Michelle Bachelet
Michelle Bachelet
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeriais a Chilean Socialist Party politician who has served as the President of Chile since 11 March 2014. She previously served as President from 2006 to 2010, becoming the first woman in her country to do so. After leaving the presidency and while not immediately re-electable, she was appointed the first executive director of the newly created United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In December 2013, Bachelet was re-elected as President of...
NationalityChilean
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth29 September 1951
CitySantiago, Chile
CountryChile
I was a woman, a divorcee, a socialist, an agnostic . . . all possible sins together.
When I'm speaking of love, when I'm speaking of reversing hate, I'm speaking not only of reconciliation - even I don't use that word - I use another word in Spanish, that's called 'reencuentro' - it's not reconciliation.
My message to women is: Women: We can do it. We are capable of doing almost anything, but we must learn we cannot do it all at once, we need to prioritize.
In today's interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone.
Women's strength, women's industry, women's wisdom are humankind's greatest untapped resource. The challenge then for U.N. Women is to show our diverse constituencies how this resource can be effectively tapped in ways that benefit us all.
During my lifetime, I realized that discrimination was not accidental, that there were structural roots and causes to it. So if we wanted to change women's lives, we need to deal with those root causes.
The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and which the parties picked up favorably.
I wouldn't be honest if I told you that in some moment of my life I had a lot of rage - probably hate - I'm not sure of hate, but rage. But you know what happens is that then you realize you cannot do to others what you think nobody has to do to anybody. Life is important for me and not any kind of life, quality too of life.
As the old joke goes, I have all the sins together. I am a woman, a Socialist, separated and agnostic.
I'm working for the women in the world, today; that's my essential issue.
I am a woman with a calling for social struggle and public service.
Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates.
We have had scarce investment in women... One of my tasks is that everyone spends much more on women.
The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.