Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Dr. Chelsea Clinton spoke at a virtual fireside chat through Zoom on Tuesday to talk about their book, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience.
The 30-minute conversation was one of many events Ohio University is holding in honor of Women’s History Month.
Gigi Secuban, vice president of Diversity and Inclusion at OU, gave an introduction to the talk before Moderator and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department Cindy Anderson took over. The entire call was accompanied by ASL interpreters Shannon Davies and Mia Engle.
At first, both Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton talked on why they decided to write the book. The two women had always had conversations about what makes for a courageous or purposeful life and wanted to acknowledge that women can be role models in all dimensions of life.
“People are really hungry for stories,” Hillary Clinton said. “They want to understand what came before, what are the attributes they can aspire to. But it’s hard to think about that if there aren’t enough stories about people who are relatable and strike a chord.”
When the two women decided to share these stories, they found the generational gap to make the work even more fascinating. Hillary Clinton grew up in a world where the only women outside of the home and in the workforce she saw were some school teachers or nurses, but Chelsea Clinton grew up seeing women in many different professions.
“Some of my earliest memories are of my mom and my grandmother talking about women who are important to them,” Chelsea Clinton said. “We did have very different experiences growing up.”
One of the stories of a gutsy woman in their book was about Maya Lin, an Athens native who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
“When she was 21 and a student, she entered the national competition calling for design applications to imagine what a memorial not only could but should look like to those we lost in the Vietnam War,” Chelsea Clinton said. “She had enough guts to say, ‘I should do that.’”
Hillary Clinton segued into talking about the intersectionality of gutsy women and acknowledged the importance of the actions Black women have taken to positively change lives.
In the conversation, a lot of time was spent on women in the health care industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Chelsea Clinton addressed how women play a huge role in what is the largest mass vaccination effort in human history since the eradication of polio. She said so many of the people behind this effort are women, and that fact is not as valued or supported as it should be.
Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton went on to say they hope one of the outcomes of the pandemic will be to have a greater public appreciation of health care workers, so many of whom are women. They said they hope there continues to be a more vigorous commitment from social media platforms to filter false information, not only about vaccinations but in general.
“It takes a new kind of gutsiness … to take on what is a massive misinformation campaign,” Hillary Clinton said.
They both hope the pandemic writes the “incredible” women scientists who were some of the minds behind the vaccines into history.
“We can’t have the best minds in the world if we’re not including women,” Chelsea Clinton said.
In continuing with their hopes, Hillary Clinton said she loves seeing young people step up to lead social movements. She feels it’s important for people to stand with those who are trying to bring out the best in society and create the kind of future they deserve.
“We’ve got to rebuild faith in facts and evidence and science. It’s been under attack for a while,” Hillary Clinton said. “It gives me hope when reality actually bursts through the wall of denial and misinformation.”
Students were interested to hear both Clinton women’s opinions about elevating women.
“I wanted to learn about the Clintons’ take on gutsy women and their general ideas about women’s history for women’s history month,” Mia Walsh, a freshman studying journalism, said in a message. “My biggest takeaway is the importance of storytelling. Sec. Clinton spoke a lot about how it is nice that voices who have historically been left out are now being told.”
Other students felt both Clintons’ message about young people standing up and fighting for the future they deserve resonated well with them.
“It was such an amazing and unique experience to hear from women who have dedicated their lives to uplifting other women and shattering glass ceilings,” Rhyan Goodman, a freshman studying business administration and business pre-law, said in a message. “For too long the accomplishments of women have been overlooked and under-cherished and I share the optimism with both Secretary and Dr. Clinton that progress will be made by young generations like ours.”
