Hillary focusing on women to re-brand for 2016?

Hillary Clinton focuses on female voters as 2016 approaches

The contours of Hillary Clinton's possible White House bid are coming into focus after her first domestic speech of the year.

While Clinton largely avoided women's issues in her last campaign, the former Secretary of State came out swinging on the subject at a conference of female tech workers, and has a series of events lined up over the next few weeks all dedicated to those concerns, reports CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes.

"Our economy seems to still be operating like it's 1955," Clinton said at the Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women.

In the heart of Silicon Valley, Clinton chastised the tech industry for hiring fewer women and paying them less. She also took on rigid family leave policies across the economy.

"There are still too many women who want to work more and earn more but are held back by outdated policies and pressures," she said.

Women's issues aren't a new focus for the former first lady. As Secretary of State, she advocated for wage equality and universal education and got, she said, a mixed reception.

"I could see mens' eyes glaze over. I could see -- particularly foreign leaders, but some Americans too -- saying, 'Oh yeah, here she goes,'" Clinton said.

Clinton downplayed gender in her first bid for president, and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said this time, Clinton is likely to talk more about issues that affected her as a mother and grandmother.

"She will be able to talk about these issues, not in the marginalized, women's lib category as they may have been seen several years ago, but as mainstream issues of economic security for all of our families," Cardona said.

It would also be a way to set herself apart from what is currently an all-male Republican field.

In a Q&A after her speech, Clinton offered some advice on how to deal with the old boys' clubs.

"Think ahead of the smart thing you'll say if somebody makes an offensive comment to you. Instead of what we all do, which is you sit there shocked and then in bed at night you think, 'Ooh I wish I'd said this,'" Clinton said.

Clinton was notably relaxed at the event Tuesday, laughing, joking and telling stories of her life as a young lawyer working with a baby. Some recent reports have said she's been working with a new marketing team to re-brand herself after decades in the public spotlight. So far that new brand is a friendlier, more populist Hillary.

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