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 including reducing maternal and child mortality, improving public health, empowering women, and fostering economic stability, and therefore, as part of a responsible drawdown in Afghanistan the U.S. government continue its commitments to training midwives and improving other maternal health programs to expand the advances made in women’s health since 2001.
See more in Afghanistan, Health, 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, Defense/Homeland Security, 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, Women, 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, Women, 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
This campaign season, President Obama and Mitt Romney have remained focused on domestic issues in the "face of a gasping economy and long-term joblessness," argues Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. However, given pressing concerns raised by Afghanistan and the Middle East, among other foreign policy issues, the candidates will soon have to address international affairs issues.
See more in United States, Presidency, U.S. Election 2012
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says, though little attention will be paid to the war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, Paul Ryan's views on the "forgotten war" have shifted more in line with Romney's these days.
See more in United States, Afghanistan, U.S. Election 2012
"[Paul Ryan] voices a trade-based American exceptionalism with human rights at its core -- an outlook embraced by those on the hawkish end of GOP foreign policy," says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
See more in United States, U.S. Election 2012
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses the surge of protests for women's rights in Afghanistan following the Taliban execution of an Afghan woman.
See more in Afghanistan, Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses concerns by Afghan entrepreneurs over the future of their economy as the United States draws down its troops and military presence from Afghanistan.
See more in Afghanistan, Wars and Warfare, Economics, Economic Development
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon argues that in the wake of recent poisonings in Afghan schools, safety in girls' education is a priority for Afghanistan's future.
See more in Afghanistan, Children, Education, Women
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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| Ashley Harden | 212-434-9539 |
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".
In an interview for Bloomberg, Lemmon discusses the most recent U.S. presidential debate and the role that foreign policy will play as election day looms near.
The battle for girls' education in Afghanistan is everyone's fight because "there is no better correlation to predicting violence than education levels" argues Lemmon in an interview on CBS This Morning.
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."