Remarks by Mrs. Laura Bush on International Women's Day with the Inaugural Class of Women's Initiative Fellows

Thank you all, and thank you very much, Mark [Langdale]. Thanks, everybody. It’s so fun to see a lot of friends here today—people who were active with the fellowship, with the fellows, and a lot of good friends. I’ve seen some really good friends from Midland, close friends of mine, who have joined us as well, and people from all over the city and from Fort Worth.

So thank you all very much for joining us. I want to recognize Gail Turner and thank Gail, and the president of SMU, Gerald Turner, very, very much. And Paul [Ludden], the provost—thank you so much for your support for everything we’re doing at the Bush Center. It’s been really—it’s so important, I think, to have this terrific relationship with SMU, and I appreciate it very much, more than I could ever tell you.

So thanks very much for all of that. Thank you to everyone who’s joined us today on International Women’s Day. I think we have the perfect program to talk about on International Women’s Day, and I want to thank everyone who’s joined us. I especially want to thank the few men who have joined us on International Women’s Day.

A little more than a century ago, women in the United States and parts of Europe began to demand equality in the workplace at a time when women’s rights and equality were dismissed as inconsequential. Fifteen thousand women marched in New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay, and the right to vote. What began as a workers’ movement in the United States evolved into the suffrage movement, so that shortly—about ten years after that first march—women received the right to vote in the United States 101 years ago.

In 1911, women in several countries began to mark one day every year as International Women’s Day, a day set aside to champion equal opportunity for women worldwide. Today we live with the benefits of their courage and determination.

Women in almost every country around the world now have the right to vote, and women play an increasingly important role in the global economy. Of course, we know that we haven’t achieved full equal opportunity in the workplace everywhere in the U.S. or in a lot of other places around the world. In fact, recent statements from the mullahs in Afghanistan are worrying. They made some new statements of what they think Afghanistan should be, and one part of it is that women can work; they just can’t work with men in the workplace.

We all know that the success and the progress of free societies—and in fact of a successful economy—depends on the participation of all citizens, men and women. When you educate and empower women, their involvement in their societies betters the lives of their families, strengthens their communities, and improves the stability of their countries around the world.

We see women who are leaders in life-changing progress that many of us couldn’t have imagined even just a few years ago. Last spring, the world watched with cautious optimism as Arab women stood side by side with men demanding equal rights and representative governments. The scenes in Tahrir Square and in BGI Avenue remind us that oppression and injustice cannot crush the spirit of freedom.

Through the Women’s Initiative at the Bush Institute, we’re working to improve social and economic opportunities for women and girls. We’re partnering with women in the Middle East and elsewhere to advance education, to improve women’s health, to further women’s economic opportunity, and to encourage greater civic participation.

In a minute, you’ll hear from the fourteen women here on the stage with us who make up our inaugural class of the Women’s Initiative Fellowship. The fellowship is a one-year program in which our fellows will develop leadership skills, exchange ideas and expertise, and receive tools and training to advance their work when they return home.

Professors here at SMU are our partners, and they provided the fellows with leadership skills and business classes. This gives me a chance to thank those professors, and would you please stand, all of you who worked with our women. Thank you all very, very much.

The fellowship is designed by Charity Wallace, whom I want to recognize again. Thank you very much, Charity. Charity just designed a wonderful program for you, and you can see that the first applause came from the fellows themselves. Thank you very much, Charity. She designed the program to equip women with the resources and skills that will help them develop and strengthen civil society, and by doing so, build a stable and prosperous Egypt.

Already, the fellows have seen important parts of American civil society. They visited the headquarters of local and international nonprofits, including the terrific Genesis Women’s Shelter, led by the very fabulous Jan Langbein. Thank you so much, Jan.

In Fort Worth, they stopped where every woman visiting Texas should stop: the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. And I think you’ll see in the video that we’re going to see that there was even some bronc riding. They then went on to New York, and I went with them, and we rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, which was really a lot of fun. The fellows met with leading women in the financial industry.

Then they went on to Washington, where they were received at the State Department. They took a tour of my old home, the White House. Then they traveled to Silicon Valley. They went all the way across the country, where they visited Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

After that, they went to seven different cities with their American mentors—women who are in the same professions that they’re in. The class of fellows includes thirteen Egyptian women representing the six most influential sectors of society: education, health, politics, law, business, and the media.

The American women who served as their mentors are in their same sectors of society, and I know there’s at least one mentor in the room. Linda Eads, who’s a professor here—are there any other mentors here with us today? If you’re a mentor, stand up so we can see you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you, Linda.

Research shows that one of the greatest indicators of a woman’s success is her network. Women who have mentors and who mentor others create lasting change and inspire others to do the same. The Women’s Initiative Fellowship builds on this concept. It is uniquely designed to give the fellows a network on which they can rely when they return home.

This idea of bringing women all from the same country so they can return home with a broader network is based on the research of SMU professor Dr. Maria Manity Amenity. I have a hard time saying that, and she’s not here, sadly, with us. Building on their own initiatives and using the resources they received during the fellowship, the Egyptian fellows can pass on what they’ve learned to others in their personal networks, creating a multiplier effect.

Our hope at the Bush Institute is that the fellows will return home equipped to build an Egypt that respects and defends the rights of all Egyptians—men and women, Muslim and Christian. We know from our own history that building democracy is difficult and that democracies are not perfected overnight.

As Dr. Condoleezza Rice told us earlier this week, freedom and democracy are not the same thing. Democracy is the institutions that codify our freedom, that support the freedoms that we have. These are the institutions that all of the new democracies we see around the world are going to have to build. They are the institutions that the most recent new democracies—the ones in Central and Eastern Europe—built. I hope that the Arab democracies that are being built now will be able to learn from those new democracies and from our long history as a democracy to make their road easier than ours was when we started.

Because even though we might have had what was the perfect document from our founding fathers, women didn’t have the right to vote, and we had slavery until we were almost one hundred years old as a country. Then it took almost another hundred years for the civil rights laws that were signed by President Johnson, another Texas president.

President Bush said that the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences. The practice of democracy is essential, which is why the work of these Egyptian women—and the work they represent—is important to the future success of their country.

They are already working to improve literacy and education and to equip Egyptians to work in the global economy. Their businesses are strengthening economic development and providing job opportunities for their neighbors, and several of the fellows are working to hold their government accountable to its people by developing an independent media.

Together, they’re helping to build a brighter future for their country and for our world. Today, on International Women’s Day, we celebrate the women who have fought to extend women’s rights. We applaud their courage and sacrifice, and we recommit ourselves to addressing the inequities that still affect women.

President Bush and I are proud to stand with women and to support them through the Women’s Initiative at the Bush Institute, and we’re proud of our inaugural group of fellows. In fact, everyone’s getting a little bit sad now that they’re getting ready to leave. It’s sad to tell them goodbye, but they’ll stay in touch for the next year with their mentors, and of course with us, and probably with some of the SMU professors.

Now we have a video to tell you more about the Women’s Initiative Fellowship, and then you’ll get to meet and talk with our inaugural class of fellows. Thank you all very much for coming.