Melinda French Gates blasts ‘frustrating’ lack of funding for women’s rights in veiled shot at ex-husband Bill Gates
NY Post
Melinda French Gates took a thinly veiled shot at former husband Bill Gates — lamenting a “frustrating and shortsighted” lack of charitable support for women’s rights in an incendiary essay Tuesday.
French Gates — who received $12.5 billon after her shock exit last month from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — said her new charity will donate $1 billion over the next two years to causes benefiting women, family and reproductive rights.
She suggested that it was a cause she was discouraged from pursuing earlier — when she was partnered with the Microsoft founder and world’s fifth richest man, whom she divorced in 2021.
“In nearly 20 years as an advocate for women and girls, I have learned that there will always be people who say it’s not the right time to talk about gender equality,” French Gates said in an op-ed published by the New York Times.
“Not if you want to be relevant. Not if you want to be effective with world leaders (most of them men),” French Gates wrote. “The second the global agenda gets crowded, women and girls fall off. It’s frustrating and shortsighted.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $77 billion since it was founded in 2000.
