Melinda French Gates talks about speaking up for women
Melinda French Gates learned that when men don’t do the right thing, people turn to women for answers.
- Melinda French Gates has donated $215 million to improve women’s health, including menopause.
- French Gates previously pledged $1 billion to support women and families following the Roe v. Wade reversal.
Melinda French Gates learned that when men don’t do the right thing, people turn to women for answers.
She had a lot of it. The philanthropist and author has donated more than $400 million to fund women’s health in the past two years. She has advocated for access to contraceptives and abortion.
Now, she is donating an additional $215 million to improve women’s health, including during menopause, marking her first investment in midlife women.
“I’m here using both my voice and my money to say this is very important,” she told USA TODAY. “We need to put more money into this area so that women can grow and reach their full potential.”
“There’s so much more we can do.”
French Gates, 61, has long been vocal about supporting women.
She spent 24 years at the Gates Foundation, which she co-founded with her then-husband Bill Gates, giving away more than $100 billion with a focus on global health, including maternal care and health disparities. (The couple divorced in 2021, and details of the deal were kept private, but it reportedly included a multibillion-dollar endowment to support French Gates’ philanthropy. She left the foundation in 2024 and founded Pivotal.)
Her commitment changed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, left abortion rights to states, and pledged $1 billion to support women and families. “For too long, underfunding has forced organizations fighting for women’s rights to be defensive and enemies of progress to be aggressive,” she said at the time. “I want to contribute to the game as well.”
French Gates’ latest donation was inspired by what she has seen on her extensive travels, from a women’s clinic in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to a school in Malawi, and what she has seen in her own life.
Whether it’s walking through Seattle with a friend on a foggy Monday morning or going on a ski trip with friends where “one of the women literally had to leave the table because she had a hot flash,” menopause is a hot topic.
She said some of her friends visited multiple doctors before seeking treatment. According to one study, one in five women waits a year before their doctor diagnoses them as menopausal. Another study showed that 5% of women seeking help for perimenopause or menopause saw 11 doctors before receiving help.
French Gates considers himself lucky. Her three closest friends are several years older. “As they started facing this journey, they started sharing with me what they knew, what they didn’t know, and misinformation,” she says.
She knows she is privileged to have incredible access to the highest quality medical care. (Let’s just say she didn’t have a hard time getting estrogen patches.) Still, she said her doctor was slow to prescribe hormone therapy.
“We are far behind what we should know about this stage of a woman’s life. We are far behind in knowing exactly how and when hormones change. We are far behind in sharing information with women,” she says.
When she started sending money to other women, including young women in her book club, she felt a responsibility to do more.
“I thought this is something you should know, and I started realizing that as women, we’re trying to inform each other,” French Gates says. “There’s still a lot we can do here to make sure everyone is properly trained as well as providing the right information.”
The investment starts with $10 million to the Menopause Society to train health care providers from gynecologists to family physicians. The foundation will also continue to support access to contraceptives, train doctors to treat menopause, and advance research and treatment of conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women.
One study found that most doctors, including gynecologists, do not receive sufficient training in menopause during medical school. Of nearly 100 obstetrics and gynecology training program directors recently surveyed, fewer than one-third said they received training in their residency.
“We still have a lot of women to reach, and this will be a huge help,” says Stephanie Fabion, medical director of the Menopause Society and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health. Fabion said the grant will help make care more accessible and affordable. Some areas lack trained menopause health care providers, and only about two-thirds of certified menopause health care providers report being insured.
“For too long, this phase of life, perimenopause and menopause, was honestly invisible,” French Gates says. “Women seemed to be expected to deal with it behind the scenes.”
Melinda French Gates wants to change the norm
Whether it’s battling maternal depression or seeking treatment for menopause, women don’t have to find solutions on their own, French-Gates says.
“For too long, women’s health has been a low priority and underfunded,” she says. For every dollar spent on health research and innovation around the world, 5 cents is donated to women’s health. “We need to change this because we know that if we invest properly in women’s health, women can thrive,” she says. “Humans are the default in medicine, right? That’s where research has been done.”
As a result, the burden shifts to women. This is a pattern we’ve seen throughout her career. She was reminded of it again when her ex-husband’s name appeared in convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s files released earlier this year and the media asked her about it.
“Whatever questions I have left about things I don’t know, I can’t even begin to know them all. Those questions are directed at those people, even my ex-husband. It’s them who need to answer those things, not me,” she said on NPR’s “Wild Card” podcast in February.
She says women and victims, many of whom were girls when they first reported abuse, should not have to shoulder the burden of exposing the crimes committed by men and holding them accountable alone.
“When it comes to these social issues, sometimes we default to using women to give answers and solve problems. I think we need to rethink that as a society and say, ‘Look, who’s responsible for what part?'” she told USA TODAY. “How do we change these norms?”
“Mom is living her best life right now.”
French Gates believes that redressing the balance, especially in the medical field, is a core part of supporting women leaders.
Melinda French Gates’ next game – see where she’ll donate $215 million
Melinda French Gates has donated $215 million to improve women’s health, including the first grants to benefit menopausal and midlife women.
With one in 10 women leaving the workforce due to menopause and a further one in five considering early retirement, the number of female leaders, who hold less than a third of senior positions, could decline.
“They’re at the peak of their careers, right when that woman is stepping into a CFO role, or stepping into a CEO or president role, and she has all this training and knowledge and experience,” she says. “We want people to be included in the workforce, not taken away from it. To do well at work and at home, we need to be healthy.”
French Gates sees hope in women in their 50s and 60s.
“It’s been an incredibly fulfilling year, and I feel lucky to be alive and thriving at this age,” she says. “These have been some of the most satisfying and fulfilling years of my life. You know, I feel like my youngest son is saying, ‘Oh my God, mom is living her best life right now.'”
Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focused on health and wellness. She is the author of “Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter’s Search for Truth and Renewal.” He can be reached at ltrujillo@usatoday.com..
