Among the 35,000 plus women gathered in Beijing and Huairou in September 1995, ten were from The Feminist Majority. Here are on-site accounts that Feminist Majority Delegation members posted on The Feminist Majority Foundation Online throughout the conference. |
September 6, 1995 - Colleen DermodyIn her only visit to the NGO Forum site in Huairou, First Lady Hillary Clinton urged women's rights activists to take the words of the Forum and the words of the government conference and turn them into action. Clinton also reinforced her message that women's rights are human rights.
Clinton appeared before a standing-room only audience of 1800 women, who had waited outside the Beijing Huairou International Convention Center in a torrential downpour for over two hours.
U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, Director of the U.S. Delegation to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women appeared stageside before Clinton appeared and members of the audience shouted for them to speak. They obliged with words of encouragement to the rainsoaked audience.
The planned morning of speeches by Mrs. Clinton, Bella Abzug, Wangari Maathia, founder of the Green Belt Movement, Anna Balletbo, a member of the Spanish Parliament and others at an outdoor stage which would have accommodated most NGO participants was moved into the 1500 capacity auditorium because of a cold, blowing rain. All speeches except Mrs. Clintons were curtailed because of the rain.
Other simultaneous workshops, events and activities went on as planned around the 43 acre Forum site.
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
