The Moment of Lift

Things I learnt

This is one of the best birthday gifts I’ve gotten as an adult. This book highlights the lack of awareness women have been facing for centuries and how we’ve trundled along despite the myriad of difficulties often caused due to the preset ways of the society.

Some of the things that stood out and made me feel enlightened and underlined the obvious:

1. Gender Inequality
   I’m a software engineer by profession. In school, Computer Science classes were filled with young girls, whereas more of the heavy engineering streams such as Mechanical were almost all filled by boys. I thought that was the norm. It was only after I completed my Masters in the US and joined the workforce that I saw that women are so under represented. In a country like the US, it was not until 60s that women started revolting against the societal rules that border-line suppressed them to the point they had to revolt. Melinda Gates highlights how this inequality is present in almost all sectors of the workforce.
2. Abuse
   I grew up in India. I was more or less acquainted with the fact that not all women in India were privileged or entitled to get education or have access to healthier lives or even have happier marriages. I read a lot of self-help books in my early 20s, trying to imbibe techniques such tough love and mindfulness and the one thing that you learn from those books is that you always have the power to change what you have in your life; you attract the life you want. Through this book though, I happened to see why women end up being victims and why it is not as easy for those suppressed to change their lives.
3. Family Planning
   I apologize for connecting all of these to my opinions and experiences but honestly, that’s what this book revealed to me. It sort of answered all the questions I had grown up seeing around me. In India, temples are often lined with beggars. You can see families with babies and young kids all on the street, begging fervently for food, money and mercy. I often used to ask wonder why they chose to have so many kids beyond their financial capabilities. After reading this book, now I know why.

In short, I recommend that you read this book. My hope is just it opens your eyes like it did with me.