The Moment of Lift

When we women can use talent and energy, we begin to speak in our own voices for our own values, and that makes everybody’s life better.

As women gain rights, families flourish, and so do societies.

From high rates of education, employment, and economic growth to low rates of teen births, domestic violence, and crime—the inclusion and elevation of women correlates with the signs of a healthy society.

Poverty is not being able to protect your family.

Poverty is not being able to save your children when mothers with more money could. And because the strongest instinct of a mother is to protect her children, poverty is the most disempowering force on earth.

If love were enough to save a life, no mother would ever bury her baby—we need the science as well. But the way you deliver the science is just as important as the science itself.

When the women were able to time and space their pregnancies, they were more likely to advance their education, earn an income, raise healthy children, and have the time and money to give each child the food, care, and education needed to thrive.

There’s something empowering about being asked. It sends a message that your life matters.

I’ve come to learn that stigma is always an effort to suppress someone’s voice. It forces people to hide in shame. The best way to fight back is to speak up—to say openly the very thing that others stigmatize.

It’s the mark of a backward society—or a society moving backward—when decisions are made for women by men.

There’s no morality without empathy.

Of all the divisive tools that are used to push people to the margins, unequal education is the most damaging and enduring.

Tradition without discussion kills moral progress.