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Clinton at Bryn Mawr: We Need Female Leadership

The former Secretary of State delivered the keynote address at an international women's conference at Bryn Mawr College on Tuesday.

by Tom Sunnergren

Before a capacity crowd at Bryn Mawr College’s Thomas Great Hall on Tuesday afternoon, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stumped for a familiar cause: greater female representation in positions of power and influence across the globe.

“Bryn Mawr is Welsh term for big hill, so we know we have a big hill to climb,” Clinton told an enthusiastic audience of mostly women, young and old, during her keynote address at the Women in Public Service Project Institute—a two week conference the college is hosting for female leaders in emerging countries.

“If it were easy,” she added, “it would already be done.”

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At the top of the hill Clinton encouraged attendees to help her mount is an ambitious goal the Institute calls “50 by 50.” By 2050, it hopes to see 50 percent of worldwide public service positions held by women.

While progress has been made in this area, Clinton conceded that even in the developed world, her target is still a distant one.

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“Women hold less than 21 percent of all seats in parliaments and legislatures across the world. Here in the United States, only 24 percent of elected officials in our state legislatures are women. And in the private sector we still see many difficulties that women face. Only 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women,” Clinton read.

State Rep. Tim Briggs (D-Montgomery) attended the event, and, from the lawn of the college, acknowledged that Pennsylvania has an especially steep climb ahead of it.

“Pennsylvania ranks, I think, 43rd out of all the 50 states in terms of the number of female elected officials in government,” Briggs said, adding that, in his capacity as Chair of the House Democratic Campaign Committee he has made an effort to recruit more women to run for office.

“Hillary is right. When women are better represented, when there’s more diversity, things run smoother,” Briggs said.

The State Department agrees. Led by Clinton, the department launched the Women in Public Service Project in 2011. The WPSP set out to ameliorate gender inequality by stitching together a coalition of government, business, academic, and transnational interests to advance the cause.

Clinton said that in the intervening two years, the program has become truly global. Events like Tuesday’s have already been held in Bangladesh and Morocco, and in coming months and years Clinton said Beijing, Afghanistan, Tanzania, India, Italy, Peru, Colombia, and Canada will join as well.

But for progress to continue, Clinton suggested the cause itself will have to evolve. The Secretary had two suggestions: women's rights advocates should increasingly make rigorous, fact-based arguments, and the movement should broaden the definition of the female leadership it’s trying to advance.

“I’m a big believer in evidence,” Clinton said. “I don’t think it’s enough in today’s world to say we should do something because it’s the right thing to do or because we believe it should be done. That is certainly the motivator…but we need evidence.”

By way of example, Clinton cited an Indian study that showed that villages led by women made better investments in drinking water and infrastructure, immunized more children, educated more girls, and suffered lower levels of corruption than comparable communities.  

“If women participate in their economies, the economies grow. More people are employed, more people have better futures. If women are kept out by legal restraints or cultural taboos, countries lose the benefits of their participation,” the Secretary said.

Clinton cautioned though that success can’t merely be judged by the number of women in positions of power, and urged supporters to “expand what we mean by women’s leadership.” Just having one woman in charge, she told the crowd, doesn’t necessarily change what happens under that woman.

“We need leaders in every aspect of society and in every part of that society…from rural areas as well as cities. We need more people willing to put themselves out to become leaders,” the Secretary said.

Clinton left the stage to hearty applause but, despite her wide-ranging remarks, managed to stay mute on one particular position of power that many of her supporters would like to see a woman finally land. Hint: they're hiring again in 2016.



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