Bill: Poverty is sexist. The poorer the society, the less power women have. Men decide if a woman is allowed to go outside, talk to other women, earn income. Men decide if it’s acceptable to strike a woman. The male dominance in the poorest societies is mind-blowing.
"The male dominance in the poorest societies is mind-blowing."

Melinda: It’s also crippling. Limiting women’s power keeps everyone poor. Fortunately, as a society becomes better off, a woman’s position in that society improves. But what good is that for a young woman in a poor country who doesn’t want to wait? How can she get more power now?

Bill: Melinda and I have seen over and over again that social change comes when people start talking to each other—and that’s the magic of women’s groups. If you go out in the village, you’re rarely going to find a men's group where they all share information. You’ll find a big man of the village, and the key aides to the big man, and people who work for the key aides. That hierarchy stifles conversation. It keeps people from talking about what matters. Women’s groups don’t get as caught up in that, so they’re better at spreading information and driving change.

Melinda: Right now approximately 75 million women are involved in self-help groups in India alone. We want to drive that number higher. The groups might form to help women get loans or share health practices, but after things get started, the women take it in the direction they want to go. That is empowerment!

Bill: The most touching thing we’ve ever done was to help create community groups in India where sex workers had a place to go and talk about HIV prevention. We did it so they could help each other insist on condom use from their clients. But our vision was way too narrow. What the groups did from a human point of view for those women was phenomenal, independent of HIV prevention.

Melinda: One of the first things the groups did was ease stigma. These women were excluded by everyone except each other—and softening the stigma started the healing. That’s why when Bill told me a few years ago that he had scheduled a meeting with a group of prostitutes, I was proud of him. I had done the same. I never imagined, as a Catholic school girl growing up in conservative Dallas, Texas, that I would ever have a meeting with sex workers and come away admiring them. But I did.

Eoin Treacy's view

Governance Is Everything has been a maxim at this service for decades but it is hard to imagine governance improving when countries insist on trying to compete while holding back at least half the population. Female empowerment correlates positively both with lower birth rates, improved health outcomes, better educational engagement and economic growth. Sometimes it is the simple answers that require the most explanation.