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Women say that my election represents a cultural break with the past - a past of sexism, of misogyny.

Michelle Bachelet

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Michelle Bachelet
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: September 29
Epidemiologist
Politician
President Of Chile
Surgeon
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Represents
Cultural
Election
Break
Past
Women
Misogyny
Sexism

More quotes by Michelle Bachelet

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There's full consensus in the military that women shouldn't be in person-to-person combat. I don't know if we have enough experience to know whether this is the right approach. But women can be elsewhere. We have mandatory military service in Chile. I pushed for women in all areas.
Michelle Bachelet
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There has been a cultural shift. It is difficult to measure all that right now, but Chilean women have seen my presidency as a source of pride. Women are performing in jobs in Chile now that 20 or 30 years ago nobody would have dared to imagine.
Michelle Bachelet
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One of the factors a country's economy depends on is human capital. If you don't provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women's empowerment bring huge economic benefits.
Michelle Bachelet
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The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.
Michelle Bachelet
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Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice.
Michelle Bachelet
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People see I am a mother and head of a household. Today in Chile, one-third of households are run by women. They wake up, take the children to school, go to work. To them I am hope.
Michelle Bachelet
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Today it is time to give the government a new lease of life and this new phase which is as demanding as it is inspiring requires renovated energy and new faces.
Michelle Bachelet
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Because I'm a doctor, I know when you have an injury it will heal if it's clean enough to heal if your injury is dirty, it won't heal. And so when you are talking in societies, we are also talking in healing processes, and for a good healing process, you need to make things right.
Michelle Bachelet
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Having been a head of state gives you the possibility of getting into places others can't go.
Michelle Bachelet
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I wouldn't be honest if I told you that in some moment of my life I had a lot of rage - probably hate - I'm not sure of hate, but rage. But you know what happens is that then you realize you cannot do to others what you think nobody has to do to anybody. Life is important for me and not any kind of life, quality too of life.
Michelle Bachelet
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My message to women is: Women: We can do it. We are capable of doing almost anything, but we must learn we cannot do it all at once, we need to prioritize.
Michelle Bachelet
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My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation.
Michelle Bachelet
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The challenge is for us to reinvigorate the relationship with the Chilean people and to give state institutions new legitimacy. But this is also a universal phenomenon. There's also disenchantment with politics in Europe.
Michelle Bachelet
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Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates.
Michelle Bachelet
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Given political history in Chile, it seemed to me that there was a critical task of consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and political-military relationships.
Michelle Bachelet
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There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people.
Michelle Bachelet
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As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.
Michelle Bachelet
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In today's interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone.
Michelle Bachelet
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I took a gamble to exercise leadership without losing my feminine nature.
Michelle Bachelet
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When women earn the money for the family, everyone in the family benefits. We also know that when women have an income, everyone wins because women dedicate 90% of the income to health, education, to food security, to the children, to the family, or to the community, so when women have an income, everybody wins.
Michelle Bachelet