The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
The story of a young entrepreneur whose business created jobs and hope for women in her Kabul, Afghanistan, neighborhood during the Taliban years.
See more in Afghanistan, Economic Development, Women
Fellow and Deputy Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program
Economic growth and development; development and the role of women; Afghanistan; women in Afghanistan; entrepreneurship and role of business environment; women and nation-building; military and economic development; economics and fiscal policy; maternal and reproductive health; role of international institutions in women's empowerment.
Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative, Women and Foreign Policy, U.S. Foreign Policy Program
The story of a young entrepreneur whose business created jobs and hope for women in her Kabul, Afghanistan, neighborhood during the Taliban years.
See more in Afghanistan, Economic Development, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to put women and girls at the forefront of the new world order.
See more in Women, U.S. Strategy and Politics
Investment in maternal health in Afghanistan provides a cost-effective way to promote strategic U.S. foreign policy objectives. As part of a responsible drawdown, the United States should continue its commitments to improving maternal health programs.
See more in Afghanistan, Health, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon examines women's rights in Afghanistan.
See more in Afghanistan, Society and Culture, Population, Women, Gender Issues
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon outlines the biggest challenges facing recently appointed State Department Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador James Dobbins.
See more in United States, NATO, Afghanistan, Pakistan, U.S. Strategy and Politics
In light of recent reports of chemical weapons being used against Syrian civilians, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon highlights frustrations felt by some State Department employees at the lack of response from the White House.
See more in United States, Syria, Human Rights, International Peace and Security, U.S. Strategy and Politics
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon reflects on the terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon.
See more in United States, Terrorism
After former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's speech on April 5, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon observes, "the Clinton megaphone no longer requires a Washington translator."
See more in United States, India, Pakistan, National Security and Defense, Minorities, Diversity and Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses Sheryl Sandberg's new book to show how influential news outlets generally ignore the needs of struggling families.
See more in United States, Women
Throughout Chuck Hagel's marathon confirmation hearing, America's decade-long war in Afghanistan was noticeably overlooked. But it is curious to see the next secretary of defense receive so few inquiries from senators about the war whose end he will presumably oversee in the coming years, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in United States, Afghanistan, Defense/Homeland Security, Congress
The Pentagon's decision to allow women in combat elates female veterans, who say all they are asking for is not guaranteed spots, but a chance to meet the same standards and have the same opportunities as men, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in United States, Defense/Homeland Security, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says, "Even as the battle in Afghanistan begins its slow wind down, America and its leaders still struggle to engage with it in a serious way."
See more in United States, Afghanistan
Despite the fact that Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist, survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, similar attacks against women, like the one in India, are on the rise. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that these attacks are efforts to stamp out women's progress and the potential of women worldwide will not be realized if this type of violence is tolerated.
See more in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Children, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that the war in Afghanistan, which has spanned a decade and cost more than 2,000 American lives, has now faded to one key, albeit short-sighted, question: How many U.S. troops will remain after 2014?
See more in United States, Afghanistan, Wars and Warfare, Nation Building
Women have made strides in Afghanistan since 2001, but huge issues still remain. While the United States focuses on withdrawal, Afghan women are still in the fight and will be long after 2014, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in Afghanistan, Women
Americans want to see Congress and the president make a deal on the "fiscal cliff," but the incentives are strongest for policymakers to act only after the cliff has come and gone—and wreaked a great deal of havoc in the process, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in United States, Congress
The female veterans who filed the lawsuit say combat exclusion is unfair and outdated, based on stereotypes, inhibits recognition and promotion of servicewomen—and ignores the realities of the modern battlefield, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in United States, Wars and Warfare, Gender Issues
Bibi Aisha's gruesome maiming put her on the cover of Time. Now, years later, she's working on getting a new face and trying to exorcise the horror, restart her life—and reunite with family, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
See more in Afghanistan, Human Rights, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that Monday's debate displayed a rare moment of unity between Obama and Romney, who seem to have decided that, in this most domestic-focused of elections, dwelling on foreign policy would only lose voters' interest.
See more in United States, Presidency, U.S. Election 2012
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says Afghanistan's aspiring tech moguls, impossibly optimistic and totally obsessed, believe that computing will not only help make them money but also secure peace in their land.
See more in Afghanistan, Technology and Foreign Policy, Telecommunications
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that just as Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani girl who was gunned down by Taliban shooters, refused to silently abandon her right to education even at the risk of losing her life, courageous women and men fight daily against a worldview that considers girls' schools a call to action in their battle against modernity.
See more in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gender Issues
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says, in Thursday night's debate, Vice President Biden worked to portray Paul Ryan as the candidate most in favor of continuing the unpopular fight in Afghanistan, a war that President Obama advanced and that the public no longer backs.
See more in Afghanistan, Wars and Warfare, U.S. Election 2012
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says Mitt Romney's major foreign policy speech on Monday reflects a vision for America's role in the world that is both far more forward-leaning than the current administration has exercised and far less energetic than Bush's.
See more in United States, Presidency, U.S. Election 2012
Los Angeles, California
CFR Fellow and Deputy Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program and author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.
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| Thalia Beaty |
On the death of American diplomat Anne Smedinghoff in Afghanistan, Lemmon says to Andrea Mitchell on MSN that Smedinghoff's death is a blow to those fighting for Afghanistan to join the rest of the world and not slide back into civil war.
Speaking with Andrea Mitchell on MSN, Lemmon says that a growing number of people think that the way work is structured does not match the way America lives, and that recent decisions by major companies to rescind the right to work from home is tone deaf.
Lemmon argues on Rock Center with Brian Williams that "We're getting farther and farther from the war actually being waged in Afghanistan. And to make ourselves okay with this we make celebrities out of the men asked to lead these wars".
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon speaks about women entrepreneurs who are creating jobs against daunting obstacles, and calls on women to move beyond"micro hopes" and "micro ambitions."