I can go to a specific region and a specific state ... in Mexico and I can look and see exactly how we are doing on maternal health, child health and neonatal deaths, that tells me as a government how to act. Melinda Gates More Quotes by Melinda Gates More Quotes From Melinda Gates When we better understand the realities of these women's lives, we are able to design and deliver solutions that are more useful to them. Melinda Gates design able reality My undergraduate work was in computer science and economics. It just happened to be at that time when 34 percent of computer-science majors were women. We didn't realize it was at the peak at the time. Melinda Gates economics computer realizing Childbearing, I mean, if there's no place to go to deliver your baby, then you're the one that's delivering in those unhealthy circumstances. Or if you can't get access to family planning, your chances of surviving and being able to bring your kids up if they come one right after the other, that locks you into a cycle of poverty. Melinda Gates baby mean kids I felt suicidal. I couldn't stop crying. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if the car crashed and I died? Melinda Gates suicidal depression thinking We start with an economic approach. We look at what are the greatest causes of death in the developing world, and what causes the largest amount of disability, which would prevent you from getting a job. A lot of those deaths start with diseases, diseases we don't get in such a great number in the United States. Melinda Gates united-states numbers jobs Even in decision-making, we work in self-help groups. That is women coming together in small groups of 10 to sometimes 15 women, where they start to get education about their rights, about clean water and sanitation, about how to have a healthy birth. You can bring in all kinds of education to them that way. Melinda Gates self rights water Kids are falling through the cracks and nobody notices it. That to me is what's wrong with the school system. Melinda Gates kids school fall We look in our own backyard and say, 'How do we help at-risk families, at risk youth? How do we think through some of the problems affecting the Pacific Northwest and make some change there?' Melinda Gates backyards risk thinking We set out what's going to be our work time versus our foundation time versus family time, and we'll reassess that... sometimes every week. Melinda Gates family-time foundation sometimes I learn in a different way. I learn experientially. Melinda Gates different-ways different way When I studied computer science at Duke University in the first half of the 1980s, I had professors who treated women differently than men. I kind of got used to it. At Microsoft, I had to use my elbows and make sure I spoke up at the table, but it was an incredibly meritocratic place. Outside, in the industry, I would feel the sexism. I'd walk into a room and until I proved my worth, everyone would assume that the guy presenting with me had credibility and I didn't. Melinda Gates elbows guy men Abortion has become a very politicised issue that I think countries have to work out themselves. In a lot of countries, people can't even yet agree on what their laws should be. Melinda Gates law country thinking Even in our own agriculture strategy, if we got a great new drought-resistant seed and we managed to get it distributed in the system, we just assumed that it would reach female farmers. That's a false assumption, because women don't interact with agro-dealers. So if you don't develop specific programming to ensure that seed gets in a woman's hands, then the extra income [generated by higher-yielding crops] goes into her husband's hands. Melinda Gates agriculture husband hands I've travelled extensively in the last 16 years - to slums in Bangladesh, to townships in South Africa, to all kinds of places in India, etc. When I would go and talk to villagers about something like vaccines, if I stayed long enough, the women would bring the conversation around and say: "What about this family planning tool? We can't keep having the number of children we're having." Melinda Gates vaccines children years In the developing world, they don't have smartphones yet. They have the older plastic phones, but women are saving money on those, because they don't have access to banks. Having that access to digital money changes everything for her because she actually doesn't have to negotiate with her husband, which she will tell you is very hard in these circumstances, especially when the means are meager. She's expected to have money to pay for the kids' health or to help with the school fees. Melinda Gates husband mean school Women and girls face a whole host of issues. We start with health, so we work very deeply on maternal deaths, making sure that a mom doesn't die in childbirth, making sure that she has access, for instance, to AIDS medication. Melinda Gates issues girl mom Despite the debunking, you have a small group in the last five years that hasn't wanted to vaccinate their children, for instance, for measles. Then, all of sudden, we got an outbreak of measles and kids were starting to die from measles. Melinda Gates kids children years If you ask, who has the chance to move into the city and get a good job out in the developing world? It's a man. Who's left to care for the kids back at home? The woman is. Melinda Gates home jobs moving If you can't go to secondary school, the boys get to go and the girls don't, you're locked into a cycle of poverty, because you don't have a chance. Melinda Gates girl boys school Sanitation issues in the developing world affect women more than they affect men. Melinda Gates issues men world
