The excitement was palpable when Hillary Clinton took the stage to make the keynote speech at this year’s Women in the World Summit, presented by Tina Brown Media in collaboration with The New York Times. Clinton’s presence at this event came as a surprise to some because of her involvement in the 2016 presidential race. She officially announced her candidacy earlier this month and since then, she’s been hard at work on the campaign trail. Clinton herself even joked that she wanted to make it a priority to be at the event, regardless of whatever else she’s involved with.
This is not Clinton’s first time attending the Women in the World Summit and this year, she was introduced by her former intern: Beatrice Biira. Beatrice is famous in her own right; the children’s book Beatrice’s Goat is based on her life. When, at the age of 7, Beatrice and her family received a goat from Heifer International, their lives changed for the better. She and her siblings were finally able to go to school, something she in particular had always dreamed of. Today, Beatrice has a masters degree and works for the very same company that gave her the opportunity to succeed, Heifer International.
Hillary’s speech at this event was really the first big speech she’s given since announcing her presidential candidacy. She discussed the conference as a whole, referencing programs earlier in the day that talked about a range of topics from cyber bulling to climate change. As her speech went on though, she began to outline some of the things she’ll be focusing on in her 2016 campaign, including LGBTQ+, women’s and minority’s rights.
“We move forward when gay and transgender women are embraced as our colleagues and friends, not fired from good jobs because of who they love and who they are,” Clinton said.
She also pointed out the power of women in the workplace. “When women are held back, our country is held back. When women get ahead, everyone gets ahead,” she said, also citing a statistic that if we were to get rid of the gender wage gap, our economy would grow by 10 percent by 2030.
Clinton also came out in support of affordable childcare and paid maternity leave for new mothers, causes that seemed to be a constant thread throughout the day’s events.
“It is outrageous that America is the only developed country in the free world that doesn’t guarantee paid leave to mothers of newborns,” Clinton said.
Overall, there was a lot of support for the presidential hopeful at the event. Helen Mirren, also a speaker that day, talked about the importance of having a female leader to look up to as a young woman, enthusiastically cheering, “Go Hillary!” What do you think collegiettes? Will you be voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016?