This is just a very brief glimpse into a woman who has fought for women’s rights and equality for over 2 decades.
Even before she became a First Lady, a Senator, a Secretary of State—and before she announced her second run for President of the United States via a video she posted to her website—Hillary Clinton was paving a path of independence and empowerment for women.
Back when Clinton missed her party’s nomination for the Presidency in 2008, she acknowledged how her run represented progress for women in her concession speech. “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” she said to a cheering crowd. “And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”
In 1969 she became the first woman to speak at the commencement ceremony for for Wellesley College. There were some powerful thoughts:
Part of the problem with empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything. We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have used politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible. What does it mean to hear that 13.3 percent of the people in this country are below the poverty line? That's a percentage. We're not interested in social reconstruction; it's human reconstruction. How can we talk about percentages and trends? The complexities are not lost in our analyses, but perhaps they're just put into what we consider a more human and eventually a more progressive perspective.
The question about possible and impossible was one that we brought with us to Wellesley four years ago. We arrived not yet knowing what was not possible. Consequently, we expected a lot. Our attitudes are easily understood having grown up, having come to consciousness in the first five years of this decade—years dominated by men with dreams, men in the civil rights movement, the Peace Corps, the space program—so we arrived at Wellesley and we found, as all of us have found, that there was a gap between expectation and realities. But it wasn't a discouraging gap and it didn't turn us into cynical, bitter old women at the age of 18. It just inspired us to do something about that gap. What we did is often difficult for some people to understand. They ask us quite often: "Why, if you're dissatisfied, do you stay in a place?" Well, if you didn't care a lot about it you wouldn't stay. It's almost as though my mother used to say, "I'll always love you but there are times when I certainly won't like you." Our love for this place, this particular place, Wellesley College, coupled with our freedom from the burden of an inauthentic reality allowed us to question basic assumptions underlying our education.
In 1995 she addressed the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Two and a half years into her role as First Lady of the United States, Hillary bumped up her efforts for gender equality with a ground-breaking speech at the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women. In her address, she explained that if women are allowed the opportunities to flourish in their individual societies, their families will benefit—as would their communities, their nations and the world. “We need to understand there is no one formula for how women should lead our lives,” she said. “That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her own God-given potential. But we must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected… Women’s rights are human rights once and for all.”
Being elected Senator of NY in 2008, this was the first time a First Lady was elected to a national office.
She also set records in her run for President in 2008.
During her second term as a U.S. Senator, Hillary took on Barack Obama for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. But despite earning more delegates and primary wins than any other woman who had ever run for president, she still fell just shy of the win. Nonetheless, she paved the way for women to take on similar challenges. “I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us,” she said in the speech officially suspending her campaign. “To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect.”
Her failed bid did not discourage her, and she did not stop in her fight. Instead her resume of achievements keep going. From being SOS where she championed women’s empowerment, to launching the No Ceilings Initiative she has continued to fight for equal rights and respect.
On March 7th, Hillary gave a speech at the UN for International Women’s Day. In her address, she stated that equality for women is the ‘great unfinished business of the 21st century’.
I could go on about her achievements, and how she has championed her entire life for the right of women not just in the US, but around the world. However, I could spend months trying and never fully index and chronicle the impact she has made for women’s rights.
I would like to go back to her speech in 1995. Two decades ago this is where she stood and where she still stands today. I highly suggest reading the NY times article on this as well as watching the video to really understand where the world was when she was making this speech and taking a stand.
Speaking more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has on Chinese soil, Hillary Rodham Clinton catalogued a devastating litany of abuse that has afflicted women around the world today and criticized China for seeking to limit free and open discussion of women's issues here
x YouTube Video