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“We thought you were going to be a good girl”: Two foreign policy dynamos confront the male world order

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November 9, 2022

“We thought you were going to be a good girl”: Two foreign policy dynamos confront the male world order

Source: Politico

Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Gayle Smith on the choices they had to make to succeed, and why — from Iran to Afghanistan to America’s heartland — they think today’s young women will build a better world.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Gayle Smith both know what it’s like to be the only woman in the room. “I seethe every time I think about it,” says Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recalling the moment at a U.N. meeting when a man across the table told her, “we thought you were going to be a good girl.”

Fearful of being labeled an “angry Black woman” she bit her tongue, and regrets it to this day.

In the latest installment of POLITICO’s 15 Conversations series, Thomas-Greenfield talks with Smith, a former USAID administrator, President Joe Biden’s global Covid response coordinator and now head of the ONE Campaign, about how to make sure more women are involved in crafting the future of the world — and why that would be better for everyone.

Click here to access the video.

Resource type
Author
Ryan Heath and Renee Klahr
Publisher
Politico
Publication year
2022
Focus areas

Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Gayle Smith on the choices they had to make to succeed, and why — from Iran to Afghanistan to America’s heartland — they think today’s young women will build a better world.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Gayle Smith both know what it’s like to be the only woman in the room. “I seethe every time I think about it,” says Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recalling the moment at a U.N. meeting when a man across the table told her, “we thought you were going to be a good girl.”

Fearful of being labeled an “angry Black woman” she bit her tongue, and regrets it to this day.

In the latest installment of POLITICO’s 15 Conversations series, Thomas-Greenfield talks with Smith, a former USAID administrator, President Joe Biden’s global Covid response coordinator and now head of the ONE Campaign, about how to make sure more women are involved in crafting the future of the world — and why that would be better for everyone.

Click here to access the video.

Resource type
Author
Ryan Heath and Renee Klahr
Publisher
Politico
Publication year
2022
Focus areas