Clinton Announces Initiatives to Benefit Women

28 April 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton after speaking at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington, 27 Apr 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has outlined several new initiatives to empower women around the world, through technology training, public-private partnerships and grants, and a planned entrepreneurship summit specifically for women.

The morning after a major entrepreneurship conference wrapped in Washington, Clinton spoke at a breakfast for women from around the world who attended that summit.

Clinton, one of the world's most powerful women, told the story of a woman she once met at a craft market in Nepal. The secretary said the woman had not been allowed to leave her home after her marriage, until her husband was injured and could no longer earn a living. With the family in a dire situation, the woman had to ask her husband and mother-in-law for permission to sell the tapestries and crafts she could produce.

"As a result of her talent and her skill, she now employed two other weavers, and she now is sending her children to school, and they had added on to their home. And I said, 'So what do your husband and your mother-in-law think now?' She said, 'They think it's good.'"

Clinton said the United States is making women a focus of its foreign-policy agenda. The goal is to change attitudes about women, she said, and to address the challenges they face.