During Bill Clinton‘s 1992 presidential campaign, his Yale-trained lawyer wife Hillary was asked about her legal career and replied: “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession.”
The response triggered ferocious criticism that portrayed her as a radical feminist and Clinton spent weeks apologizing and pledging her respect for women who had decided to stay home, raise children, and bake cookies.
The New York Times reported: “The blowback was intense and she spent weeks apologizing, saying that she respected women who chose to stay at home and raise children. Family Circle magazine invited her and [First Lady] Barbara Bush to submit recipes for a chocolate-chip cookie bake-off, and she obliged.”
Now after serving two terms as First Lady of the United States, one and a half terms as a U.S. Senator (NY), being appointed U.S. Secretary of State, and running as the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton is still associated in people’s minds with her famous (and infamous) comment about baking cookies — an answer that embodied a signature left/right divide still being exploited by populist politicians across the country.
Today Clinton strode fearlessly into the cookie category again — for a good cause — with an effort to promote the Girl Scouts of America and their cookie sales.
Clinton posted a throwback photo of herself wearing a Girl Scouts badge sash and wrote: “If you’re in the market for Girl Scout Cookies this spring—and I hope you are—consider purchasing them from Troop 6000, which is made up of girls living in the New York City Shelter System. Just leave some Samoas for me.”
If you’re in the market for Girl Scout Cookies this spring—and I hope you are—consider purchasing them from Troop 6000, which is made up of girls living in the New York City Shelter System.
Just leave some Samoas for me. https://t.co/vS8DfHaz1W pic.twitter.com/hWZNQRFKlA
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 7, 2024
Launched in 2017, Girl Scouts of Greater New York’s Troop 6000 meets in shelters across the city “to take part in activities that help them make new friends, earn badges, and learn to see themselves as leaders. All fees, uniforms, trips, and program materials are provided at no cost.”
GSA also established the Troop 6000 Transition Initiative, which supports Girl Scouts and their families as they transition to permanent housing. The average stay for a family in a city shelter is 18 months.
In January 2023, Troop 6000 expanded its program to serve the children of recent immigrant and asylum-seeking families living in New York City Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center.
Each year about 200 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies are sold. And per the rules, Clinton can help but she can’t sell any herself. As the GSA site states: “All registered Girl Scouts may participate in the Girl Scout Cookie Program. Although parents and Girl Scout adults may assist, Girl Scouts are the entrepreneurs by making sales, setting goals, tracking inventory, and learning the five essential skills of the cookie program. ”