The End of Swagger

As Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton begin to use their uncommon authority and intelligence to implement a new American international agenda, it might behoove them to read a speech given some years ago in Beijing. It read in part: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights for one and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard. Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure."

Secretary Clinton was first lady when she spoke those words at a United Nations conference on women in 1995. Some of the participants wept to hear an influential American commit to a view of the world so many of them shared: that the way for nations to prosper was to pay attention to women's rights, women's welfare and women's concerns.

President Obama has chosen a secretary of state who can make that course of action an integral part of the American strategy around the world. Their partnership promises a new paradigm. Obama is the first post-macho president, a man raised by the kind of struggling single mother who is the canary in the mine of health and welfare everywhere. Clinton is a female leader with proven mettle; there is not a country on earth that does not know of her power and her ability. Together they can free the United States to finally pursue policies that emphasize collaboration and connection instead of confrontation.

A simple primer on the state of the world: women do most of the good stuff and get most of the bad. No whine, just fact. They harvest food and raise children, tend to the aged and the ill. Yet according to the Global Fund for Women, two thirds of the world's uneducated children are girls, and, naturally, two thirds of the world's poorest people are female. Not coincidentally, women make up only about 16 percent of parliament members worldwide. Simple mathematics dictates that if we are interested in promoting prosperity, education and good government, the United States must focus on the welfare of women. One study shows that the key to reducing childhood malnutrition is maternal education. Another shows a connection between more women in political leadership and less corruption and incompetence.

For those who prefer stories to statistics, there is the moving new documentary "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." It follows a group of Liberian women weary of the murders, maiming and rapes that accompanied civil war in the African nation. They put on white T shirts and parked themselves conspicuously, day after day, on the road leading to the president's house, embarrassing and infuriating him in the process. When male power brokers gathered for peace talks in Ghana, posturing and dithering for days, then weeks, the women blockaded the meeting hall with their bodies, making it impossible for the men to leave.

A woman is now the president of Liberia.