{"id":30288,"date":"2025-12-30T10:01:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T15:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=30288"},"modified":"2025-12-30T10:01:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T15:01:56","slug":"michelle-obama-wants-leaders-who-dont-rob-women-of-their-femininity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/12\/michelle-obama-wants-leaders-who-dont-rob-women-of-their-femininity","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Obama Wants Leaders Who Don\u2019t \u2018rob\u2019 Women of Their Femininity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Chuck Kennedy \/ White House | Right: michelleobama \/ Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the Democrat party continues to flounder in its quest for a new leader, former First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to the forefront as she promotes her new book, The Look<\/em>. The book focuses on Obama\u2019s uses of style to draw attention to her message and discusses some of the critical ways the public looks at the First Lady. She particularly draws on her perception as a black woman, claiming that much of the criticism she received came from an undercurrent of racism that felt a black family didn\u2019t belong in the White House.<\/p>\n

Sitting down for an interview with MS NOW\u2019s Jonathan Capehart, Obama discussed two quotes from her book that have drawn particular interest. \u201cYou write this: \u2018When you\u2019re a woman in the public eye, you\u2019re often reduced first and foremost to your physical appearance,\u2019\u201d quoted Capehart. \u201cYou also write: \u2018If someone wants to take something away from a woman, they will try to rob her of her femininity, her beauty.\u2019 We have current examples of this right now aimed at female reporters.” Capeheart then asked Obama what needs to be done to \u201cstop\u201d this problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, we have to pick leaders that don\u2019t do that, you know?\u201d she said. \u201cThe question that we have to ask ourselves is \u2026 why are we OK with it? You know, people are who they are. So, in the present day situation, we\u2019re here because either we did do something stupid or we didn\u2019t do anything. And we\u2019re all culpable in it.\u201d Obama also pushed for men to be supportive of their women, possibly alluding to the fact that support for Donald Trump amongst the black community nearly doubled in the last election to 15%.<\/p>\n

The Look<\/em><\/a> focuses on how Obama\u2019s looks were criticized to \u201cotherize\u201d her. \u201cWhile I am certainly not the only First Lady to get scrutinized \u2013 Hillary was constantly dinged for her preference for pantsuits, and Nancy Reagan was lambasted for her love of haute couture \u2013 this felt different,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBarack and I were being portrayed as Black people who didn\u2019t understand the \u2018rules\u2019 of the rarefied world we had found ourselves in and were not unequivocally welcomed into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s looks have often been a target of criticism, with some of her fiercest critics referring to her as \u201cBig Mike\u201d and accusing her of being a transgender woman. \u201cMichelle Obama claims he’s proof black women can be smart, beautiful, and sexy, LMAO,\u201d wrote one critic on X<\/a>. \u201c\u2018She’s\u2019 just another dude pretending to be a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Democrat party continues to flounder in its quest for a new leader, former First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to the forefront as she promotes her new book, The Look. The book focuses on Obama\u2019s uses of style to draw attention to her message and discusses some of the critical ways the public…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":30291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMichelle Obama Wants Leaders Who Don\u2019t \u2018rob\u2019 Women of Their Femininity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michelle Obama reflects on race, beauty, and criticism as she promotes her new book "The Look" and addresses attacks on women in public life.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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