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Essay on Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken the traditional “goodwill ambassador” role of the first lady and made it a pointed, substantive, and integral part of the Clinton administration foreign policy efforts. The State Department has requested that she undertake some international trips to promote a foreign policy goal as part of a coordinated offensive in an area. Her strategy in these efforts has been to play an advocacy role in this arena usually addressing broad themes and sending messages rather than engaging in tense international politics in other nations. (Nancy Mathis, 1997)
When we think of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s challenge to the traditional first ladyship, we have tended to focus on her domestic politics agenda and her effort to serve as formal policy advisor to her husband. But this examination of her role in international affairs and the foreign policy efforts of the Clinton administration show another dimension to her redefinition of the role of first lady. It many ways it is more in keeping with her predecessor Eleanor Roosevelt who was an advocate for rights on the world stage with whom Hillary has been connected than their domestic linkage.
On her foreign travels Hillary Clinton has combined the traditional goodwill ambassador role of first ladies, visiting historic sites, going on safaris, meeting with school children, and attending cultural events, with major speeches on controversial topics, promotion of her own political agenda, and advancing the foreign policy concerns of her husband’s administration. She has sought to take women’s rights from the sidelines of politics and place them squarely on center stage as an integral element of foreign policy agenda items. For the most part she has received little criticism for this involvement in executive branch politics and policy. She even received much praise from her usual conservative critics for her strong speech at the International Women’s Rights Conference in Beijing in 1995....
