The Effectiveness of Women in/outside Government - Research Paper Example

There are also women in the government sector who had accomplished much in their specific jobs. There are those who were active in the feminist movements and fought for the rights of women. Shirley Chisholm, for instance, entered the government and advocated for women’s issues in the 1970s. 1 She supported the repeal of abortion laws and the guarantee of jobs for all Americans. She worked with Congresswoman Bella Azbug in introducing a bill to improve the Child Development Program. There is also US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who advocated for human rights of women in Beijing (1995) when she was still the First Lady.

This paper will discuss two women, one from the private sector and the other from the government sector. The personalities chosen are Secretary Hilary Clinton for the government sector and Clara Barton from the private sector. Barton was the founder of the non-governmental organization (NGO) American Red Cross during the late 19th century. Hilary Clinton: Overview Hilary Clinton was born on October 26, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois. As a lawyer (completing the degree at Yale Law School), 2 her practice with focus on family law and the rights of children.

Her husband, William Clinton (whom she married in 1975), became governor of Arkansas in 1979 and later president of US in 1993. She was the first female senator who represented New York. 3 She served became the First Lady from 1993 up to 2001, as US Senator from 2001 to 2009, 4 and was appointed as Secretary of State by Pres. Barack Obama in 2009 (January 21, 2009) 5 after the presidential elections. During the Democratic Primaries in 2008, 6 she had a tight competition with Pres. Obama to become the party’s nominee for the elections.

At Yale, she rendered volunteer work at the Yale Child Study Center, handled child abuse cases at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and provided free legal advice to the poor. 7 She received a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1970. A year after, she worked in Washington under the subcommittee of Senator Walter Mondale on migrant workers with focus on housing, sanitation, health and education. Her advocacy for children can be gleaned from her thesis on children’s rights (1973) and post-graduate study on medicine and children at the Yale Child Study Center.

Social Welfare Advocacies On her efforts to alleviate the plight of the people, she headed the Task Force on National Health Care Reform as First Lady in 1993 8 when she was the First Lady. Hilary proposed the first national health care program but was not approved. The recommendation of the task force on providing health coverage to employees utilizing individual health maintenance organizations, dubbed as “Hillarycare” was shot down in both houses of Congress. 9 Thus, a universal health care was not established in the US even up to the present.

She is a staunch supporter of the rights of women and children worldwide and sponsored conferences on the health of children, school violence and early childhood development. 10 She advocated for the immunization of all children to fight diseases and undergoing of mammogram test of older women for breast cancer detection (with Medicare coverage). She also pushed for the Children's Health Insurance Program (1997) to have children without health coverage be granted by the state. Numerous other programs and initiatives were initiated or implemented by Hilary Clinton in the US and other countries (e.g. abusive treatment