Clinton’s 1995 Beijing speech: A ‘transformative’ moment
ASSOCIATED PRESS
First lady Hillary Clinton addresses the panel of women’s health and security before addressing the U.N. World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
Flying across the Pacific on an Air Force jet bound for Beijing, first lady Hillary Clinton huddled deep into the night with a few aides and advisers, honing her speech for the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women.
It was 1995, and it had been a bruising first few years in the White House: Troopergate, Travelgate, Whitewater. Not to mention the failure of her own high-profile efforts — unprecedented for a first lady — to reform the nation’s health care.
Even her trip to China had provoked controversy. There were objections in some quarters to a first lady wading into tricky diplomatic waters and addressing issues like human rights abuses. Some in Congress called the conference “anti-family” and felt the United States shouldn’t be attending at all. Some feared offending the Chinese with criticism; others feared the hosts might use the U.S. participation — and the first lady’s — as propaganda.
In the end, Clinton decided to make the trip, hoping to “push the envelope as far as I can on behalf of women and girls.”
“All eyes were now on Beijing, and I knew that all eyes would be on me, too,” she writes in her memoir, “Living History.”
But as she rose to the podium, and even after she had stepped down to thunderous applause, Clinton had no idea the impact the moment would have, she says. More than two decades later, that 21-minute speech — with its declaration that “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights” — remains one of her signature moments in public life.
It also stands out as a moment Clinton began to truly forge an identity as a public figure on the world stage, apart from her husband.
“It gave her a platform that was instantly recognizable, one that she could utilize in a very efficacious way to make a difference,” says Melanne Verveer, Clinton’s chief of staff at the time.
And while Clinton was no stranger to the subject she addressed — she had long been an advocate for women and children — the Beijing speech would set a course for the issues with which she would be involved for the rest of her career, especially as secretary of state, says Verveer, who later served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.
“It played a major role in who she would become. It really was one of those evolutionary, transformative moments.”
And it almost didn’t happen. A few months earlier, Chinese-American dissident Harry Wu had been arrested upon entering China and charged with espionage, throwing the participation of the U.S. delegation and Clinton, its honorary chair, into limbo. He was finally released less than a month before the conference; Clinton writes that there was “never a quid pro quo.”
She and her aides flew from Hawaii, where President Clinton was speaking on the anniversary of V-J Day at Pearl Harbor. Working on the draft while others slept, the group was keenly aware that “one wrong word in this speech might lead to a diplomatic brouhaha,” Clinton writes.
Hours later, she took the microphone in the large hall. She began by telling the delegates that when women are healthy, educated and free from violence, with a chance to work and learn, their families flourish, too. About halfway through, she declared: “It’s time to break the silence. It’s time for us to say here, for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.”
With emphasis on the word “human” each time, she listed abuses against women — and called them human rights violations (she did not mention China by name). Then came her most famous line: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”
Once the words had been translated for all to digest, the reaction was thunderous. “People have tears running down their cheeks, they’re stomping their feet,” Verveer recalls. In her memoir, Clinton writes that despite the reaction, she still had no idea “that my 21-minute speech would become a manifesto for women all over the world.”
It’s difficult to understand, in 2016, just how new Clinton’s message felt, says Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation.
“We look back 21 years later, and we go, ‘duh’ — but it was groundbreaking at the time,” she says. “It was huge — the first lady of the United States saying this, just outright. Many women were coming from countries where discrimination against women disguised as cultural practice was widely happening. Even the UN as a whole hadn’t embraced this agenda … it was just an extraordinary moment in the centuries-long struggle for women’s full human rights around the world.”
28 responses to “Clinton’s 1995 Beijing speech: A ‘transformative’ moment”
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…..so this is a boost for Clinton?
Benghazi a “transformative moment”
I wonder who Bill was doing during her speech?
fluff . . . fluff . . . fluff . . . the female felon’s media spreading their tablets wide open expecting the gruber voters to eat it up. and they do.
This is twilight zone stuff. How can the AP put this garbage out with a straight face? Let’s not forget who she is married to. Yes, that’s right the world’s foremost serial abuser of women. Hillary not only enabled his behavior and covered up for it, she participated in the destruction of Bill’s victims. Then there’s the millions of dollars she has taken from countries who devalue women and non-hetero types. Dr. Goebbels was an amateur compared to these people. The progressive media must be getting really nervous about Mr. Trump’s rising poll numbers so stay tuned for more nauseating, dishonest puff pieces like this in the weeks to come. If you put lipstick on a Clinton it’s still a Clinton.
this was just a waste of taxpayers money going to Beijing, your not going to change China’s style how they treat there women.
Yep, ranks right up there with the Gettysburg Address and I Have a Dream speeches. AP weenies had to dig deep for this one. Shameless.
yep liberalism is a mental disorder.
This happened 21 years ago. Dems seem to live in the past all the time.
Still, free advertising is very nice. You guys should have held out….she’s loaded and would have paid for such propaganda.
Is this a hiLIARy campaign ad? or SA? ot both?
Bill says: “Hillary was the face of America all over the world.”
The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
Get her out of town so Bill could fool around.
Bubba fools around in the same building…he is a daredevil.
So, what about Trump today–
The most current national polls understate Trump’s problems.
The Real Clear Politics Electoral College map shows a Clinton victory with 272 electoral votes at the time of writing. Clinton is ahead in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Ohio, and Florida. But she is also ahead in North Carolina, and she is tied in Georgia and Arizona (!). The only state Obama won in 2012 that is trending in Trump’s direction is Iowa, where he is eight-tenths of a percent behind Clinton in the Real Clear Politics average.
A turnaround operation costs money. As of June 30, Clinton had $44 million cash on hand. Outside groups supporting her had slightly less, about $40 million. Trump had about half as much — $20 million — on hand, and outside groups supporting him had a fraction of that. The new leadership at Trump Tower is heralding the campaign’s first television ads. But the buy is small, a pittance compared with pro-Clinton television spending ($93 million) and the value of Trump’s earned media, which has been worth billions, almost all of it negative.
To say that both Trump and Clinton are unpopular masks the extent to which Donald Trump is despised. Hillary Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable numbers are 42 percent to 54 percent, a spread of 12 points. Trump’s are 33 percent to 62 percent: a spread of 29 points. If he works hard enough, I think he can get that number higher. The political environment does not favor Trump. His supporters are quick to point out that two-thirds of the country says we are headed in the wrong direction. But the country has said this for years, even as it reelected George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2012. The question is so abstract as to be meaningless.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439185/donald-trump-republican-party-polls-spell-trouble-november
This has nothing to do with the story in this thread.
The tide is turning and Ike knows it. The SA/AP has to go back to 1995 to find a feel good warm and fuzzy story about HiLIARy. Very sad.
He be trying out for Josh OhMyGosh Ernest job.
Lock her up. Her and George Soros. He’s a dirty old man.Black Lives Matter supporter explains a lot of things.
Wow, why didn’t Bill, the serial philanderer, use this ‘transformative moment’ in his convention fairy tale speech? What a missed opportunity to convince many women that the Clinton shibai is alive and well.
A neat and embellished very old story. Currently, other than Hillary’s charity taking in many millions of dollars from country’s who stone, mercy kill and suppress women’s rights, the real question is what else has she actually done since? The AP stories smack with hypocrisy. In the mean time, what are your motives publishing these AP heavily biased articles? For the SA, it makes me yearn for the day when we had two newspapers to choose from…..
I was so proud of that speech, and so thrilled at all the coverage it got at the time. I still love to read or watch that speech. It’s such an important message. Brava!
You’re overdoing a bit don’t you think?
He likes to gush?
Watch out – she just might be the next president.
C’mon SA you’re starting to embarrass yourselves. Working on the draft while others slept” Oh, the humanity! The AP had to go back to a speech she gave in 1995 that nobody remembers to burnish her image. Smells like desperation to me. Expect more of this rubbish to be forthcoming. Despite the polling advantage that she now enjoys there is visceral fear among status quo politicians, democrat and republican alike. They have on their hands an unlikeable candidate who can’t connect with voters the way her husband and Barry Hussein can. She is wooden, robotic, un-telegenic, uncomfortable around regular folks, and a horrible public speaker. When she gets excited she sounds like a battle axe wife browbeating her long-suffering husband. Not the qualities that voters are attracted to by any means.
to Hillary. U.S. code title 18 section 2071. [a] whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record,proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the U.S. or any public office or with any judicial or public officer of the U.S. shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more the 3 years or both. [b] whoever, having the custody of any such record, map, book, etc. etc. etc. same as other’s above shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 3 years or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the U.S. as used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the armed forces of the U.S. yes, it explicitly states”… shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the U.S. the media won’t tell you. so its up to us. so Hillary has to step down or she is breaking the law.
Not even the worst natural disaster since Superstorm Sandy could pry President Obama away from the golf course Wednesday.
With 11 people dead and 40,000 homes damaged by floods in Louisiana, Mr. Obama did speak with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate Wednesday from his vacation spot in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
WH Dufus…the worst potus in American history.