Hillary Rodham Clinton's Orient

Abstract

In the spring of 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the First Lady of the United States, embarked on a twelve-day trip Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco accompanied by her daughter Chelsea. Billed as a bridge-building tour, the official purpose of the trip was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, Tunisia's good record of educating women and girls, and Morocco's experiment with political pluralism and religious tolerance (cnn 1999). In many ways, the trip followed the parameters of numerous overseas tours made by Clinton since 1992. The hallmark agendas of Hillary Rodham Clinton's visits abroad have been rights, education, and democratic political systems. Reportage of the trips, at least since Clinton's high profile participation in the Beijing UN conference in 1995, focused on women's issues. Most coverage of the tours outside the United States positioned Clinton as an avatar of global feminism; she addressed health, literacy, education, work, family life, and political rights. Thus, following the lead of many previous excursions, the mother-daughter trip North Africa could be described by a reporter for cnn as one largely about the empowerment of women, about giving them choices through economic opportunity, education, better health care and family planning (Crowleyi999). Reading the press coverage of Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip North Africa in 1999 provides an opportunity examine the emergence of new feminist subjects at the turn of the century. If Western feminism is an