more talk but still no programs and her time is almost over

Secretary of State Hillary Clintonannounced today a commitment from 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to boost economic growth and productivity by removing barriers to women.

Clinton, in a speech, laid out an economic case for APEC members to end such discriminatory practices as taxing women, limiting their ability to own property or to get access to capital, markets, jobs, training and positions of leadership.

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) report, cited by Clinton, found that increasing women’s participation in the economy could lead to a 14 percent rise in per capita income by 2020 in APEC countries including China, Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea.

“When everyone has a chance to participate in the economic life of nations, we can all be richer, because more of us would be contributing to the global GDP,” Clinton told an audience at an APEC meeting on women and the economy in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Declaration adopted today commits APEC’s members to pursue a “generation-long journey,” Clinton said.  In doing so, they’ll create a fundamental economic shift that leaves member countries more competitive and prosperous, she said.

Clinton’s announcement married two of her strongest interests. She has focused on women and children since early in her professional life, she has sought to leverage the State Department’s power to boost economic growth.


Clinton cited today a study by consultants McKinsey & Co. that found that approximately one-quarter of U.S. gross domestic product is attributable to productivity gains tied to the rise of women in the U.S. workplace over the last 40 years, from holding 37 percent of all jobs, to 48 percent.
...
APEC has discussed the issue of women’s economic participation before and has made uneven progress toward change, Clinton said. In the U.S. and every APEC economy, women are“still sidelined.”

Only 11 of the CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies are women, Clinton said.
Clinton has already launched women’s economic projects inAfrica. The African Growth Opportunity Act created an initiative to help African women entrepreneurs build export capacity and take advantage of trade opportunities.

And she has launched TechWomen, a technology program in which women from around the world have been mentored by women in the Silicon Valley. At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Clinton has also advanced an effort to collect data on women’s education, entrepreneurship, and employment.

Speaking to the audience of government officials and private companies from APEC countries, Clinton urged data collection that’s disaggregated by gender so the group has hard statistics to ensure countries are making progress and to detail the impact of women’s participation.


More.............http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-16/clinton-calls-women-key-to-fueling-asian-u-s-economic-growth.html

GC Notes: It was a good speech.  I enjoyed it.  Clinton notes that APEC will pass a resolution to liberate women, ah.... remove the barriers.   Mama thinks these leaders will give the good girls what they ask for in their resolution because they are committed and it is so reasonable.  SHE PROVED IT!   Clinton does not realize that the sisters, starting with her, have to do it for them self or it will not happen.  So as good lawyers do, Clinton gathers the evidence,  she pleads her case, resolutions are passed and she moves on to the next meeting and makes another speech.  Global women look at her with bright hope, sure she is helping them.  Their slave masters wait for her term to run out.

Clinton acts as though there have not been a thousand resolutions.  I looked to Clinton to implement programs at State; to be the one that designed programs for women and implemented them, the way Condi Rice did. Even Laura Bush who built hospitals in Afghanistan did more in reality.  Michelle Obama is actually helping get food stores into food deserts, encouraging people to plant gardens, getting nutrition into school lunch programs, educating about obesity.  Michelle is doing  good work in the face of opposition from Big Agri business.   But they are not blond democrats so their work is derided by "feminists".  

Feminists are starting hesitantly to criticise Obama but Hillary is sacred ground and that goddess worship is a betrayal of women.   Women don't have to just hate her the way Laura and Condi and Michelle are hated for nothing more than being in the wrong party but we have to voice a desire for the kind of programs that actually help a majority of women.  We also have to demand that the IVAWA is passed.

Clinton has developed two projects after all this time and just barely.  I do not know much about either except that Clinton was working with the World Bank in Africa and Papua New Guinea.  No measurable results and she is quiting in 12 months.  Her husband is working in Africa so she is probably linking into his work in some way.   Her other program, Tech Woman, is interesting.

Yes that was a good speech, along with obvious stats that are worth repeating.  Like Obama, Clinton thinks speeches are enough.  Leadership - she puts her faith in leadership.  All those years as a politician -- somehow the goal as articulated in excellent speeches never had to be actually accomplished by the speaker.  No !   Our politician's code.  Leaders lead, not do.  Make them love you, and they will defend you against other politicians.  They will love you if you give them hope - in inspiring speeches that show them you are on their side.

But see here in Response to a Critic, Chesler's list of global realities for women and think about what programs are needed with foreign aid money to help women.


Hospitals and training for midwives, schools for girls, women's centers, birth control education, ending genital mutilation, stoning, barbaric rape laws, gender apartheid, child brides, trafficking, building DV shelters and economic development projects to market women's commodities, the media and technology projects; Jay Leno's wife and the women who brought Afghan girls to study in the US.   

Hillary, you have taken too long to do too little.  You should have built on what Condi did, not gutted it.  That was arrogant and hurt women in Afghanistan.  Somehow I still want to support you.  I still want to hope.  But I will not be silent to gain the admiration of my peer group.  You should do more.

To Be Of Use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

 I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

 The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.

 The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.


From CIRCLES ON THE WATER © 1982 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Middlemarsh, Inc.