Michelle Obama – victim or victor?
EmailWhen Michelle Obama enters the White House as First Lady she will hit bases 1, 2 and 3 as the first African American in the position, the second career woman and the third to hold a graduate degree. In trading her high powered, independent job for the position of First Wing-woman is Mrs Obama giving up her own aspirations or knocking holes in the glass ceiling as a new kind of Flotus role model? According to the NEW YORK TIMES today, liberal bloggers are up in arms about Mrs Obama’s demotion to mere supporting role. A woman’s career is a linear progression, they argue, and hers is being derailed.
We beg to disagree.
First of all, it’s ridiculous to suggest she’d do anything else. What’s she going to do, say she’s staying in Chicago at the hospital? Her husband just made history, for crying out loud, and it was clear throughout the campaign that Mrs Obama saw his victory as a shared endeavor. She campaigned alone for him and was a hugely popular and forceful speaker in her own right. I saw crowds stretched around several blocks in Pennsylvania to listen to the candidate’s wife. She spoke about her vision for a better country and her ambitions for Obama’s presidency. I see little chance that once she enters the White House Michelle will become Mouse. She’s made it clear she’s not interested in a policy role but that won’t stop her being actively involved in issues of critical importance. She already told Claire she wants to be a champion for working women, struggling to balance the demands of careers and children. This is a great platform from which to promote issues she has always been interested in. It’s not a career but it could just as effective as one, for her and the nation.
Second, the fact that she is First Lady today doesn’t rule her out for as career woman tomorrow. One of the joys of Womenomics is a recognition that careers can be dialed up and down, depending on family demands.
Michelle Obama is well-educated, hard working, talented and as such, will always be in huge demand. Eight years in the White House takes her to her mid fifties and adds to her appeal. She’d be a great post Washington catch for any employer.
This is a choice most European first spouses don’t have to make anymore. CHERIE BLAIR, who wrote an open letter to Michelle in the London Times advising her to get used to be being in the back seat, kept her own law career. Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, still turns out sultry cds. But they are very different roles. The British Prime Minister is not the Head of State and France, forgive me Paris, is not the leader of the free world. It just isn’t possible for FLOTUS to have a full time job as well. And any woman who tried would kill herself in the process.
Michelle Obama’s changing status is not a setback for feminists, quite the opposite. There’s something old fashioned, 1980′s even, about the notion that only women determinedly stuck in fast track careers to the CEO’s office have professional clout. We’ve moved beyond that. Women’s careers are more fluid today. We can move fast or slow and still matter – this a new brand of feminism, more in tune with what most women actually need.
That’s the real triumph of Michelle Obama – victor, all the way.
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You fail to mention her six-figure salary position working as VP of community relations for the University of Chicago hospitals. She was hired to discourage local south-side Chicago residents from using University of Chicago emergency room services. She hired Axelrod to help her, to protect the University’s image. They steered the community to seek medical services elsewhere because they preferred paying customers. Mrs. Obama came from a poor family in the same neighborhood, yet after her ivy league education, she switched sides. Mrs. Obama is a sell-out.
Posted by: tina | November 24, 2008, 10:41 am 10:41 am
Wow tina. You tell them girl. You really burned Mrs. Obama. Go on with your badself.
She was hired to do a job and is doing it. The hospital prefers paying customers. Wow, what a horrible thing. The nerve of them wanting to avoid the high cost of doing business for nothing.
Posted by: Paltickin | November 24, 2008, 11:01 am 11:01 am
how we could ever let this woman even near the white house will always baffle me…
“i have never been proud of my country” then she clarified that ridiculous statement with another ridiculous statement…
“i have never been proud of my country in my adult life”
she has to be one one the most unhappy millionaires i have ever seen!
Posted by: dave | November 24, 2008, 11:19 am 11:19 am
Okay, dave, keep brooding about the Obamas’ win. She’s our First Lady, and whether you like it or not (and evidently you don’t), she will make us proud of her as we can now be proud of our country for putting aside its petty bigotry and electing Barack our POTUS. You want to keep anyone away from the White House, it should be Sarah Palin. What a train wreck she is!!!
Posted by: geecee | November 24, 2008, 11:26 am 11:26 am
All freaken hospitals big or little are NOW trying to make a profit and money comes first not the people and this is sad,Makes no difference rather you are in a big city or a small town.Going to be a blow when they put in health care for all.
Dave get over it……She is the first lady of this country….
Posted by: NH voter | November 24, 2008, 11:26 am 11:26 am
Dave,better go check the record. That is not what Ms. Obama said.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | November 24, 2008, 11:29 am 11:29 am
Michelle is an angry, lobster-eating,limousine liberal that will claim to be lobbying for the poor while living like a queen (as every socialist in power does). Messiah’s of the poor are always hypocrites.
Posted by: liberalshateAmerica | November 24, 2008, 11:31 am 11:31 am
geecee
Where do you people get all of this kool aid to drink?
Barry and Michelle took their children to hear some of the most racially devisive, anti-American rhetoric for years, but somehow they are the great uniters?
“Goddamn America”
“America is the worst terrorist nation in the world”
“US of KKK A”
Barry and Michelle attended a black liberation theology church for 20 years and all you obamabots can say is
“yes we can” yes we can”
very scary!
Posted by: liberalshateAmerica | November 24, 2008, 11:52 am 11:52 am
When are you Republicans going to accept that you lost the election?
Gosh, some sour grapes……
Posted by: Steve_NJ | November 24, 2008, 12:08 pm 12:08 pm
Steve,
if hillary won we would have lost the election and i would have been okay.
With barry o winning, we country loving people see him for what he is…
an anti-American (which is why liberals love him),
racist,
anti-capitalist (another BIG reason why liberals love him)
-and also because his bitter wife michelle obviously views this country as rev wright does(or she would not have taken her daughters to listen to his rants)
change is a comin!
Posted by: liberalshateAmerica | November 24, 2008, 12:15 pm 12:15 pm
liberalshateAmerica: you are ignorant of American history. Liberal Democrats got women the vote. Liberal Democrats enacted the eight-hour work day. Liberal Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act. Liberal Democrats passed the New Deal. Liberal Democrats ended the Vietnam war. Liberal Democrats passed voting rights legislation. Liberal Democrats enacted rights for disabled persons. Liberals LOVE AMERICA. Neo-Cons and Republiecans like you hide behind the flag while you work-over the middle class and line your own pockets.
Posted by: William J. LePetomaine | November 25, 2008, 11:35 am 11:35 am
no geecee, she is not our First Lady. That title belongs to Laura Bush. She is your First Lady. Got it.
Posted by: Krissy | November 25, 2008, 10:34 pm 10:34 pm
Finish it out William, finish the rest of your story.
Liberal democrats destroyed our economy. Liberal democrats destroyed our education system. Liberal democrats have pussyfied our military. Liberal democrats have destroyed families. Liberal democrats have destroyed morale. Liberal democrats are Godless. Liberal democrats have ruined marriage. Liberal democrats have caused high healthcare.
Posted by: Krissy | November 25, 2008, 10:40 pm 10:40 pm
Every average woman in the working world is smart enough to know that when you choose to leave your professional career to “support” your husband or take care of you family you do not get back what you gave up. That is the way of it. The only reason Mrs. Obama will have a terrific post Washington career is because of being the wife of the president not because the business world is fair.
Posted by: nancyk325 | December 1, 2008, 12:51 pm 12:51 pm
Wow Krissy! Talk about a hate filled diatribe! What kind of a god do you subscribe to? Not a very loving or forgiving one, I would assume.
When I see Michelle Obama, I see an accomplished woman, who has obviously made a success of motherhood also. I see a warm smile and a sharp intelligence, someone with the grace to make a positive role for herself in the life she will assume while her husband is the president. After that, she will no doubt go own acheiving her own goals in her own way. That is what the feminist movement purported to be about.
I think she will be a wonderful First Lady.
Posted by: Phoenix Lady | December 11, 2008, 1:36 pm 1:36 pm
Blacks are always the victim don’t yea see….every white person gets everything handed to them…so yea shes a victim….ivy league education…insider jobs handed to the women…. all justified on their skin color
Posted by: white people | December 13, 2008, 8:46 am 8:46 am
Not matter which way you look at it, Michelle Obama is not a victim. People you made her and her mother the victor. Now look who’s laughing. Mrs. President.
Posted by: Spence | December 17, 2008, 5:10 am 5:10 am
I am reading these comments and the same mindset of the presidential race is still raring it’s ugly head. Krissy, you’re an idiot and just jealous that Michelle is obviously much more intelligent than you, no matter where she went to school. You would’ve liked her better if she looked like Cindy Dopehead McCain. Get over it, she’s not going anywhere. And for all the negative comments this post is bond to receive, you can all kiss where the sun don’t shine.
Posted by: Sheryl Todd | December 19, 2008, 8:20 am 8:20 am
yea a traitor in the white house she’s going to have to paint the house she already said she doesn’t like all that white stuff before,during and after obama won. a racist traitor
Posted by: ken | December 27, 2008, 5:10 pm 5:10 pm
I’m looking forward to the new team in the White House. And I am felling grateful and hopeful. Great post on GRATITUDE: “Why Gratitude Can Be Funny”: http://www.Vaboomer.com
Posted by: Virginia Cornue | January 12, 2009, 1:58 pm 1:58 pm
Krissy,
All I can say is, with people like you to speak for their cause, no wonder the Republican Party has taken a pounding in the last two elections.
If you think our military is “pussified”, tell that to the families of the brave men and women who have laid down their lives. No liberal can “destroy marriage”, since any marriage is what you make of it.
As to Michelle Obama, she has shown nothing but courage and class in undertaking a daunting responsibility and having nasty people like you rip her to shreds at every turn.
I know she will define her own role, just as she has every right to do; and I expect that most of the sane people of good will in this nation will be very proud of her.
Posted by: phoenix lady | January 23, 2009, 7:59 pm 7:59 pm
Only our liberal media will make a hero out of a lady that indoctrinated their children in the most racist and American hating churchs in the nation. She is a multimillionaire who claims to be for the poor. Let her give some of her millions instead of taking more of my meager pay check to by votes from her constituency.
Posted by: jan fox | January 27, 2009, 3:11 pm 3:11 pm
Only our liberal media will make a hero out of a lady that indoctrinated their children in the most racist and American hating churchs in the nation. She is a multimillionaire who claims to be for the poor. Let her give some of her millions instead of taking more of my meager pay check to by votes from her constituency.
Posted by: jan fox | January 27, 2009, 3:11 pm 3:11 pm
geecee and todd:
1st Sarah Palin is 4 times the woman MO will ever be. And so that makes her about 20 times the woman you 2 will ever be.
MO is the biggest racist that has ever adorned the WH. Talk about where the sun don’t shine. I hope you get your heads out of there before it is too late. I have always been proud of America until this last election. We sell a WH to a person because of his and her skin color and call this a good thing. I think not.
I hope ya’ll get this out of your system and we come back to some semblance of sanity in ’12.
Survival is the name of the game for the next 4 years.
BTW-When is OW moving into the WH. After all she did buy it for them?
Posted by: JB | January 31, 2009, 4:20 pm 4:20 pm
the security costs alone should prohibit Michelle Obama from holding outside employment. In addition, there would be more opportunities for corruption and scandal if Michelle had an outside job while Obama’s the President. If Obama is smart he will instruct Michelle to keep a low profile because her sullen/angry and often seemingly anti-American attitude offends many.
Posted by: Ed | February 2, 2009, 1:07 pm 1:07 pm
Arbitrary problem. Anyone know of any other homosexual blog owners out there?
Posted by: Barney Kalinger | September 11, 2011, 12:49 am 12:49 am