The other major theme of the night’s discussion was the necessity of finding work to do after politics because of the finite length of political life.

“The first day you’re a leader is the beginning of the end of your political career,” Shipley said.

The two acknowledged that once defeated or otherwise retired from politics, one has to fall back on core beliefs to determine a meaningful course of action.

Campbell said she learned the lesson when her own Progressive Party was overwhelmingly defeated in 1993 after she served only three months in office.

“Political defeat throws you back onto who you are as a person,” she said. “You are forced to think about what it was that made you get into politics in the first place. There are all sorts of ways to use the skills you’ve learned to affect the issues you care about.”

Campbell said she now applies the abilities she gained as a political leader as deputy president of the Council of Madrid, an organization dedicated to aiding developing democracies. She also recently stepped down as the chair of the Council of World Women Leaders, which serves to remind the world that “women do lead, can lead and deserve a chance to lead,” according to Campbell.

Shipley currently works in Asia, which, in what she said was the necessary and inevitable process of globalization, will become the economic fulcrum of future decades. She chaired the Asia Pacific Economic Council in 1999 and will make a presentation on an Asian education initiative at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan Dao, China later this month.

Both Campbell and Shipley agreed that the efforts of former government officials are best concentrated in the international sphere.

“You can paint on a larger canvass” after finishing the term as a leader, rather than being bogged down in domestic issues, Shipley said. “There’s nothing so distasteful as an ‘ex’ chirping [about domestic issues].”

Shipley also stated a desire to stay out of the limelight.

“I’m not sure that it matters as much to women as to our male colleagues to have the public adulation and be on the public mind,” she said.