How to Make the Matriarchy by Maureen Devine-Ahl

Author:Maureen Devine-Ahl [Devine-Ahl, Maureen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory
ISBN: 9781636766072
Google: 9JANzgEACAAJ
Amazon: B08S3H4VKS
Barnesnoble: B08S3H4VKS
Goodreads: 56810133
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2020-12-07T02:52:18+00:00

Something for Everyone, I Promise

Melinda Gates holds her Catholic upbringing and continued faith central to who she is. And she talks openly in her book, The Moment of Lift, of her struggle to reconcile the teachings of her church on family planning with the realities of what she has witnessed around the world, both in data and first-person storytelling.

She cites a study from the 1970s that tracked outcomes for families across Bangladesh over the course of twenty years. In the study, half of the women in participating villages were given access to contraceptives, while the other half were not. At the end of the study, women who were given contraceptives were healthier, their children were better nourished, their families had more wealth, the women earned higher wages, and children had more schooling.161

She shares the story of Meena, a woman she met in Mozambique. Gates was visiting Meena, who had recently delivered her infant son in a new clinic, to ask her about her experience and how it compared to giving birth to her first son, then two, at home. She was prepared for a conversation about how having access to the clinic was a dramatic improvement for the health and well-being of mom and baby, which Meena confirmed. She wasn’t prepared for Meena’s response when she asked if she wanted to have more children.

Meena shared that they were very poor. Her husband worked hard, but she still worried about her ability to provide for the two children she had, let alone more. Gates describes “reeling” when Meena said, “The only hope I have for this child’s future is if you’ll take him home with you.”162 It was in this moment Gates realized “the pain of giving her babies away was less than the pain of keeping them.”163

It was Meena’s story, and many more like hers, that drove Gates to take a stance very different from the teachings of her Catholic faith on family planning. She realized “when women can decide whether and when to have children, it saves lives, promotes health, expands education, and creates prosperity—no matter what country in the world you’re talking about.”164 The Gates Foundation, in its quest to end poverty, end starvation, lower maternal and infant mortality, and in general reduce suffering around the world, realized it needed to prioritize empowering women to manage their health and reproductive journey to be successful.

“The reasons are simple,” Gates writes. “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.”

I share Gates’ story to invite you to set aside any existing biases you may have when it comes to overlapping women’s health with politics or personal beliefs. Women are responsible for the proliferation of the human race, and as I dug deeper on data and stories, it became clear to see the best outcomes for society (and frankly, the world) are born out of empowering women in their health decisions.

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