The InterDependent

Michelle Bachelet, who is deemed the best hope yet for improving the lives of women worldwide, spoke at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs recently to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8. The event, on March 2, was moderated by Elisabeth Lindenmayer, the director of the school’s United Nations Studies Program and a former assistant secretary-general and deputy chef de cabinet at the UN for Kofi Annan.

Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

Michelle Bachelet, left, the new UN Women chief, spoke to Columbia University students about her latest role, advocating for women around the world. She also discussed what it means to be a woman leader and advised the audience to "be as you are."

Bachelet, 60, who is now in charge of UN Women, the UN’s newest agency, is already an icon for her achievements before she even agreed to take her job at the world body: the first woman president of Chile and the first woman to be elected in a Latin American country; a health and a defense minister; a surgeon, pediatrician and epidemiologist; a mother of three; and the daughter of a Chilean general who was imprisoned and tortured (as was Michelle and her mother). Candid to the core, Bachelet spoke to an audience of about 140 students and others for more than an hour, touching on such things as her disdain for UN acronyms; how women are still seriously lagging in participating in politics; how the worst-off Millennium Development Goals are related to women; her “huge challenge” of fund-raising for her new agency; how she’ll plow through UN bureaucracy (she has a big title, under secretary-general); and what it was like to be a woman president in a machismo country. (To kiss or not to kiss the military personnel?)

As Bachelet cast her spell on the audience, she showed that her method in speaking “to the truth” has helped her succeed in every role she has undertaken. -- DULCIE LEIMBACH

To hear the full speech at Columbia, download this podcast:
http://sipa.columbia.edu/news_events/multimedia/audio/Bachelet.mp3