On Saturday, December 1, former
first lady Michelle Obama stepped out to a stage in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center
to promote her autobiography, “Becoming.” When show took a turn towards work-life
balance, Obama did not sugar-coat a single point. “Marriage still ain’t equal,
y’all. It ain’t equal. I tell women, that whole ‘you can have it all’—mmm,
nope, not at the same time, that’s a lie,” she said. “It’s not always enough to
lean in because that shit doesn’t work.”
The “lean in,” that Obama refers
to is a corporatized version of feminism that proposes that women achieve
anything if they put on a masculine front and assert themselves more
aggressively in the workplace.
When Obama stepped onto the
national forefronts with her husband she seemed to embody the idea that women
could indeed have it all. Obama’s public identity was a manifestation that no
matter what stood against women, we could be successful, intelligent, and
diligent.
Obama’s speech this Saturday washed
away the shininess and desirability of her marriage to Barack, however, Michelle’s
bluntness about the fact that her marriage is and never has been equal, opens
up a world of honesty about the limitations that women continually face.
It’s important to m know that people in the limelight are still real people. I applaud Michelle for being so honest.
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