Image via WikipediaNovember 17, 2008:
The Madonna Of Global Politics
Appointing Hillary to the State was one of the better early decisions
Barack Obama made as president-elect back in 2008. It was hard for me to have to choose between the idea of the first black president and the first woman president. But I did throw my lot behind Obama. I was hoping they might end up a ticket.
I don't see any woman figure on either side waiting to be president. I wish it were otherwise. It would be great if this country got itself a woman president. I watched parades of women heads of state in South Asia growing up, so it is not a novelty issue for me. I really do think a woman in the
Oval Office would mark a major milestone for progress on gender.
But then Barack showed up on the scene in 2004, and it took him only four years to go get the top job. I hope there are women ready to surprise us like that, women I have not heard of but are serving in some state legislature somewhere who will spring forth fast.
Being Secretary of State is a tough position to be in when revolutions rage. Your heart might want to ride the wave of those revolutions, but you have a job to do. You have to constantly pay attention to the ground realities on all sides.
All said, I think this is a good Newsweek article on
Hillary Clinton.
The Hillary Doctrine: She was in energetic discussion on the Egyptian news site Masrawy.com, where her presence excited a stream of questions—more than 6,500 in three days—from young people across Egypt. “We hope,” she said, “that as Egypt looks at its own future, it takes advantage of all of the people’s talents”—Clinton shorthand for including women. She had an immediate answer when a number of questioners suggested that her persistent references to women’s rights constituted American meddling in Egyptian affairs: “If a country doesn’t recognize minority rights and human rights, including women’s rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible.” ....... At every step, she has worked to connect the Middle East’s hunger for a new way forward with her categorical imperative: the empowerment of women. ...... “We see women and girls across the world who are oppressed and violated and demeaned and degraded and denied so much of what they are entitled to as our fellow human beings.” ...... Two years into her tenure as America’s 67th secretary of state, she has out-traveled every one of her predecessors, with 465,000 air miles and 79 countries already behind her. Her Boeing 757’s cabin, stocked with a roll-out bed, newspapers, and a corner humidifier, now serves as another home as she flies between diplomatic hot spots, tackling the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, tensions with Iran and North Korea, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and, now, the serial Middle East upheavals. She is, it seems, everywhere at once, crossing time zones and defying jet lag, though signs of exhaustion—a hoarse voice, bleary eyes—slip through. (A recent 19-hour “day trip” to Mexico landed her at Maryland’s Andrews Air Force Base well after 2 a.m., which left approximately six hours to get home, sleep, and make her first meeting of the day that would culminate in President Obama’s State of the Union address.) ....... Clinton has turned the job into what may well be the role of her lifetime: advocate in chief for women worldwide. ..... “We are watching and waiting,” she said. “People jockey for power, and often the most conservative elements once again use the opportunity to crack down on women and women’s roles.” ....... “This is a big deal for American values and for American foreign policy and our interests, but it is also a big deal for our security,” she told NEWSWEEK. “Because where women are disempowered and dehumanized, you are more likely to see not just antidemocratic forces, but extremism that leads to security challenges for us.” ....... n 1974, the blazing young intellect who won national attention with an unscripted response to Sen. Edward Brooke, boldly arguing for the end of the Vietnam War in her Wellesley commencement speech (a speech that landed her on the cover of Life magazine), disappointed her feminist friends by spurning New York and Washington in favor of Fayetteville, Ark., to become the young Bill Clinton’s wife. ....... clad in a striking pink suit, she ascended the Beijing stage and delivered what The New York Times called “an unflinching speech that may have been her finest moment in public life.” ....... “As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes—the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.” ....... Those who have worked closely with Clinton on women’s issues view that speech as a turning point for an embattled first lady. ...... Mu Sochua met Clinton in Beijing and credits Clinton’s speech with changing her career path. “That was the day I decided to enter politics,” says Sochua, now a prominent Cambodian opposition leader. ...... the issues that first inspired her to seek a life of public service more than four decades ago, a time when America’s schools remained segregated and no woman had ever served on the Supreme Court, been elected mayor of a major city, or entered the country’s military academies. ....... Today, she exudes not just the confidence that her White House–era trials are behind her but the conviction that they are beside the point. In crafting her role as secretary of state, she has shown remarkable political dexterity and a marked absence of inner conflict, crystallized by the moral clarity of addressing injustices faced by young girls sold into slavery or mothers raped in front of their children. ........ She toured the narrow streets of the capital’s old city to the great dismay of her security detail; through the windows of her heavily armored SUV she caught sight of men in traditional clothes, knives dangling from their belts, and children yelling “welcome” in Arabic. Missing from the scene: virtually any sign of the country’s women. ........ Clinton had cited the story of Nujood Ali, a Yemeni girl in the audience that day whose very public fight for a divorce at age 11 has become a global cause célèbre—one that Clinton herself follows closely. ....... “Politics is seen in most societies, including our own, I would add, as a largely male sport—unarmed combat—and women are very often ignored or pushed aside in an effort to gain or consolidate power,” she says. ....... During Clinton’s daylong stop in Papua New Guinea last November, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare sought to dismiss concerns about domestic violence. “Sometimes there are fights, arguments do take place, but it’s nothing very brutal,” Somare said, before asserting that “a person … cannot control [himself] when he’s under the influence of liquor.” Clinton noted pointedly that one of her highest priorities was “enabling more women to have access to their rights, to take their position in society” ....... she is the second-most-admired woman in America (after Oprah Winfrey) ....... “The secretary remembers things, she takes notes, she asks questions weeks or months” after the fact ...... “She checks on the issues she cares about, deeply and specifically,” keeping track of it all with her famous to-do lists. ..... “I honestly think Hillary Clinton wakes up every day thinking about how to improve the lives of women and girls,” says Theresa Loar. “And I don’t know another world leader who is doing that.” ...... in a borderless world with instant communication, sexual slavery has exploded into an epidemic; the State Department estimates there are now 12.3 million adults and children worldwide in “forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution.” ....... “I recently was in Cambodia, and it is just so overwhelmingly heartbreaking and inspiring to see these young girls. One girl lost her eyes—to punish her, the owner of the brothel had stabbed her in the eye with a nail,” Clinton continued ...... many of the shelter’s children now keep photos of her on their walls ..... “It is like any challenge,” she goes on, her tone brightening. “You just keep at it, take it piece by piece, seize the ground you can, hang onto it, and then move forward a little bit more.” She pauses. “And we are heading for higher ground.”
This Is Also About Women's Rights
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