When women come together, change happens. I think I’ve always known this intuitively, but I really started paying attention 15 years ago, when I visited a village in the foothills of the Himalayas. I spent most of my day with the village chief, and I could tell he was giving me the “official” tour. Eventually, though, some of the women gave me their own tour. They told me their kids were dying from diarrhea, so sanitation was their most important priority, but they couldn’t get the chief interested. Finally, after a lot of strategizing, they agreed to take a different tack. They convinced him that a toilet was a status symbol, so he finally bought one. Then they outsmarted him again by putting it right near his house, where they knew it would be kept clean.

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