Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

saying that I appreciated being a part of this great global gathering of women: This is truly a celebration―a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in the community, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders…. However different we may appear, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world-and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well.

I wanted the speech to be simple, accessible and unambiguous in its message that women’s rights are not separate from, or a subsidiary of, human rights and to convey how important it is for women to make choices for themselves in their lives. I drew on my own experiences and described women and girls I had met all over the world who were working to promote education, health care, economic independence, legal rights and political participation, and to end the inequities and injustices that fall disproportionately on women in most countries.

Pushing the envelope in this speech meant being clear about the injustice of the Chinese government’s behavior. The Chinese leadership had blocked nongovernmental organizations from holding their NGO forum at the main conference in Beijing. They forced NGOs devoted to causes ranging from prenatal care to micro-lending to convene at a makeshift site in the small city of Huairou, forty miles north, where there were few accommodations or facilities. Although I didn’t mention China or any other country by name, there was little doubt about the egregious human rights violators to whom I was referring.

I believe that on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights…. For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages fourteen to forty-four is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

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, once and for all.

I ended the speech with a call to action to return to our countries and renew our efforts to improve educational, health, legal and political opportunities for women. When the last words left my lips―“Thank you very much. God’s blessings on you, your work and all who will benefit from it”―the serious and stony-faced delegates suddenly leaped from their seats to give me a standing ovation. Delegates rushed to touch me, shout words of appreciation and thank me for coming. Even the delegate from the Vatican commended me for the speech. Outside the hall, women hung over banisters and rushed down escalators to grab my hand. I was thrilled that my message had resonated, and it was a relief that the press reports, too, were good. The New York Times editorial page wrote that the speech “may have been her finest moment in public life.” What I didn’t know at the time was that my twenty-one-minute speech would become a manifesto for women all over the world. To this day, whenever I travel overseas, women come up to me quoting words from the Beijing speech or clutching copies they want me to autograph.

The reaction of the Chinese government was not so positive. I learned later that the government had blacked out my speech from closed-circuit TV in the conference hall, which had been broadcasting highlights of the conference.

While the Chinese officials would try to control what their citizens heard, they kept themselves surprisingly well-informed, as I learned when we retreated to the hotel to relax for a few hours after the speech. I hadn’t seen a newspaper since leaving Hawaii and casually mentioned to my aides that it would be nice to get a copy of the International Herald Tribune. Within minutes, we heard a thump against the door to my room. The Tribune had arrived, as if on cue. But we had no idea who had heard that I wanted it or who had delivered it.

Before leaving for China, I had received briefings from the State Department and Secret Service that included intelligence information as well as protocol and-diplomatic issues.

I had been cautioned to assume that everything I said or did would be taperecorded, particularly in the hotel room.

Whether the newspaper’s arrival was a coincidence or an example of the Chinese government’s internal security, it led to some good laughs, and we realized that we’d all been unusually tense about being watched and recorded. From that