Hillary Clinton calls for women to ‘repair’ COVID-19’s ‘damage’ on women’s rights

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called on women on International Women’s Day to “repair the damage” to lead to a “better trajectory” for women’s rights following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

During a virtual fundraiser on Monday, Clinton said the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impacts have “set us back across the world” on women’s rights by “disproportionately” affecting women.

“They have been disproportionately affected by COVID and the economic consequences of it around the world,” she said. “We’re seeing more women leaving school. We’re seeing more child brides. We’re seeing an increase globally in domestic violence.”

“As we come out of this pandemic, we all have to pay attention to how we repair the damage and try to get us back on a better trajectory, so we can continue to expand opportunities and full participation for women and girls and every aspect of society and the economy across the globe,” the former secretary of State added. 

Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman asked Clinton about the international priorities of women’s rights 25 years after Clinton’s speech in Beijing in 1995 in which she said, “women’s rights are human rights.”

“I would have to answer it this way, we were making progress until COVID,” she said, noting progress in education, economies and health care and needed improvement in business.

But “COVID has really set us back across the world,” Clinton added.

The former secretary of State called attention to the fact that women in “countries like ours” have lost jobs, access to childcare and schooling for their children.

“There’s a lot of making up that needs to happen,” she said.

The fundraiser, which also featured Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), centered around women in politics, with the money going to Clinton’s Onward Together Committee and Pelosi’s PAC to the Future.

Chrissy Teigen, who introduced Clinton and Pelosi, noted that more than 2 million women have been pushed out of the workforce in the U.S., including nearly 1 million mothers since the pandemic began one year ago.

Both Clinton and Pelosi offered suggestions to Gorman after the poet asked what advice they would give her or their 23-year-old self.

“When women are thinking about what path they may take, they should feel very confident about who they are and chalk up their experiences, whether they were positive or negative, as a plus,” Pelosi said in response. “And if they have any questions about it, they should be inspired by you. I do believe that the arts are what are going to save our whole society.”

Clinton also offered words of encouragement by saying, “if you follow through with your goal of running for president, you can take every day and think about how you can use your gift to lift up other people so they know they are not alone.”

Gorman, who is known for reciting her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration, has previously responded to a question about whether she will run for president by saying, “Plan on it.“

— Updated 9:21 p.m.