Melinda Gates won't let us miss this opportunity

May 11, 2020

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Women’s unemployment is higher than men’s, White House staffers test positive for coronavirus, and Melinda Gates is making sure we don’t miss the opportunity to transform American caregiving. Have a productive Monday.

– Melinda’s mission. As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works overtime on its coronavirus response, Melinda Gates is simultaneously turning her attention to a related issue: the crisis in caregiving that threatens to set women back in the workforce.

I talked to Gates last week about that crisis—she recently wrote an op-ed about the problem—and a few other topics, like her $1 billion commitment to gender equality. As the world transforms because of the coronavirus pandemic, do the details of that commitment change?

Unsurprisingly, Gates says her commitment “stays exactly the same.” But there are a few issues on her agenda that the pandemic has made her view as even more urgent; namely, getting more women into political leadership.

Women like New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Gates says, have been leading effectively through this crisis because “they understand” what’s at stake. “They’ve lived the barriers,” she told me.

Gates hopes that the leaders who “get it” will be the ones calling the shots as she and other advocates work to turn this crisis into lasting change. “If we don’t see it now, we’re never going to see it,” Gates says of the necessity of U.S. paid family leave. She compares this moment to another; after World War II, American leaders put their muscle behind lasting global institutions like NATO, but disbanded “war nurseries” that had been set up to care for children while women worked.

“If there had been more women at those tables, we would have kept them open. We would have built a more robust childcare system,” she says. That’s what Gates’ work right now is about: making sure we don’t miss another opportunity.

Read the rest of our Q+A here.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Record unemployment. The April jobs report, released Friday, revealed that women accounted for 55% of jobs lost during the month and now make up 49% of the American workforce, after briefly outnumbering men on payrolls last year. Women's unemployment rate is 16.2% compared to men's 13.5%. NPR

- #IRunWithMaud. Wanda Cooper Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by two white men while jogging in his Brunswick, Georgia neighborhood, tells journalist Yamiche Alcindor that without national attention, her son's death would have been covered up. PBS Newshour

- Testing the administration. White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus this weekend, including Ivanka Trump's personal assistant and Katie Miller, press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence and wife of Stephen Miller. Ivanka's assistant has been working remotely for several weeks. CNN

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Memo over. James Damore, the former Google engineer who in 2017 wrote a memo arguing that women are innately less suited for technical work than men, quietly ended his lawsuit against the company. He had alleged that Google, which fired him, allowed discrimination against conservative white men. Bloomberg

- The Maine event. Women in Maine have the country's highest rate of political participation; 77% are registered to vote and 65% turn out on Election Day. Many of those women are particularly energized right now against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Politico

- Tiger Queen. Lisa Nishimura is the Netflix executive who greenlit one of the most popular shows of quarantine, Tiger King . The streaming service's vice president of independent film and documentary is still hearing pitches and says she has enough documentaries in the pipeline to last a while. Wall Street Journal

- Year of MacKenzie. For months, Wired journalist Louise Matsakis has been getting emails from people asking her to buy them a Porsche or contribute £2 million to building an underground bunker. The reason? Google pulled her contact information from an article as the featured result if you search "MacKenzie Bezos phone number." Wired

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