Hillary Clinton at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women - 26 years ago tomorrow:

[George II]

Beijing, China

Full video:

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1. Hilary Clinton would have been a great POTUS

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[Budi]

2. Snippets of the 2 decades of work by this Icon of human & women's rights

But as she rose to the podium, and even after she had stepped down to thunderous applause, Clinton had no idea the impact the moment would have, she says. More than two decades later, that 21-minute speech – with its declaration that "Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights" – remains one of her signature moments in public life.

It also stands out as a moment Clinton began to truly forge an identity as a public figure on the world stage apart from her husband.

"It gave her a platform that was instantly recognizable, one that she could utilize in a very efficacious way to make a difference," says Melanne Verveer, Clinton's chief of staff at the time.

And while Clinton was no stranger to the subject she addressed – she had long been an advocate for women and children – the Beijing speech would set a course for the issues with which she would be involved for the rest of her career, especially as secretary of state, says Verveer, who later served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women's issues.

"It played a major role in who she would become. It really was one of those evolutionary, transformative moments."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/1995-speech-china-clinton

The speech is considered to be influential in the women's rights movement. Specifically, it became a key moment in the empowerment of women, and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases.[16]

The speech was listed as number 35 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).[17]

In 2011, Clinton took a similar position on LGBT rights in a speech to the United Nations on International Human Rights Day, declaring "gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights."[18]

In 2013, following Clinton's time as U.S. Secretary of State, Clinton led a review at the Clinton Global Initiative of how women's rights have changed since her 1995 speech.[19] It concluded that progress had been made for girls in education and for women and girls in healthcare but that females around the world still suffered due to lack of political rights and security vulnerabilities.[12] In Clinton's words: "It’s a glass-half-filled kind of scenario."[12]

“She made one statement in Beijing — that women are human beings.”

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3. KNR and bookmarking

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4. Opinion: Hillary Clinton warned us this day would come

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The results are in. Of the five Supreme Court justices who allowed Texas to implement the strictest abortion ban in the nation, three — Neil M. Gorsuch in 2017, Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 — were appointed by President Trump.

You may argue back and forth whether fair warning is ever fair play. But there’s no disputing the fact that Clinton’s red alert came in plenty of time for voters caring about women’s rights to plan how to deal with Trump on Election Day. Did it fall on deaf ears?

Clinton handily won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. Too many voters, in states where they were needed, failed to turn out or skipped her name on the ballot. The whys of it are being debated to this day. The fact is that some voters might have heard what she said was at stake but still chose to follow the alluring sounds of Trump’s snake-oil campaign.

Had truth won out in 2016, this dark day for women’s rights could have been avoided.

But, perhaps, some consolation might come with the thought that Texas’s dreadful law might serve to mobilize women’s health voters — across the entire gender spectrum — to do what apparently too many failed to do five years ago: flock to the polls to protect reproductive freedom like there’s no tomorrow. There wasn’t one for candidate Clinton five years ago. There should be plenty of tomorrows, however, for the cause of reproductive rights and justice — if voters, next time around, respond as they should have when Hillary Clinton first sounded the alarm.

Now, there’s no excuse.