Virginia Women Connect

Strategic Action Convening: An Update on Healthcare Reform from the Center for Women's Policy Studies

The Center for Women's Policy Studies convened the Strategic Action Convening: A Framework for Health Care Reform program in Washington, DC on June 12-14, 2009. Twelve U.S. state legislators from around the country came to Washington, DC for three day in June to focus on reproductive rights and justice - and also addressed the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on women and girls. Click here to learn more about the participants and the program.

The women state legislative leaders took immediate action to bring their voices - and the needs of their constituents - to the Congressional debate on health care reform. Together, they crafted a brief but powerful letter to the Members of the Senate and House Committees that are writing the new legislation - to insist that Congress explicitly include all reproductive health care services among the "essential benefits" in any legislation they enact.

Click here to read the letter that is signed by more than 100 and former legislatorswho participate in the Center's Contract with Women of the USA® State Legislators Initiative.

Public Policy on “Marriage Promotion”

The Center for Women's Policy Studies recent Symposium on Multiethnic Feminist Visions of Fatherhood considered the potentially negative impact of fatherhood-focused programs for low income men on women’s autonomy. Participants discussed the extent to which conservative social policy promotes traditional patriarchal family structures as the panacea for a broad range of societal ills. They also explored the impact of these policies on women’s struggles for self-sufficiency and for equality in both the workplace and the home. The Symposium explored the intersections of gender, race, and economic discrimination and the need for woman-centered solutions to poverty alleviation.

The Symposium is part of an ongoing initiative with future dialogs and forums being planned.

Hillary Clinton delivers closing address at UN-CSW 2010
Women’s progress is human progress, declares Secretary of State

Submitted by Kimberly King, UN-CSW National Delegate

As CSW 2010 came to a close, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered inspired closing remarks at the United Nations headquarters in New York, marking the 15th anniversary of the U.N. World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Calling the subjugation of women a threat to American security, Clinton made a vibrant plea to give equal rights to women around the world.

"The subjugation of women is a direct threat to the security of the United States," the chief US diplomat told an international women's conference which closed Friday at UN headquarters. "The status of the world's women is not only a matter of justice. It is also a political, economic, and social imperative," she added to loud applause from dozens of government ministers and more than 2,000 women activists attending the meeting.

The 12-day conference was held to review progress since the adoption of the declaration at the 1995 world conference on women in Beijing. The Beijing Platform for Action is the most comprehensive global policy framework to advance the goal of women's empowerment and gender equality around the world.

Clinton noted that 15 years after Beijing, it was time to declare "with one voice that women's progress is human progress and human progress is women's progress, once and for all."

She said that principle was also at the heart of US foreign policy.

"We believe that women are critical to solving virtually every challenge we face as individual nations and as a community of nations," Clinton noted. "The world cannot make lasting progress if women and girls are denied their rights and left behind."

Virginia Women Connect

Calling the subjugation of women a threat to American security, Clinton made a vibrant plea to give equal rights to women around the world.

Clinton noted that 15 years after Beijing, it was time to declare "with one voice that women's progress is human progress and human progress is women's progress, once and for all."

She said that principle was also at the heart of US foreign policy.

"We believe that women are critical to solving virtually every challenge we face as individual nations and as a community of nations," Clinton noted. "The world cannot make lasting progress if women and girls are denied their rights and left behind."

Read the full transcript of Hillary Clinton's remarks here.