Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright is an American politician and diplomat. She is the first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State. She was nominated by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0. She was sworn in on January 23, 1997...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth15 May 1937
CitySmichov, Czech Republic
CountryUnited States of America
I don't actually believe in a clash of civilizations. I believe in a clash of the civilized and the noncivilized.
I really do think about the fact that every day counts. I believe that every individual counts, and so I believe that every day counts and I try not to waste it.
I do not believe that things happen accidentally; I believe you earn them.
But I do not believe that the world would be entirely different if there were more women leaders. Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven't exactly been non-aggressive - including me.
The capability of negotiating... is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.
But I think there are some who believe they are actually protecting women, you know, and that it is better for women to be taken care of. I think women want to take care of themselves, and I think having a voice in how that is done is very important. And frankly, I don't understand -I mean, I'm obviously a card-carrying Democrat - but I can't understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney, except maybe Mrs. Romney.
I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person's shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.
The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons...and we all found that hard to believe.
So there really was a whole series of things that took the women of my generation a little bit of time to push forward.
I got married, I really waited a long time - three days after I graduated.
The bottom line is, the more we have a cadre of women moving up the scale, and it doesn't seem threatening, and people realize that women actually work much harder than men, and realize that they need more women in these jobs, I think that goes away.
What distinguishes Americans from many people in the world is our kind of endemic optimism.
The other thing that happened was that we have a tendency to project our own weaknesses onto another woman. I don't think men do that particularly.
US is a very religious country. Separation of church and state is part of our credo, but that it is hard to understand since our money says "In God we trust" and every President says "God bless America".