Women & US Foreign Policy: From Suffrage to Strategy

First championed by abolitionists Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld in the late 1800s, the phrase Women\u27s rights are human rights\u27\u27 became prominent in the global feminist movement following First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech at the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. This UN Conference represents a turning point in shaping women’s roles in diplomacy and defining women’s human rights as a strategy. In this presentation, I show how women’s rights as human rights is not just a sentiment, but a strategy of US foreign policy in advancing peace, security, and stability through the empowerment of women and inclusion of women as stakeholders and beneficiaries of foreign policy initiatives. Simply put, there cannot be world peace without gender equality. Each wave of feminism has played a significant role in moving the US toward these goals—from suffragists to anti-war activists to civil rights advocates to current humanitarian efforts securing the rights and safety of women and girls worldwide