Hillary Clinton
née Hillary Diane Rodham (born 1947)
“We need to understand there is no one formula for how women should lead our lives.”
Years in political office: 2001–2013
Position: US secretary of state, 2009–2013; US senator from New York, 2001–2009; First Lady of the United States, 1993–2001; First Lady of Arkansas, 1983–1992
Party affiliation: Democrat
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Top causes: health care, education, and international women’s rights
Life Story
Hillary Rodham was born in 1947 to Chicago-area homemaker Dorothy Howell and textile entrepreneur Hugh Ellsworth Rodham. She got a quick start in campaigning. The first elections she won were as safety patrol cocaptain in elementary school and junior class vice president in high school. At first, her beliefs slanted conservative, and she joined her college’s Young Republicans group. Graduating with a degree in political science, she went on to Yale Law School where she met a budding—and liberal—politician, Bill Clinton from Arkansas. The two fell in love and would become the very definition of a political power couple.
In 1978 Bill was elected as the country’s youngest governor in his home state. The two were married by then, but Hillary, who continued to practice law and involved herself in state-level policy work, did not match the expectations many Arkansans had for the governor’s wife. When Bill lost his reelection, some said that Hillary keeping her own last name after marriage had contributed to his defeat. By the third time he ran, she had started going by Hillary Rodham Clinton—and he won. The media’s scrutiny of Clinton’s womanliness, which she would face throughout her career, had begun.
Bill rode his folksy charm and appeal to a broad range of voters all the way to the presidency in 1992. The couple headed to Washington with their only child, Chelsea, and cat, Socks. As she had in Arkansas, Clinton took on an unprecedented amount of policy work as First Lady, focusing on family issues such as health insurance subsidies for kids.
Rough times came. A massive scandal enveloped Bill over his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, and his family was caught in the fray. The media endlessly discussed intimate details of the affair, and Bill came within a hair’s breadth of being removed from office for lying about the situation. Clinton infamously stood by her husband throughout the ordeal, calling the scandal over her spouse’s terrible behavior a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” In public, Clinton was loyal to her philandering partner under media pressure and Republican-led impeachment proceedings.
What’s on Her Agenda
Eventually, Clinton stepped out of Bill’s shadow to focus on her solo political career. She was sworn in as a US senator representing New York just seventeen days before the couple left the White House in 2001, becoming the only First Lady elected to public office. Given her fame, some were surprised when she ducked her head down to focus on committee work. She won her second Senate election by 67 percent of the vote, but cut her term short when she felt once again called to the White House—this time, as the president of the United States (POTUS) herself.
In Clinton’s first presidential campaign, in 2008, she was beaten in the primaries by rising Illinois senator Barack Obama. She supported him in the general election, and Obama appointed her secretary of state. In that position, Clinton encouraged the US to interfere with politics in the Middle East. She was heavily criticized for insufficiently supporting people’s uprisings in Egypt and Libya but lauded for her work in enforcing the rights of women and children.
After beating Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primaries, she was locked and loaded for a truly brutal showdown with real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump, who inadvertently coined a feminist catchphrase when he called her a “nasty woman” during a debate. Trump saw that Clinton secretly used a private email account for official business while she was secretary of state as a clear sign of her corruption. At his campaign rallies, stadiums of his followers chanted “lock her up” to call for her incarceration. Though she ended up winning the popular vote by 2.8 million votes, Clinton lost the Electoral College to Trump. Disheartened, she announced in 2017 she would not run for public office again. She’s far from perfect, but Clinton’s expansion of the First Lady’s potential and undaunted belief in the power of women to lead will not be soon forgotten.
Awesome Achievements
- As First Lady, Clinton joined Attorney General Janet Reno to help open the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, which supports programs that fight domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault. By 2019 the office had given out $8.1 billion in grants.
- Clinton’s fascination with her first role at the White House led her to push for the establishment of the online National First Ladies’ Library.
- She received an astronomical $8 million advance for writing her White House memoir, Living History, which became an international best seller.
Quotables
“Women’s rights are human rights.”
“If you believe you can make a difference, not just in politics, in public service, in advocacy around all these important issues, then you have to be prepared to accept that you are not going to get 100 percent approval.”
“There’s that kind of double bind that women find themselves in. On the one hand, yes, be smart, stand up for yourself. On the other hand, don’t offend anybody, don’t step on toes, or you’ll become somebody that nobody likes because you’re too assertive.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you that great things can’t happen in America. Barriers can come down. Justice and equality can win.”