THE HILLARY EFFECT: Will Clinton’s Agenda Survive?

[DonViejo]

IN 19 HOURS - BY KATHLEEN PARKER

The Hillary Effect has spread across the globe. But how well will it last without Hillary at the helm?

"Let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

With those 19 words in 1995, then–first lady Hillary Clinton launched a global women’s movement and institutionalized what nearly two decades later is known as the Hillary Effect, essentially the pebble-in-a-pond metaphor.

Ripples.

In retrospect, her statement before the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women was perfectly obvious, but it was also revolutionary. Among other reasons, Hillary dared to trespass beyond the perimeter of her defined role as first lady and speak about the unspeakable, even challenging the Chinese about their one-child policy and forced abortion. But sometimes even the obvious needs articulation—and great movements sometimes are formulated in the simplest of terms: all men are created equal. The Founding Fathers surely meant women, too, even if they didn’t realize it at the time.

Today the ripples of Hillary’s statement have spread: global women’s rights have taken the spotlight, not only in the popular zeitgeist, but on the world stage, from the highest buildings in Hong Kong to the squattest huts in sub-Saharan Africa.

more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/04/01/will-hillary-clinton-s-agenda-survive-after-hillary.html