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"PinterestFacebookSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is dancing. Standing in a large tent in Lusaka, Zambia, surrounded by about 100 singing women, she starts to smile and clap and&amp;#8212;yep, there it is&amp;#8212;bop from side to side. She&amp;#39;s here to address members of the African Women&amp;#39;s Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP), which she cofounded last year to help small-business owners take their brands international. But whenever she tries to speak, the crowd breaks into song. And what you realize is that, in her sky blue jacket and black pants, her wheat-blond hair blown out in a flip, Madame Secretary&amp;#39;s got moves.\nHillary Rodham Clinton (yes, the Rodham&amp;#39;s back, in case you haven&amp;#39;t heard) is the most-traveled U.S. secretary of state ever&amp;#8212;more than Condi, more than Kissinger&amp;#8212;having, at press time, visited 85 countries and logged 582,002 miles in her two and a half years on the job. I joined her fast-paced trip to the Middle East and Africa this June, covering four countries in six days. Her mission: to further U.S. interests abroad, encourage democracy and development and, as always, to sound the alarm for equal rights for women.\n&amp;quot;No country can thrive when half of its people are left behind,&amp;quot; Secretary Clinton says repeatedly during the trip. &amp;quot;If you don&amp;#39;t see all citizens get the rights and freedoms they deserve, you are on the wrong side of history.&amp;quot; Melanne Verveer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women&amp;#39;s issues, believes the secretary&amp;#39;s emphasis makes good policy sense: &amp;quot;To the extent that women are fully participating in decision-making in postconflict societies, the world is stronger, the peace agreements last and there is every possibility that progress can be made.&amp;quot; Jake Sullivan, Clinton&amp;#39;s deputy chief of staff and foreign policy guru, says his boss&amp;#39;s priorities are about good diplomacy and good karma. &amp;quot;There&amp;#39;s an economic dimension to it and a security dimension to it. And then there&amp;#39;s just the belief that this is right. That for too long women have been subjugated, abused, marginalized,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;That moral dimension is something that rests at the core of who she is.&amp;quot;\nSecretary Clinton is accustomed to being the only woman at the table, playing hardball with leaders from places where women aren&amp;#39;t even able to, say, drive or vote, let alone negotiate a trade agreement. &amp;quot;She can be the toughest guy in the room,&amp;quot; says Sullivan. Except she&amp;#39;s still very much a woman, in trim suits and kitten heels, even when trudging through the Tanzanian bush.\nBy any measure, Secretary Clinton has done a lot for women, and it&amp;#39;s not just the leading-by-example stuff (the first First Lady to actively shape policy, the first sitting First Lady to be elected to national office, the first serious female contender for president). It&amp;#39;s that she&amp;#39;s prioritized female issues throughout her career. In a game-changing speech at a U.N. conference in Beijing in 1995, she famously equated women&amp;#39;s rights with human rights. In 1997 she worked with then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to create the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative to support female leaders around the globe. Most Americans seem to have forgotten how polarizing she once was: In June her favorability rating hit 61 percent; last year she was Gallup&amp;#39;s &amp;quot;Most Admired Woman in America&amp;quot; for the ninth year running.\nAnd now that she&amp;#39;s an appointee, outside the dirty scrum of politics, Secretary Clinton can be herself, a balance of unapologetic bluntness and canny charm. When we sit down to talk in her suite at the Palace Hotel in Dubai, she greets me with that big Hillary perma-smile, ready to answer questions from you, Glamour readers. We talked about female presidents, young women&amp;#39;s challenges and what she&amp;#39;ll do when she leaves D.C.\nGLAMOUR: You&amp;#39;ve talked a lot during this trip about women and children. Beyond the fact that you are a woman and a mother, why the emphasis?\nSECRETARY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Some people are attracted to working on behalf of the elderly or people with disabilities or diseases. For me it&amp;#39;s been kids\u2026. And it&amp;#39;s difficult to talk about helping kids if you don&amp;#39;t talk about helping their mothers.\nGLAMOUR: But is that a bit First Lady-ish? Could championing safer cooking stoves for African women make you seem soft?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: One thing I&amp;#39;ve never been called is soft, so I don&amp;#39;t really worry about that. [Laughs.] I believe in being as authentic as possible, and this is how I see the world\u2026. I&amp;#39;m convinced that women&amp;#39;s rights are the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. Who are the people in the world most denied their rights to life and livelihood? Women and girls. Look at gendercide in countries like China, where they kill female babies at a horrifying rate. Look at rape as a tool of war against women in conflicts, particularly in Africa.\nGLAMOUR: How do you manage not to feel overwhelmed by all of this suffering?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: Because for every story of tragedy there are 10 stories of courage and inspiration. When I was First Lady, I went to a squatters encampment outside of Cape Town and met a group of women who were on their own, with children. They had taken over this piece of property and were building a village. The next year I went back, and they had built more houses. Then two years ago they had completed the village and gotten property for a second. These women could run General Motors, and probably pretty well! They were determined to make a better life for themselves and their children. Everywhere in the world, I see women who refuse to be cowed by what is expected of them.\nGLAMOUR: You probably have to walk into a lot of rooms full of sexist guys. How do you work with leaders like that?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: You just have to figure out what you&amp;#39;re trying to accomplish. I often try, in private discussions with leaders, to press them on women&amp;#39;s rights. For the first few years, I kept a running tally of how many women were in meetings with me. It was always fascinating, who would bring women and what roles they would have. And who never showed up with women at all\u2026. It&amp;#39;s wonderful to go to a country like Brazil, which elected a woman president [last year]. I made a big effort to go to her inauguration, because I know how hard it is for a woman to be elected.\nI think my political background has been a very big advantage in my job&amp;#8212;I understand the pressures of politics on leaders\u2026. Sometimes I push them to do more than they think is possible. But not impossible. So I&amp;#39;ve told leaders, &amp;quot;Look, I was in politics. I&amp;#39;ve won elections and lost elections. And it&amp;#39;s not the end of the world\u2026. Do what&amp;#39;s best for your country, and you will be remembered well.&amp;quot;\nGLAMOUR: You&amp;#39;ve said you plan to step down in 2013, even if President Obama is reelected. Glamour.com reader Jan Gibson of Bethesda, Maryland, writes, &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;d like to know what Hillary is planning to do after her stint at the State Department.&amp;quot;\nSECRETARY CLINTON: So would Hillary! I haven&amp;#39;t started thinking about that. I will probably rest up, because I&amp;#39;ve had 20 years with no break.\nGLAMOUR: I&amp;#39;m exhausted after one week!\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I know! And I get photographed all the time and have to stay awake. Sometimes I&amp;#39;ll be up onstage, and I&amp;#39;ll look out at everybody who&amp;#39;s traveling with me, and they&amp;#39;re passed out.\nGLAMOUR: So it wasn&amp;#39;t just me, then?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: [Laughs.] A lot of my friends who&amp;#39;ve stepped down after these kinds of stints have said, &amp;quot;You don&amp;#39;t know how tired you are until you stop long enough to let go.&amp;quot; I&amp;#39;m looking forward to an active involvement in women and children and questions of democracy and economic opportunity. But for now I want to stay focused on what I&amp;#39;m doing, and I&amp;#39;m going to work until the last minute. I think there&amp;#39;s more than enough to be done.\nGLAMOUR: Do you worry that your next step won&amp;#39;t be as fulfilling as this one?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I don&amp;#39;t. Somebody asked me, &amp;quot;So you&amp;#39;ve been First Lady of a state, of a country. You&amp;#39;ve been a senator from New York, you were elected two times, you ran for president, you&amp;#39;re secretary of state. What do you like best?&amp;quot; They were such different experiences. And how fortunate could I be that I&amp;#39;ve had this kind of range of opportunities? Sometimes a young girl will ask me, &amp;quot;What did you do to get to where you are?&amp;quot; And I say, &amp;quot;Well, you know, I never planned it.&amp;quot; If you had asked me 40 years ago, &amp;quot;Are you going to be married to a president? Are you going to be a senator from New York? Are you going to be a secretary of state?&amp;quot; I would have looked at you like you had two heads. You have to prepare yourself for whatever might come your way. And then you have to take a leap of faith, and see if it fits with who you are.\nGLAMOUR: Reader Brittany Buhler of Evanston, Illinois, wants to know: &amp;quot;What challenges have you faced in politics? Has it been harder because you&amp;#39;re a woman?&amp;quot;\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I&amp;#39;m not going to mislead anybody. Politics is really hard. And it is harder for women. There&amp;#39;s a double standard, and you can&amp;#39;t complain about it. You just have to accept it, and be smart enough to navigate it. And you have to have a pretty tough skin. To paraphrase a favorite quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: If a woman wants to be in politics, she has to have the skin of a rhinoceros. Most men who go into politics just think they&amp;#39;re great. They believe they can do anything. Most young women, not only in politics but in most areas, are more cautious and more likely to say, &amp;quot;Could I really do this? Am I good enough?&amp;quot; I was talking to a friend and very successful businessman the other day, and he said, &amp;quot;The thing that still annoys me more than anything is that I see all these young women who are so much more capable than they allow themselves to believe. And I see so many young men who are so much less capable but who believe they are God&amp;#39;s gift to the world.&amp;quot; I would just say to women: Try it! Put your foot in the pond and see if you want to swim.\nGLAMOUR: After years of taking a lot of hits from the press and the public, you&amp;#39;re now at a peak in popularity. How does it feel?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I&amp;#39;m grateful for that. A lot of my friends are so pleased. One said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;m so glad people are seeing you the way we&amp;#39;ve always seen you.&amp;quot; And I am too. Because I want to get out of the caricature that too many people have put me in.\nGLAMOUR: What do you hope to leave behind as your legacy?\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I want to have helped both restore and continue America&amp;#39;s leadership and influence in the world, for human rights and human dignity, for democracy and freedom, for economic opportunity, and for women to have the same rights that men in their societies do.\nGLAMOUR: You&amp;#39;ve spent a lot of time on the road in pursuit of those goals. You&amp;#39;re the most traveled secretary of state.\nSECRETARY CLINTON: I am. Somebody will come along and beat the record. And God bless them."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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