Women's economic empowerment is a critical issue for the Biden-Harris administration, a top Indian American official has said, underlining that their full potential can have economic stability, and mobility and are vital to the core issues for democracy.
These remarks were made by Neera Tanden, White House Staff Secretary and Senior Advisor to the President of the United States during her address to the US-India Alliance Shatter Summit in Washington on Thursday.
“Women's economic empowerment is a critical issue for the Biden-Harris administration; for the President and for the Vice President,” 50-year-old Tanden said. “We understand how ensuring that women are reaching their full potential can have economic stability, economic mobility, are vital to core issues for us, for democracy, ensures stable and equal growth, both internationally and in our country,” Tanden said addressing eminent women leaders from India and the United States.
Tanden shared with the audience her own personal experience.
“I'm the child of Indian immigrants. When I was five years old, my father left and my mother was faced with the choice of going back to India or staying in the United States and having to go on a series of government programmes welfare, food stamps,” she said.
They were living in Bedford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.
“I remember being the only kid in line using food stamps and those government programmes work. My mother after a few years was able to first get a job at an Indian travel agent office and then a few years after that work at Raytheon,” she said.
Tanden eventually went to UCLA law school and ended up in the Clinton White House where she worked for First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Even as First Lady, Hillary Clinton recognised how vital it was to invest in women, to ensure growth for families, growth for communities, growth for democracies, and growth for countries.
As Secretary of State, Clinton, she said, really championed the interconnection between women's economic empowerment, and core national security and international security issues, like ensuring that there is stability and democracy throughout the world.
“(I am) even more honoured to work in the Biden Harris administration with both the President and the First Lady recognising this interconnection between these issues; the interconnection between how democracies are functioning, how communities are growing, and how families are doing. And how families and communities are really centred on whether women have true opportunity, true access to economic opportunity and true ability to ensure that their families are growing,” Tanden said.
President Joe Biden, she said, is incredibly proud of the investments he's made in women-owned businesses in the United States.
Tanden was a close ally of Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, and helped pass the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama.
(PTI)
Damian Talbot