During her visit to New Zealand, former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke of her meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The pair spoke of “issues that we really care about, as well as her impending adventure in motherhood and how you balance family and work”, Clinton explains in NZME footage of her talk at Spark Arena.
She stressed that the issue is much larger than a balancing act, however. “Our extraordinary former First Lady Michelle Obama put it well a few days ago, pointing out the consequences of holding women to impossibly high standards. Here’s what she said: ‘if we still have this crazy bar for each other that we don’t have for men, if we’re not comfortable that a woman could be our President, then we have to have these conversations with ourselves.’ I think she is so right”, Clinton told the 3000-strong crowd.
Clinton then addressed New Zealand’s own position in the world. “New Zealand’s success in bringing together people from different backgrounds and beliefs, having such a vital democracy as an example which we so desperately need in the world really means more in the 21st century than perhaps you even recognise”, she said. “What you do here, how you navigate into the future will be one of the examples that we can hold up as to what works.”
