On A Mission

MELINDA GATES could have settled for a life of luxury. Instead, as one half of one of the world’s wealthiest couples, she’s decided to do what she’s best at: CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE WOMAN AT A TIME

- Margaret Wappler

When Melinda Gates had three small children (her youngest is now 16), she noticed she was always the last one standing – and cleaning – in the kitchen after dinner. How did it happen? Her spouse (that’d be Microsoft founder Bill Gates) was a fair-minded partner; he’d even recently caused a kerfuffle at their daughter Jennifer’s preschool when he started dropping her off two days a week, obliterating every other father’s excuse for not being there.

Gates, an early pioneer in the male-dominated tech industry (she was a Microsoft product manager when she met Bill and initially turned him down), needed a hack for this domestic conundrum. “Finally I came up with this rule: nobody leaves the kitchen until Mum leaves the kitchen,” says Gates. “Well, guess what? Everybody asks, ‘What can I do?’ so they can get out of the kitchen. So I got out 15 minutes sooner and I was a lot happier.”

Which begs the question: if a hyper-wealthy American woman has to negotiate for 15 minutes a day, what’s at stake for women in Africa, where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has worked to enable equality since 2000?