(Anti)Life Advice with Melinda Gates

If you’re one of the people waiting to become a crypto-millionaire, or any sort of millionaire for that matter, then this is a must-read. Melinda Gates’ autobiographical book is an eye-opener, for who would have thought having to move into an $150 million mansion is such psychological burden it can trigger an ‘existential crisis’?
Just think about it - a young woman with a small child, with very little support from her hard-working billionaire husband, having to deal with the harsh realities of moving into a mansion without any help. Except for all the hired help the Gates can afford, but still the mental stress of it all.
“The Moment Of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes The World” is one of those books meant to dispel the very common misconception that the life of the super rich is something you should envy. It must be baffling for the Gates of this world why the plebs would gladly swap their lives with them?
Now, don’t get me wrong, Bill Gates is not an asshole, he understood the drama his wife was facing and stepped up to the plate, sharing some of the burden of raising three children when his martyred wife couldn’t cope anymore.Bill Gates started driving one of the kids to school himself, when he could just as easily have a driver take care of it. Not always, of course, just sometimes, but that’s enough to paint him as the model husband and a very modern man. And, of course, Bill Gates helps with the dishes, too, because his wife is just sick of all the ‘unpaid work’ a woman has to do.

If this book was only about the hardships of being a billionaire’s wife it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. If there are people willing to pay $20 to read it, I guess it’s their choice (and also explains why some people are rich and some are not.)
The major problem with this book is that it’s one long piece of propaganda for the Gates Foundation contraceptive program. Melinda Gates praises the pill that gave her a choice when to have children and urges women to follow her example. Women of the West, but also women in Africa. Well, most of those don’t have the money to buy such a book, but that’s OK, the Gates foundation is happy to provide them with birth-control, even forcibly, as it is for their own good as well as for the planet.

“On one of my early trips for the foundation, I went to Malawi and was deeply moved to see so many mothers standing in the heat to get shots for their kids. I remember seeing a young mother and asking her: ‘Are you taking these beautiful children to get their shots?’ She answered: ‘What about my shot?’
She wasn’t talking about a vaccination. She was talking about Depo-Provera, a long-acting birth control injection that could keep her from getting pregnant.”

Depo-Provera has been at the center of many scandals, mostly in Africa, but also in the US. One of the best known scandals is the forcible use of these shots on Ethiopian Jewish women immigrating to Israel. No shot, no immigration for you. Quite simple. Faced with the higher birth-rates of the Palestinians, Israel could use an increase in its Jewish population, but I guess the Ethiopian women were, you know, the wrong color... Anyway, it was a huge scandal in Israel, especially as it emerged Ethiopian women had lower fertility rates after Depo-Provera was discontinued, a side-effect rarely talked about.
The Gates Foundation used the same drug in many African countries, local doctors being bribed to vaccinate unwitting and unconsenting women, just because Bill and Melinda Gates know what’s better for them.

This post would be much longer, but I believe describing your fantasies about bashing somebody’s else head against a wall, repeatedly, is kind of frowned upon. Besides, I’m not a billionaire’s wife and there’s some unpaid work waiting for me in the kitchen.

Thanks for reading