Madeleine Albright Was the Quintessential Gender Multiplier

How Madeleine Albright Empowered Future Female Leaders Around the World, Creating a Ripple Effect

As we pay our final respects to Madeleine Albright today, I am struck by how much this foreign policy powerhouse was the epitome of the gender multiplier effect (GME). She understood and embraced the transformative power of investing in women and girls for the world's greater good. GME is that quantifiable ripple created when women and girls find their voices and become economically empowered. This results in healthier families and stronger communities and ultimately accelerates the local, national, and global GDP growth.

I was a longtime admirer of this trailblazer who was small in stature but mighty in her voice and presence. I recall hearing my mother, a gender multiplier, frequently cite Albright's now-famous quote, "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." That quote was significant long before it became controversial after Albright asserted it while at an event on the campaign trail for Hilary Clinton, the first female presidential candidate of a major American party. And it also was not unique to Clinton. Albright coined that quote decades before campaigning for Clinton, imploring a generation of women to support one another.

Albright herself was unprepared for the backlash. In a 2016 New York Times op-ed piece, she said, "It is a phrase I first used almost 25 years ago when I was the United States ambassador to the United Nations and worked closely with the six other female U.N. ambassadors. But this time, to my surprise, it went viral."

Albright explained that while she "absolutely believed what she said, that women should help one another, the event was the wrong context and the wrong time to use the line." She clarified that she did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender but rather that the battle for gender equality is still being waged. It would be easier for the country to have a woman who prioritizes these issues in the Oval Office and that the gender balance among elected officials reflects that of our country.

The actual gist of the quote? She wanted to clarify why she firmly believed that women should help one another. She stated, "In a society where women often feel pressured to tear one another down, our saving grace lies in our willingness to lift one another up."

"When women are empowered to make decisions, society benefits," she wrote. "They will raise issues, pass bills, and put money into projects that men might overlook or oppose."

Albright was a gender multiplier. When a woman supports even one other woman, the effect ripples out, benefiting not only the initial woman but also the people close to her and beyond. This is the gender multiplier effect (GME).

The Gender Multiplier Influence on Foreign Policy

As the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 and the first female secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, Albright was an inspiration to women around the globe. She was powerful, yet she showed women that we could be subtle while boldly standing in and owning our power. The best example of this was her wearing brooches to deliver a diplomatic message.

In a 2009 interview with NPR to promote her book, Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box, Albright told journalist Susan Stamberg that it all started when she was ambassador at the U.N. and then-President Saddam Hussein called her a serpent. "I had this wonderful antique snake pin. So when we were dealing with Iraq, I wore the snake pin."

Albright had always loved costume jewelry but said it had never occurred to her that a pin could also be used as a diplomatic symbol until that exact moment. So she started shopping for more.

In the interview with Stamberg, Albright says that a second pin, this of a bluebird, reinforced her approach. As with the snake pin, she had purchased it because of its intrinsic appeal without any extraordinary use in mind until February 24, 1996. She recounts that she had worn the pin with the bird's head soaring upward, but later that day, without warning, Cuban fighter pilots shot down two unarmed civilian aircraft over international waters between Cuba and Florida. Three American citizens and one legal resident were killed. She denounced both the crime and the perpetrators. To illustrate her feelings about the act of cowardice, she wore the bird pin with its head pointing down in mourning for the free-spirited Cuban-American fliers.

In a March 28 interview with Marketplace Morning Report, Rita McGrath with the Women in Leadership Program at Columbia Business School says, "Though Albright wasn't exactly known for mincing her words, women in spaces dominated by men are often held to very tight standards in how they present themselves. They can't be seen as too tough or aggressive, nor as too soft or unserious."

As the world began to look at Albright's strategic wearing of pins as a sign of how diplomatic talks were going, a generation of women saw the gender multiplier effect (GME) in action. Albright illustrated how to make a statement in a male-dominated profession and empowered other women to do the same.

The Gender Multiplying Effect of Mentoring Women in Leadership

As a child refugee, wife, mother, feminist, and first female U.S. secretary of state—the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. government at the time of her appointment—Albright had a gender multiplier effect on women. She served as a role model for women in leadership regardless of where they were in their lives and careers. She provided women with the encouragement of who they could be and what they could accomplish.

While a mentor to other professional women throughout her lifetime, she consistently urged young women to get comfortable interrupting and speaking their minds, particularly in male-dominated rooms.

The principle of women supporting women was so ingrained in Albright that in 2009 she founded the Albright Institute for Global Affairs at her alma mater, Wellesley College, to shape the next generation of global leaders. She remained an active alumna after graduating in 1959 and has attributed her successful career to her education at the historically all-female college.

Albright has been quoted saying that the men had difficulty accepting a woman as the top diplomat. "They would kind of look at me in meetings, and I could just tell they thought, 'How did she get to be secretary of state when I should be secretary of state,'" she said. She credited another Wellesley alumna, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton '69, with keeping her name in the forefront of President Bill Clinton's mind.

This act of Clinton advocating for Albright as the country's first female U.S. secretary of state—and Albright's acknowledgment of Clinton's support is the best example of GME: When you help one woman, she helps many other people.

Madeleine Albright was the quintessential gender multiplier.

VP of Program Strategy for Springboard Enterprises, McLean, Virginia,?Andrea Stevenson Conner , also is president of Stevenson Conner Global Strategies and a fierce advocate for the gender multiplier effect. Reach her at?[email protected] .