Quote of the Day

"As she circles the globe in coming years, making the case for women's empowerment, starting with their basic right to be taken seriously, [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton] really has her work cut out for her. And it isn't just because the situation of women around the world is so dire, and the ocean of problems confronting them—maternal mortality, sex trafficking, domestic abuse, malnourishment, lack of education, lack of adequate medical care, just for starters—is so wide and so deep. And it isn't just that her historic mandate—to equally empower the other half of the world's population, to chip away at the forces 'devaluing women,' in the words of Melanne Verveer, the State Department's new ambassador at large for global women's issues—is so huge and vague and seemingly overwhelming. It's also because the tide of trivialization that washes over all things 'Hillary' is just so powerful. That tide threatens to drown out anything of substance Clinton might attempt for a population whose problems have long been obscured in the androcentric world of diplomacy. And that's a huge pity."—Judith Warner, in the New York Times. It's a brilliant piece, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. [Trigger warning for descriptions of sexual assault.]