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Quote by Melinda Gates

“…calculated that if you hired workers at the market rate to do all the unpaid work women do, unpaid work would be the biggest sector of the global economy. … As Waring wrote, “Men won’t easily give up a system in which half the world’s population works for next to nothing,” especially as men recognize that “precisely because that half works for so little, it may have no energy left to fight for anything else.”

Quote by Melinda Gates

Work

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

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Author

Melinda Gates
Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates is a distinguished businesswoman and philanthropist, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world's largest private foundations. She has been deeply involved in the foundation's efforts to improve global health and education, with a particular focus on reducing poverty and enhancing lives worldwide. more

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“Long-term goals are like planting a tree that will bear fruits only after a few years. These trees take a long time to grow but they provide lasting benefits. Unlike the seasonal crop that gives you benefits only once, the trees keep bearing fruits year after year without much effort. However, you have to constantly work for a couple of years even when no fruit is in sight. You must have faith and the motivation to be able to put in continuous effort for a long time.”

“We often think that only money, power and comfort give us gratification. But this is partial truth. We also feel happy when we play, work out, solve a complex problem or make a child smile by our love and affection. We enjoy success and hate failure, but there is hardly any success that is not preceded by failure. It is our failures that make our successes sweeter.”

“In the end, the answer is the men. They have to do the work. Why do we tie ourselves in knots to avoid saying this one simple truth? It's a daily and repetitive and eternal truth, and it's a dangerous truth, because if we press this point we can blow our households to pieces, we can take our families apart, we can spoil our great love affairs. This demand is enough to destroy almost everything we hold dear. So we shut up and do the work. No single task is ever worth the argument. Scrub a toilet, wash a few dishes, respond to the note from the teacher, talk to another mother, buy the supplies. Don't make a big deal out of everything. Don't make a big deal out of anything. Never mind that, writ large, all these minor chores are the reason we remain stuck in this depressing hole of pointless conversations and stifled accomplishment. Never mind that we are still, after all these waves of feminism and intramural arguments among the various strains of womanhood, treated like a natural resource that can be guiltlessly plundered. Never mind that the kids are watching. If you mind you might go crazy. Cooking and cleaning and childcare are everything. They are the ultimate truth. They underpin and enable everything we do. The perpetual allocation of this most crucial and inevitable work along gender lines sets women up for failure and men for success. It saps the energy and burdens the brains of half the population. And yet honest discussion of housework is still treated as taboo.”