Go Read It: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton & The Status of Women as a Measure of Progress

Not just for Women's History Month, but for every day of every year going forward: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes the argument that peace and security come to nations only when the well-being of women everywhere is assured.

A brief excerpt on how women are leading the way in creating peace and prosperity:

In South Africa, women living in shanty towns came together to build a housing development outside Cape Town all on their own, brick by brick. And today, their community has grown to more than 50,000 homes for low income families, most of them female-headed.

In Liberia, a group of church women began a prayer movement to stop their country’s brutal civil war. It grew to include thousands of women who helped force the two sides to negotiate a peace agreement. And then, those women helped elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf president, the first woman to lead an African nation.

In the United States, a young woman had an idea for a website where anyone could help a small business on the other side of the world get off the ground. And today, the organization she co-founded, Kiva, has given more than $120 million in microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, 80 percent of them women.

The rest is a must-read. There's also video of Clinton's speech.

H/T to Nicholas Kristof, who first formulated this as "Women's Rights Are a Security Issue" in the NYT recently.

Cynematic's personal blog is P i l l o w b o o k. She also blogs at LA Moms Blog and can be found sporadically on Twitter as @cyn3matic.