I’ve been saying from the beginning of this book that equality can empower women, and empowered women will change the world. But in the end (and we are at the end), I have to confess that, for me, equality is a milestone; it is not the summit.
The supreme goal for humanity is not equality but connection. People can be equal but still be isolated—not feeling the bonds that tie them together. Equality without connection misses the whole point. When people are connected, they feel woven into each other. You are part of me and I am part of you. I can’t be happy if you’re sad. I can’t win if you lose. If either of us suffers, we suffer together. This blurs the borders between human beings, and what flows through those porous borders is love.
Love is what makes us one.
It ends the urge to push the other out. That is the goal. The goal is not for everyone to be equal. The goal is for everyone to be connected. The goal is for everyone to belong. The goal is for everyone to be loved.
Love is what lifts us up.
When we come together, we rise. And in the world we’re building together, everyone rises. No one is exploited because they’re poor or excluded because they’re weak. There is no stigma and no shame and no mark of inferiority because you’re sick, or because you’re old, or because you’re not the “right” race, or because you’re the “wrong” religion, or because you’re a girl or a woman. There is no wrong race or religion or gender. We have shed our false boundaries. We can love without limits. We see ourselves in others. We see ourselves as others.
That is the moment of lift.
If I ever see myself as separate or superior, if I try to lift myself up by pulling others down, if I believe people are on a journey I have completed, doing personal work I have mastered, attempting tasks I’ve accomplished—if I have any feeling that I am above them instead of trying to rise with them, then I have isolated myself from them. And I have cut myself off from the moment of lift.
I told you earlier about Anna, the woman whose family Jenn and I stayed with in Tanzania. She made such an emotional impression on me that I have her picture up on the wall in my home where I see it every day. I told you much of what bonded me to Anna, but I held something back so I could tell it to you now.
As I trailed her through her day of chores, trying to be a help or at least not a hindrance, Anna and I were talking about our lives, and then she opened up, as women often do, and told me of a crisis in her marriage.
When Anna and Sanare got married, Anna moved from her part of the country to Sanare’s region, which was drier and demanded more work to farm and find water. Anna’s walk to the well was twelve miles—each way. She adjusted to the extra work, but after the birth of their first child, she just couldn’t bear it anymore. She packed her bags, gathered their child, and sat on their doorstep waiting. When Sanare returned from the fields, he found Anna ready to leave. She told him she was going back to her father’s house to live because life was too hard in his homeland. Sanare was heartbroken and asked what he could do to make her stay. “Go fetch the water,” Anna said, “so I can nurse our son.” So Sanare broke Maasai tradition and walked to the well to get water. Later, he bought a bicycle and biked the distance to the well. The other men mocked him for doing women’s work. They said he was bewitched by his wife. But Sanare was tough. He didn’t budge. He knew his new chore would make his son healthier and make his wife happier, and that was enough for him.
After a time, some of the other men decided to join Sanare, and when they soon got tired of biking twenty-four miles to fetch water, they brought the community together to build catchment areas to collect rainwater near the village. As I listened to Anna’s story, my heart filled with love for the courage it took for her to stand up to the traditions of her society, and for Sanare to do the same. She took a stand she knew would either destroy her marriage or deepen it, and I felt an inexpressible bond with her. We were in communion, holding our own impromptu women’s group for two. And it occurred to me in a moment of private embarrassment that the rich American lady who was here to help had some gender equity issues of her own she needed to face, had a culture of her own she needed to change. This was not me helping Anna; it was me listening to Anna, and Anna inspiring me. It was two women from different worlds, meeting on the margins, and summoning a moment of lift.