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Op-Ed Contributor
I HAVE spent a lot of my profession as a diplomat. It’s an occupation through which phrases and context matter an important deal. So one may assume I do know higher than to inform a lot of ladies to go to hell.
However final Saturday, within the pleasure of a marketing campaign occasion for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, that is essentially what I did, after I delivered a line I’ve uttered a thousand occasions to applause, nodding heads and laughter: “There’s a particular place in hell for girls who don’t assist one another.” It’s a phrase I first used nearly 25 years in the past, after I was the USA ambassador to the United Nations and labored carefully with the six different feminine U.N. ambassadors. However this time, to my shock, it went viral.
I completely imagine what I stated, that girls ought to assist each other, however this was the improper context and the improper time to make use of that line. I didn’t imply to argue that girls ought to assist a specific candidate primarily based solely on gender. However I perceive that I got here throughout as condemning those that disagree with my political preferences. If heaven have been open solely to those that agreed on politics, I think about it might be largely unoccupied.
Nonetheless, I do need to clarify why I so firmly imagine that, even at this time, ladies have an obligation to assist each other. In a society the place ladies typically really feel pressured to tear each other down, our saving grace lies in our willingness to elevate each other up. And whereas younger ladies might not need to hear something extra from this growing older feminist, I really feel you will need to converse to ladies coming of age at a time when a viable feminine presidential candidate, as soon as inconceivable, is a actuality.
I’ve been out of public workplace for a decade and a half. I’ve devoted a lot of my life since to educating, writing and serving to to verify youthful ladies face fewer obstacles than my technology did. Once I converse to teams of ladies of all ages, I’m struck that regardless of all that has modified, I’m nonetheless requested the identical questions: “How do you keep work-life steadiness? What can I do to achieve a male occupation? What recommendation ought to I give my daughter?”
Once I reply these questions, I inevitably mirror upon the difficulties my technology confronted. I share these tales to not bemoan how exhausting my life has been. It’s turned out fairly properly. What issues me is that if we don’t pay cautious consideration to this historical past, the good points we now have fought so exhausting for might be misplaced, and we may transfer backward. I would not have a magic formulation for a way each girl ought to reside her life, however I do know that we have to give each other a hand.
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