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Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire:“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”

Madeleine Albright stands next to Hillary Clinton during a campaign stop at Rundlett Middle School in Concord, New Hampshire. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, called the episode an “undiplomatic moment,” in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Friday.

I absolutely believe what I said, that women should help one another, but this was the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line. I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender. But I understand that I came across as condemning those who disagree with my political preferences. If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied.”

Feminist writer Gloria Steinem, who has endorsed Clinton, recently apologized for remarks about young women who support Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, writing in a post that she “misspoke” and did not mean to imply that young women were not “serious about their politics”.

Taken together, the comments offended female Sanders supporters, and highlighted generational divides in the feminist movement.

“I am concerned by the tone of the debate about the many problems that specifically affect women,” Albright writes in the op-ed. “We cannot be complacent, and we cannot forget the hard work it took us to get to where we are. I would argue that because of what is at stake, this is exactly the time to have a conversation about how to preserve what women have gained, including the right to make our own choices, and how to move forward together. I would welcome an informed dialogue that crosses generations. We have much to learn from one another.”

During Thursday’s debate, Clinton said the”special place in hell” remark was nothing new, and Albright has been using it for “as long as I’ve known her”. But she did distance herself from the implication that women who don’t support her candidacy are somehow wrongheaded. “I have spent my entire adult life making sure that women are empowered to make their own choices,” Clinton said, “even if that choice is not to vote for me.”

