offense). She found a new role in the company that she loved and received excellent performance reviews. But then her new manager filed poor performance reviews to keep her on his team (reduce possibility of promotion). These performance reviews had many detrimental affects. HR would not support her and suggested that “maybe she was the problem”. Susan left the company and wrote a public blog about the experience. The company hired a lawyer whose subsequent report resulted in the CEO’s forced resignation and 20 others were fired. (216-2218)
A few months later the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke and women from around the world shared their stories of sexual harassment with the hash tag #Me Too. In 2017 Susan was the Time’s Person of the year. The magazine called her one of the “silence breakers”.
What Melinda says next is key. She reminds us how important it is to also support women who are in blue collar jobs and service sector jobs, women who don’t have access to social media, whose abusers are not famous, whose stories aren’t interesting to reporters, and who live from paycheck to paycheck. (Women in the margins)
Melinda asks “How can abusers dominate for so long? It is partly because; she says, “ When women are trying to decide whether we should stand up we don’t know if others will stand with us. It often takes many women, arms linked to inspire other women to speak.” (220)
She believes “that we need to do more than identify the abusers; we have to heal the unhealthy culture that supports them.” (221) She adds that “the most common signs of an abusive culture is a false hierarchy that puts women below men and even worse treats them as objects.” (222)
Melinda writes that the barriers for women in the workplace led her to perfectionism. She says it comes from a desperate need not to disappoint others. (232) A workplace that is hospitable to women will not only forgive our imperfections but accommodate our needs – especially the most profound need to take care of one another.” This includes our children and our aging parents. Did you know that “the US is one of only seven countries in the world that do not provide paid maternity leave.” (237)
In Brené Brown’s interview with Melinda on her podcast called “Unlocking Us’ (January 2021), she reveals that “in the month of December 2020 there were 140,000 jobs shed in the US economy and women accounted for 100% of these jobs lost. Of these 140,000 women, they were disproportionately black, indigenous and women of colour. She says there are two reasons for this: #1 - women hold many of the low wage service industry jobs which were lost due to the pandemic and #2 - the burden of caregiving for children (and other family members in need) is falling to women during the pandemic.
Melinda said she had to fact-check this three times to ensure it was correct. I listened to this segment several times to make sure I heard it correctly. I did.
“This is symptomatic of a workplace that struggles with sexual harassment, gender bias and indifference to family life.” All these issues are aggravated by one reality; fewer women in positions of power.” (238)
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In Chapter 9 Let Your Heart Break, The Lift of Coming Together, Melinda takes a lesson from Dorothy Day who says
“The lesson I’ve learned from women in social movements all over the world is that to bring about a revolution of the heart, you have to let your heart break.”
“This means sinking into the pain that’s underneath the anger. If you don’t accept the suffering, hurt can turn to hatred.” (258)
In 2003 India was a country with more than a billion people facing a deadly epidemic whose defeat would involve an extensive partnership with the most despised group in a deeply cast-conscious society. Knowing this, the Gates Foundation proceeded to launch an HIV prevention program in India that relied on the leadership of this group, the sex workers. To be successful in their endeavor they ended up funding women’s empowerment by creating safe spaces where women on the outmost margins of society, excluded by everyone, could come together to talk, drink tea, find human loving connection, let their hearts break, and lift each other up.
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Gates says “lasting progress will not come from a power struggle; it will come from a moral appeal. As we bring gender bias out from behind tis disguises, more and more men and women will see bias where they hadn’t suspected it and will stand against it. That’s how we change the norms that hide the biases we were blind to. We see them and we end them.” (262)
In the Epilogue Melinda Gates says:
“Love is what lifts us up…
When we come together we rise.
We see ourselves in others. We see ourselves as others.
That is the moment of lift.” (264)
Questions:
As you studied Melinda’s book over the last six weeks, did you find yourself thinking back about your own life stories and the stories of your children, your parents and grandparents?
What was the role that gender bias played in these stories?
Did you have an experience when you were younger that would not occur today?
Gates says lasting progress will come from moral appeal. We must see gender bias and end it.
Has this book changed your understanding and scope of what it means to empower women?
Will you be able to see gender bias more easily now?
Will the book impact how you look at gender bias in the world going forward?
Hans Rosling told Melinda “You can’t let the world forget about the people on the margins.”
What can you and I do to help remember people pushed to the margins and bring them back to the centre?
