In the kitchen at the FMF office this morning, one of our senior staff members, Alice Cohan, alerted a few of us who were making out morning breakfast that the Washington Post had a great article on today's front page. What was that story about? The headline was "Clinton Puts Spotlight on Women's Issues," and I say it is about time!Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton certainly has used her position as Secretary of State to work for a cause that needs attention: global women's rights. The first few lines of the article sum up the Secretary's approach to tackling the mountain that is establishing rights for women everywhere.
Writer Mary Beth Sheridan explains, "She talked chickens with female farmers in Kenya. She listened to the excruciating stories of rape victims in war-torn eastern Congo. And South Africa, Secretary Clinton visited a housing project built by poor women, where she danced with a choir singing 'Heel-a-ree! Heel-a-ree!'"
Her tactics on how to best help global women gain rights is to first listen to them. So many others before have just assumed what was best for women around the world, rather than getting to know who these women are and what they really need. By using community organizing and grassroots investigating, Secretary Clinton has become bettered armed for when she comes back to Capitol Hill to work on the other side of the fight: the political side.
And what is such an inspiration is that Secretary Clinton does travel the world talking to these women just for "political business," it's a personal journey as well. You can read the article here for yourself, which I highly recommend. The article ends with a quote from Secretary Clinton as she talked about a visit she had with a South African housing project where she says, "It feeds my heart, which is really critical to me personally since a lot of what I do as secretary of state is very formalistic."
Photo courtesy of america.gov at flikr.com
Her tactics on how to best help global women gain rights is to first listen to them. So many others before have just assumed what was best for women around the world, rather than getting to know who these women are and what they really need. By using community organizing and grassroots investigating, Secretary Clinton has become bettered armed for when she comes back to Capitol Hill to work on the other side of the fight: the political side.
And what is such an inspiration is that Secretary Clinton does travel the world talking to these women just for "political business," it's a personal journey as well. You can read the article here for yourself, which I highly recommend. The article ends with a quote from Secretary Clinton as she talked about a visit she had with a South African housing project where she says, "It feeds my heart, which is really critical to me personally since a lot of what I do as secretary of state is very formalistic."
Photo courtesy of america.gov at flikr.com
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