Topic

As its title indicates, Hillary Clinton’s speech “Women's Rights are Human Rights” is about women’s rights. The topics the speaker specifically focuses on are women’s rights violations and gender discrimination.

Women’s rights violations and gender discrimination

First, the speaker explores the issue of gender bias, by arguing that women’s contributions to the world often go unnoticed: “There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe.”; “Yet much of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.” 

Within the first part of the speech, the speaker focuses on the experiences and challenges shared by women around the world, and on the limitations women experience in trying to lead a better life:

They are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers. They are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the bank ...