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NEW YORK Hillary Rodham Clinton took the stage here Thursday with her daughter, Chelsea, and actress America Ferrera to begin what the former secretary of state calls a series of No Ceilings conversations aimed at encouraging women and girls to aim high.

Yet as the political world waits for word on whether Clinton will once again aim for the highest office in the land, it seems as if shes been having these sorts of conversations for months now.

Ever since leaving the State Department in early 2013, Clinton has been traveling the country, delivering paid speeches and pushing the projects shes working on at the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

And at many of those stops, the former first lady and Democratic senator from New York put her focus on erasing the often-hidden discrimination that frequently leaves women rungs below men on the professional ladder.

Thats just what she did here Thursday, detailing her No Ceilings project, which aims to measure the progress of womens rights worldwide.

Acknowledging that old-fashioned discrimination still exists in the United States, Clinton said: There should be no artificial barriers, so that individual women can always prove their worth and demonstrate they can fit into whatever role or job theyre seeking.

Clintons allies say such comments and her No Ceilings effort are simply the latest manifestation of her lifelong fight for womens rights. But Republican leaders see it as a less-than-subtle effort to engage women in a presidential campaign that is not likely to begin in earnest until early next year.

We all agree girls and women should have equal opportunity but the truth is Hillary has been a follower on this issue: She made a political calculation not to speak about opportunity in 2008, and shes making a political calculation to talk about it now, said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. Who knows what she will really stand for if she were to ever make it back to the White House.

Whatever her motivations, Clintons effort to place women at the center of her agenda contrasts sharply with what voters saw in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

Facing off against a barrier-breaking African-American candidate named Barack Obama, Clinton waged a hyper-cautious campaign that never strongly stressed that she, too, could be a ground-breaker: the first female president.

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Hillary Clinton makes women her political priority