London: Hillary Clinton says she became a "leader of a revolution" in women's rights.
During a 90-minute talk reflecting on her election loss while promoting her book What Happened, the former US Democratic presidential nominee hit out at "endemic misogyny" she said partly caused her loss.
She also said Russian President Vladimir Putin was condescending towards women.
However, she was silent on one of her major donors, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who is facing a stream of sexual assault allegations.
Earlier in the day, Mrs Clinton told the BBC's Andrew Marr she was "shocked and appalled" by the allegations and added: "I've known him through politics, as many Democrats have."
She said Weinstein had donated to the Democrats widely.
"He's been a funder, you know, for all of us. For [former US president Barack] Obama, for me, for people who've run for office in the United States.
"So it was just disgusting, and the stories that have come out are heartbreaking," she said.
On Sunday, Scotland Yard said it was investigating three new allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein, all made by the same woman. The alleged assaults occurred between 2010 and 2015.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took the almost unprecedented step on Saturday of revoking Weinstein's membership.
It said it did so "to send a message that the era of wilful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behaviour and workplace harassment in our industry is over".
Weinstein, who backed many British movies including Shakespeare in Love and The King's Speech, has also been suspended by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
French President Emmanuel Macron has begun procedures to strip Weinstein of his Legion d'Honneur.
Speaking later on Sunday at Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival in conversation with the BBC's James Naughtie, Mrs Clinton did not raise the issue of her prominent and now disgraced donor, nor was it put to her.
Instead she said she wanted to be remembered as a "leader of a revolution" in women's rights.
"I was a part of a revolution, I was part of a revolution for women's rights that began in the '60s with real intensity - continued up until the present day - and I became a leader of that revolution," she said.
"It is the unfinished business globally of the 21st century to free women from the constraints and strictures that hold them back, that squash their dreams and to give every woman everywhere the chance to live up to her own God-given potential and that's what I believe in," she said to thunderous applause.
Mrs Clinton said she was working towards training women to run for politics in the 2018 mid-terms saying: "I think we can take back the House."
She hit out her opponent, President Donald Trump, who she said was still trying to please his Russian counterpart President Putin.
US intelligence, she said, had told her Mr Putin held a personal grudge against her, leading Moscow's widely-reported interference in the US elections.
"I think that is both because he likes the whole authoritarian thing, you know the bare chest ... I think that's his aspiration," she said to laughter.
"Now he doesn't like women very much, or at least that's been my impression, the way that he behaves around women, talks about women, and his dismissive, condescending, slightly insulting, comments," she said.
"Putin really did think he was helping to elect Trump who would do his bidding," she said.
Mrs Clinton said it was only now, nearly 12-months after the US election, that the true magnitude of Russia's "information warfare" via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter was being realised.
"We're beginning to peel back what happened on social media, which should lead to us trying to take steps to avoid that happening again," she said.
"The Russians are not done," she added, saying it was vital to protect Western democracies.
Mrs Clinton said the Trump campaign, Russian interference and WikiLeaks publications of Democratic National Convention emails had stopped voters, particularly white women voters, from turning out on voting day.
