Laura Bush: When Women Left Out 'You Usually See Failing Countries'

In an interview on “America’s Newsroom” on the Fox News Channel with Martha Maccallum on Thursday to promote the first ladies Africa initiative, former first lady Laura Bush discussed her, which includes current first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Barbara Bush.

In that discussion, Laura Bush pointed out how in the countries where women are treated poorly, they tend not to be as stable nor prosperous.

“[W]e know if women are educated — if they’re part of the economy of a country, if they can work — that the countries are much more stable and prosperous. If you leave out half of the population, which we see in some countries, you usually see failing countries. If women aren’t educated, if they’re not involved, if they don’t have a chance to add to the economic growth of their countries. So we decided to work with first ladies because, of course, we have experience with that. I do. And then having a mother-in-law who was also a first lady to help them use their unique role. In our country we expect our first ladies to be involved, to have certain causes, to use their own expertise, whether their background is — whatever their background is to promote issues that are important to all Americans. Not political, but instead really bipartisan in working with everyone. So we want other first ladies worldwide to know they also have that opportunity.

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