How Can We Advance The Role Of Women In The World?
May 18th 2008 06:50
Hillary Clinton says (in Beijing, 1995, while speaking in public):
Women comprise more than half the world’s population. Women are 70% percent of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write.
Women are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued - not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries.
Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated; they are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation; they are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers; they are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the bank lending office and banned from the ballot box.
Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.
As an American, I want to speak up for women in my own country - women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can’t afford health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who have raised their families and now find that their skills and life experiences are not valued in the workplace; for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food cooks so that they can be at home during the day with their kids; and for women everywhere who simply don’t have time to do everything they are called upon to do each day.
Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. 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 God-given potential.
We also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this Conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments - here and around the world - accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.
The international community has long acknowledged - and recently affirmed at Vienna - that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.
No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated.
Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. When women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights - and women’s rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.
I say:
It saddens me that women are discriminated against every day. The good news is that it is getting harder to do that every day, as the world gets more and more enlightened in regards to gender. It is worth nothing that non-white women often have a harder time, as do non-Heterosexual women. Whoever you are, you can make a difference by signing petitions, promoting awareness and loving your fellow human beings. Smile - it encourages positivity all around.
You say:
Women comprise more than half the world’s population. Women are 70% percent of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write.
Women are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued - not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries.
Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated; they are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation; they are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers; they are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the bank lending office and banned from the ballot box.
Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.
As an American, I want to speak up for women in my own country - women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can’t afford health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who have raised their families and now find that their skills and life experiences are not valued in the workplace; for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food cooks so that they can be at home during the day with their kids; and for women everywhere who simply don’t have time to do everything they are called upon to do each day.
Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. 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 God-given potential.
We also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this Conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments - here and around the world - accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.
The international community has long acknowledged - and recently affirmed at Vienna - that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.
No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated.
Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. When women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights - and women’s rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.
I say:
It saddens me that women are discriminated against every day. The good news is that it is getting harder to do that every day, as the world gets more and more enlightened in regards to gender. It is worth nothing that non-white women often have a harder time, as do non-Heterosexual women. Whoever you are, you can make a difference by signing petitions, promoting awareness and loving your fellow human beings. Smile - it encourages positivity all around.
You say:
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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Comment by postmoderncritic
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Padsoc
I recommend joining the 'Say NO To Violence Against Women' Facebook group, it's been sending me really insightful messages straight to my inbox, including the text of this speech... I just invited you to join it via Facebook.
The good news is: women have never enjoyed more human rights in any period of history. Now the rate of progress depends on us.
Comment by RubySoho
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Condaleeza perhaps?
Ooops? Did i just say that?
What a great speech. Poor Hillary. It's just not her time this year I guess...
Comment by postmoderncritic
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Padsoc
As for Condi being gay - how did you get that impression?
Comment by RubySoho
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Oh who am I kidding, I "nearly" cried. I bawled my eyes out.
Yeah, I like her too and for a long while, I was teetering but I'm with you, I think it's Obama this year.
I don't think Condi is gay, it was just a silly joke. I'm sure the folks at Shakesville will crucify me for that one...but then again she is a Repub so they probably won't care.
Comment by postmoderncritic
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Padsoc
Wow, that is a truly powerful statement.
What do you think about this "dream ticket" business of Obama/Hillary?
Condi is too boring to be gay... actually, wait, there are some pretty boring gay people too so I shouldn't say that.
Comment by RubySoho
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Have your read Bradish's post on this and Lester's comment? Classic.
Comment by postmoderncritic
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Padsoc
I haven't read the post and comment you mention, and I don't know if I can be bothered... they have their own little micro dynamic on Orble as far as I can make out and I'm not sure I want to penetrate that fortress... besides, if they can't say it here then I'm likely to be pissed off by whatever that is.
Comment by RubySoho
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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awww i feel so included!
dont worry i was reading!