*U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argues that achieving women’s equality is central to global security in an op-ed for The Times of London:
Women are still the majority of the world’s poor, uneducated, unhealthy and unfed. They are the majority of the world’s farmers, but are often forbidden to own the land they cultivate or to access credit to make those farms profitable. Women care for the world’s sick, but women and girls are less likely to get treatment when they themselves are sick. They rarely cause armed conflicts but always suffer their consequences and are often excluded from peace negotiations. And violence against women remains a global pandemic….
Advancing women’s equality is at the heart of the foreign policy of the United States. We believe that women are critical to solving almost every challenge we face, and that strategies that ignore the lives and contributions of women have little chance of succeeding. We view the subjugation of women as a threat to the national security of the US and to the common security of our world. So we are integrating women throughout our work around the globe.
*About the only thing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s admirers and critics can agree on is that her arm-twisting got the historic health care reform bill passed. But in an NPR interview, Pelosi herself gives credit to dark chocolate. (You have to get the energy to do the arm-twisting from somewhere, right?)
*Female senators reveal that, unlike their male counterparts, they don’t have affairs because they’re too busy taking care of their families and actually doing their government jobs.
