Islamabad, Pakistan is a long way from Iowa but in this increasingly small world it is just around the corner. So, in a sense you could say that the late Benazir Bhutto was the girl next door ... she just happened to be Pakistan’s and the Muslim world’s first woman prime minister. Similar in the way that Hillary Clinton is the girl next door – from Park Ridge, Illinois - who happens to be the first woman to be seriously running to be elected president of the United States.

Yesterday, Mrs. Bhutto, the 54 year old former leader was assassinated in a combined shooting and bombing attack at a political rally in the neighborhood of Rawalpindini, Pakistan. She had returned to her beloved country after 8 years of self-imposed exile determined to protect the burgeoning democracy in Pakistan from the autocratic hand of Bush crony, President Pervez Musharraf, and to fight the rise of  extremists in her country.

It was in reading Mrs. Bhutto’s obituary that I realized how small this world really is, and how similar women’s lives are no matter from what neighborhood they come. Strong, assertive, powerful women - whether they hail from Illinois in the United States or just around the corner in Pakistan – are often described in the same terms. “Mrs. Bhutto,” her obituary said, “was a deeply polarizing figure.”

At once loved and vilified, Mrs. Bhutto, the magnetic, beautiful, and wily political operative, had clawed her way to the top of a man’s world. Elected to office twice, banished twice, she was often accused of being cold and calculating - and corrupt. Still, Mrs. Bhutto clung to the promise of a fully-democratic Pakistan and died a martyr fighting for what she believed in most.

Mrs. Clinton’s rise in the political arena, though not as dramatic a story as Mrs. Bhutto’s, is surely rift with similar allegations as those made against Pakistan’s former prime minister. Cold and calculating come to mind as frequent descriptions of Mrs. Clinton, as does the accusation of corrupt.

I don’t think this is coincidence,

Mrs. Bhutto talked about women in leadership roles in a recent interview for New York Magazine. When asked if criticisms of Mrs. Clinton might be code for something else, Mrs. Bhutto replied, “I think that women leaders tend to be a little bit withdrawn to protect themselves from unkind comments. When a male leader is warm, it’s not misinterpreted. Whereas if a female leader is warm, it can have certain connotations. So a female leader has to be more restrained, in a sense.” 

Mrs. Bhutto was educated at Radcliff College, Mrs. Clinton at Wellesley; both superior schools. Mrs. Bhutto completed her education at Oxford University, and could have stayed in the west, but she had inherited from her democratically elected father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged following a military coup, a vision for her country that she was willing to fight for no matter the cost.

Yesterday, she paid the ultimate price with her life. But she leaves an important legacy for all women who try to make a difference in the world: to wear the mantle of polarizer with dignity and pride. It is, after all, often the polarizing figures who ultimately make a principled impact on the world.

Imagine learning such an important lesson from the girl next door.