News last week of the establishment of The Women's Leadership Fund, created by Switzerland's Naissance Capital, Ltd made the financial world prick up their ears. Naissance has committed that the fund will only invest in companies with women in management and on their boards. The Fund will also take an...

Almost 11 years ago, when I first started The White House Project, some of the top minds in politics, business, film, and journalism came together for our inaugural meeting in Boston. Our mission was ambitious: to profoundly advance women's leadership in the U.S., all the way to the presidency....

When Sen. Olympia Snowe commented this week on translating the "empathy of your experience into legislation," she made a profound statement on what is currently missing in American politics. The pinnacle of such indifference to the average citizen's plight is seen today in the partisan stalling of health care. You...

Are women about to become the majority of the paid workforce? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women are on the cusp of outnumbering men on payrolls across America. While the percentage of men working or looking for employment has been dropping, the opposite phenomenon is occurring amongst women...

There's an old adage that says, "Men take charge while women take care." While the statement is more stereotype than salient truth, there's a spin that's taking root across the U.S. - women taking charge to take care.

From Mayor Shirley Franklin and Senator Olympia Snowe, to the thousands...

"We literally could not have fought this war without women."

That's what John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel, recently said about the contributions of female soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet he could just as easily have been commenting on World War I -- a victory supported...

Earlier this summer, I traveled to my home state of Georgia to help train nearly 200 women to run for office. I was met with the customary excitement and energy that imbues our Go Run trainings -- dozens of diverse women who are eager to learn from and with...

I'm not a huge fan of golf; in general, my Sunday viewing tastes skew toward the news cycle, not the sports channel. Which is why I was surprised this weekend to find my eyes inadvertently glued to the screen as Tom Watson staked his historic claim to victory at...

It's day three for Sonia Sotomayor on the Capitol, and like many of us, I am dismayed by the politics and punditry surrounding the confirmation proceedings. Yet what troubles me most about the negative and sexist remarks is this: our children are watching.

Years ago, Dr. Carol Gilligan, whose work...

The death of Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense and key architect of the Vietnam War, brought the controversial name to yesterday's headline news. I came to politics as a war protester and a civil rights activist, and it was not only McNamara's disastrous foreign policies, but his beliefs regarding...

For years, America has struggled with difference, especially when it comes to the tables of power. While there have always been those who eschew the value of diversity, the majority of Americans have come to appreciate our nation's unique distinction as the world's melting pot. Yet when it comes to...

When President Obama appeared last week at Notre Dame, he called for greater understanding on both sides of the abortion divide. While his nuanced approach deserves appreciation, what bothers me about the continued dissection of this issue is that it is not honest at its root.

The decision to...

Much to his credit, on Wednesday President Obama created a White House Council on Women and Girls to work across all agencies of government and "provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges of women and girls." It's certainly a step in the right direction -- but there is...

Last week in Parade Magazine, Barack Obama published a moving letter to his daughters--one that expressed not only his hopes for them but also his dreams for the rest of our nation's daughters. "I realized," he wrote to Malia and Sasha, "that my own life wouldn't count for much...

During an interview last week, a reporter with one of the top international media outlets mentioned to me that 2008 was being referred to as the "year of the woman." Well, I told her, we already had our Year of the Woman back in 1992--spurred on by the televised...

Mumbai's devastation came to American airwaves just as the Obama administration prepared to unveil its national security team. As I watched the images of burning buildings and police standoffs, I was reminded of a little-known parallel in our nation's own history: a time early in Janet Napolitano's career as governor...

The old adage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words," and for the 2008 presidential election the phrase could not ring truer. Images spanning the globe have frozen in time the immense joy and pride that many have felt at seeing Barack Obama become our nation's first African-American President-elect...

I awoke yesterday to two widely divergent stories about race in America. The first - a deeply disturbing montage of cross-country video clips - illustrated the worst of racial prejudices against Sen. Obama. And as the narrative worsened with each clip, I felt the fear of where...

Tomorrow night, eyes will be glued to TV sets across the nation for the Biden-Palin political showdown. Though historic in its own right, the debate will not be a political first: in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman candidate to hold her own in a vice presidential debate against...

This month, Rwanda made global history when it became the first nation where women outnumber men in parliament. And according to a newly-released UN study, there has been a marked increase in women's political participation worldwide.

Yet for all the advances women are making on the global front, women's political...