“It is the heat and friction of two people’s differences that propel them to explore new ways of being.”

That’s what it means to be poor. They’re on the margins. They’re not getting the benefit of what human beings know how to do for each other.

If you rigidly divide the duties, then you’re cutting back on what you share, and that can hurt the partnership. Instead, you can push for a flow where you share everything in different degrees. You develop a partnership that is whole and complementary with a natural hierarchy based on talent and experience, where each can teach and learn, lead and

Change comes when men see the benefits of women’s power—not just what women can do that men cannot, but a quality of relationship that comes in an equal partnership that cannot come in a hierarchical relationship: a sense of bonding, of belonging, of community, solidarity, and wholeness born of a promise that I will help you when your burdens are h

No matter what views others may have, I am the one who has to answer for my actions, and this is my answer.

In 2003, we funded the work of Vishwajeet Kumar, a medical doctor with advanced training from Johns Hopkins who was launching a life-saving program in a village called Shivgarh in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states.

The lesson I’ve learned from women in social movements all over the world is that to bring about a revolution of the heart, you have to let your heart break. Letting your heart break means sinking into the pain that’s underneath the anger.

What do I mean by a “delivery system”? Getting tools to people who need them in ways that encourage people to use them—that is a delivery system.

It took us years to learn that contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, women-empowering innovation ever created.