The Hillary Effect: Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 Goes to Three Activist Women
Oct 8th, 2011 | 7 responses
WASHINGTON – It’s another nod to the Hillary Effect.
Congratulations to Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Africa, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman of Yemen.
The importance of women’s role around the world elevated, with the Nobel committee making a statement and headline news, offers another change in the status quo. This is truly something to celebrate.
Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Three Activist Women
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday to three campaigning women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their nonviolent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia — Africa’s first elected female president — her compatriot, peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner.
[...] Most of the recipients in the award’s 110-year history have been men and Friday’s decision seemed designed to give impetus to the cause for women’s rights around the world.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman stand on their own courage, their own actions leading to the changes still evolving in their corners of the world. They certainly didn’t need Secy. Clinton to tell them their own passions and purpose.
However, it was Hillary Rodham Clinton who has tirelessly trumpeted to the world to wake up to what women’s contributions to their countries mean to the world and anyone wanting stability to rein in still developing, often troubled, regions.
As the Washington Post reported in January, 2010, the Hillary Effect was already in full swing around the world, because of Hillary’s presence, her footprint.
“Hillary Clinton is so visible” as secretary of state, said Amelia Matos Sumbana, who just arrived as ambassador from Mozambique. “She makes it easier for presidents to pick a woman for Washington.”
No one in the Obama administration has worked harder in the last few years to put women’s rights in the forefront of changing countries more than Secy. Clinton. No one has so relentlessly made the case that women can close the gap in stabilizing a troubled country, including setting a burgeoning economy on firmer ground.
It’s the case she began making when she was first lady and went to Beijing, China to give her now famous speech on “human rights are women’s rights.” It has been one of her main missions as secretary of state to bring focus to the roles of women in their government and the importance of their voices being heard. Clinton’s historic and very difficult visit to the Congo revealed the depths of her commitment.
The stability of countries depends on women being engaged in their government, as well as their voices heard and heeded.
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to three women changing their worlds sends a message around the globe that has the potential to inspire more women to be brave, becoming the catalyst for even more progress.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.
7 Responses to “The Hillary Effect: Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 Goes to Three Activist Women”
Aren’t we giving Mrs. Clinton a wee too much credit here?
Not saying she hasn’t been a good SecState, and not saying she hasn’t been very vocal in women’s (and human) rights, but I think this is too much credit.
There have been plenty of strong women in various offices worldwide who blazed trails before Clinton. And these three women who won the Nobel had plenty of obstacles on their own.
I think what this article is really reflecting is good, old-fashioned American arrogance. We think we are the center of the universe and if anything good happens anywhere, we have to attach ourselves to it and say “see, look at all the good we’re inspiring!” Here, with three Africans being rewarded for their efforts, we have to shoehorn ourselves in and say “see, we helped!”
We need to learn humility. And we need to learn to let others have the wins they earn.
Appreciate your comment, but in a word, no.
There is no one, going back to 1995 (when she spoke in Beijing, China, causing a firestorm), who has had the visibility and the spotlight on her and used it to such effect, taking serious risks and receiving the heat for it, more than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
This takes nothing away from the individual efforts of women who didn’t need Hillary’s influence, as I point out in this piece.
It simply remains a fact that she’s shown the brightest light on the causes of women and utilized the power she has, including tapping our American reach, and put it to tremendous use.
Hillary Rodham Clinton began the cry that “human rights are women’s rights” and helped it rise in the world, while promoting it as a U.S. foreign policy imperative.
Yes Taylor she has, and, done so at the pleasure of the President.
Some people still have trouble giving strong and visionary women the credit they have earned. Congrats to all the women who lead through courage and who continue to work to make the world a better place – against terribly daunting odds in many cases. They have my admiration and gratitude.
Allen says:
OCTOBER 8, 2011 AT 3:54 PM
Oh, absolutely, but let’s not forget for Hillary Rodham Clinton it started long before she ever knew who Barack Obama was.
Heck, at this point 4 years ago, Hillary was trouncing that little-known senator from Illinois, and well on her way to being the first female president. It was rumored that Obama make her SOS to keep her at bay, which is very easy to believe.
[...] a guest column at The Moderate Voice, Taylor Marsh credits Hillary Clinton’s high profile campaign to put women and girls on fair [...]