As a woman finds economic opportunity, even if she's only earning a couple of dollars a day, if she can save it on her phone, she then makes different decisions for her household than her husband might.

When I studied computer science at Duke University in the first half of the 1980s, I had professors who treated women differently than men. I kind of got used to it. At Microsoft, I had to use my elbows and make sure I spoke up at the table, but it was an incredibly meritocratic place. Outside, in the industry, I would feel the sexism. I'd walk into a room and until I proved my worth, everyone would assume that the guy presenting with me had credibility and I didn't.

But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids.

Childbearing, I mean, if there's no place to go to deliver your baby, then you're the one that's delivering in those unhealthy circumstances. Or if you can't get access to family planning, your chances of surviving and being able to bring your kids up if they come one right after the other, that locks you into a cycle of poverty.

When I look at 225 million women who want contraceptives, and then I look at the 52 million unintended pregnancies that could be avoided by addressing this unmet need, where can we have the biggest impact with our voice, our dollars, our partners? It's on contraceptives. I would rather address the problem upstream.

Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.

We also ought to recognize that unpaid labor falls predominantly to women. The other thing I would do in countries like the U.S. is to show more men, even in TV ads, doing household work. Only two percent of ads show men doing chores, and yet we know they actually do several hours of it in real life. Those images affect young boys and girls.