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Jessica, the most striking thing to me about Amanda’s great post on the widely-envied Obama marriage was that I read it immediately before reading Naomi Wolf’s quirky piece in Harper's Bazaar that Willa mentions about women who ostensibly covet Angelina Jolie’s entire life. I confess that while I have glanced longingly at the Obama’s marriage—the date nights; the obvious, palpable affection; the perpetual-motion-mother-in-law—it never once occurred to me to lust after Jolie’s domestic arrangement... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
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Meghan, I agree that the issue isn't really one of reverse-discrimination, even if think Hanna is right that Sotomayor's views on affirmative action
may sound dated to some contemporary ears. Rather, the issue, I think,
is similar to one that arose during last year's Democratic presidential
primary. Then the election was often portrayed in terms of identity
politics, much as Sotomayor's nomination is now. It was black (Obama)
v. woman (Hillary), with criticisms of either dismissed as so much
racism or sexism. But to me, the far more distinguishing characteristic
of both candidates, and of Sotomayor, has less to do with their sex or
skin color than with their respective ages... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
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While it’s true as John says that the 100-day presidential milepost is media-made, it does afford time to ponder swift and striking changes, such as Michelle Obama’s rise in poll ratings. Less than a year ago, in June 2008, as the Washington Post pointed out in its 100-days section yesterday, Michelle Obama’s favorable rating was 48 percent. Now it’s 76 percent, meaning that this first lady is more popular than Hillary Clinton or Laura Bush at similar early junctures. Andrew Sullivan has acknowledged that Michelle’s “public relations success” is one of the aspects of this time period that surprises him. But last week, poll results from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press provided some clues as to why this has happened. To wit: conservative women like her a lot more than they did this time last year.
You can glean this from one of the center’s fun tricks: one way its pollsters probe the collective unconscious is to ask people a single word they'd use to describe the person in question. Among the top three words used to describe Michelle Obama are three—classy, nice, and intelligent—that were also in the top four for Laura Bush. But while Bush tended to evoke words such as ladylike, quiet, loyal, dignified and pleasant, Michelle Obama is more likely to cause people to say things like strong, confident, smart and wife. (Why in the world “wife” didn’t spring to mind in the case of Bush is hard to imagine, but whatever; Curtis Sittenfeld corrected that.) In the top twenty for Michelle Obama, the only pejorative was “arrogant,” which occurred to seven people, the same number that came up with “awesome,” “mother,” “outgoing,” and “terrific.” Laura Bush’s only pejorative was “invisible.” For some reason, both women prompted a good number of readers to say, simply, “OK.”
But here's where the one-word-thing gets sort of telling: As the Pew analysis points out, in July 2001, “conservative “ was the seventh-most-common word used to describe Laura Bush. Yet out of almost 800 respondents this year, only one person responded to the words “Michelle Obama” with the word “liberal.” Apparently, people see Michelle Obama as non-partisan, which presumably gives her crossover appeal. Someone who came into contact with her on a national service initiative recently described her to me as a “political tiger” who made effective behind-the-scenes phone calls, but the public does not see her as political.
And perhaps because that is the case, the cohort among whom Michelle’s polls numbers has risen most strikingly is Republican women. In January, Pew found, just 46 percent of Republican women had a favorable view of the new First Lady. Three short months later, that figure had risen 21 percentage points, to 67 percent. That’s a big change in a short period of time. To me, this suggests that the first lady's shrewdly tended public image, which emphasizes her family values—mother, wife, daughter, vegetable gardener—has gone a long way toward winning over women of a more conservative bent. Republican men like her better now, too, than they did in January—and a lot better than they did last year—though the change is not quite so striking. So Andrew, I think there’s your answer. Or some of it.
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From David Leonhardt's cool and meaty interview with the president. Obama says:
And so part of what we have to do is to recognize that women are
just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than
men are today. As a consequence, eliminating the pay gap between men
and women, and the pay gap between fields, becomes critically
important....
I
think that if you start seeing nursing pay better and teaching pay
better, and some of these other professions, you’re going to see more
men in those fields, although there’s a little bit of a chicken and an
egg — if you start getting more men in those fields, then the
stereotypes about this being a woman’s field and all the gender
stereotypes that arise out of thinking that somehow they’re not the
primary breadwinner, those stereotypes start being whittled away.
LEONHARDT: Did Michelle ever make more than you did?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure.
Probably only
for a brief time, because I was working three jobs most of the time
that I was in the State Senate.... But when I started campaigning for
the U.S. Senate and I had to drop some of those jobs, then she carried us for a couple years.
OK, so the last part comes off as a bit defensive. But mostly, hey, he gets it.
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I hate to interrupt such a thoughtful discussion with yet another micro-dissection of what was in Michelle Obama's Grand Tour steamer trunk but I couldn't resist this item from the Times of London pointing out her false eyelashes. And not just any false eyelashes, but "full-on, all-out diva lashes, the kind you normally find on D-list celebrities or in drag-act dressing rooms." The Times says it was part of her plan to seduce Europe (easier to bat your eyelashes at a whole continent when they're industrially made!) but I wonder whether the thing Mrs. Obama is flirting with is the line between icon and camp. Of late, she's seen herself represented in wax at Madame Tussaud's and Barbie-fied on the cover of New York. Someone is ghostwriting a Tumblr as her arms. I might amp up my makeup routine, too. But is she purposely feeding our frenzy by becoming an ever-more bombastic version of herself, intoxicated just as much as we are by the whirlwind pace of her style canonization? Or are the eyelashes just a tacit, down-to-earth admission that, hey, we all need a little help in front of the camera? (A sharp contrast, I might add, to Carla Bruni, who's undermined every woman in the world other than Carla Bruni by saying makeup makes us all look bad after age 25).
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All the posts and photos about the splash Michelle Obama has made overseas, and talk of etiquette issues, and touching the queen versus not touching the queen, and hugs versus handshakes and marital fanny pats, and the general confusingness of cross-cultural protocol, etc., etc., reminded me of a conversation I had with a French journalist around the time of the inauguration. I wrote a book about Michelle Obama, and the journalist--the French were super-interested in the First Lady even then, for reasons that included but were not limited to the lift she's given the fashion industry--did an interview. The journalist, who was very nice, had a list of questions about Michelle Obama's background and personality, one of which was: "Barack Obama is a very sexy man. If he were to have an affair, do you think Michelle Obama would mind?" The answer to that seemed easy--yes, Mrs. Obama doubtless would mind, I said. Later she asked, "And so, Mrs. Obama, if she were to take a lover, do you think the American people would be okay with that?" Also easy: American people, definitely not okay. She looked sort of puzzled. I felt sort of parochial. But maybe not. Among the many things the Obamas may transform into a hot global fashion: Fidelity.
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Dana! Speaking of Michelle's sartorial choices, what do you think about the brightly hued and be-bowed outfit she wore yesterday to meet the Sarkozys? According to the Guardian, she had bow-laden "fashion face-off" with the similarly statuesque Carla Bruni Sarkozy.
Today, the two fashion titans clashed in sartorial battle in Strasbourg, as the US and French presidents met ahead of the Nato summit. Michelle wore a black coat with a floral pattern of pink poppies. The collar was ruched and tied loosely around the neck. It was rather lovely. Teamed with low kitten heels in black patent leather, the look achieved exactly the right balance of cheeriness and glamour. Carla, on the other hand, has gone for a cropped-sleeve coat in a soft grey, which is one of her favourite colours: she wore it a lot last year. And that's part of the problem - it feels like we've seen it all before. Despite the matching pussybow, compared to Michelle, Carla actually looks a bit washed out and (we can't believe we're about to say this) prim and proper. A flash of colour or a fashionable statement accessory could have taken this outfit to another level - but that's just not Carla's style.
Below is a video of the two first ladies in action yesterday. Both women are tall enough to pull off those giant, floppy "pussybows," but I am hoping against hope they do not become a trend. Such a large bow would make any petite woman look like an overgrown Shirley Temple.
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Waiting for a bus near a newsstand this week, I became transfixed by the cover of the April issue of O magazine, in which, for the first time in the publication’s nine-year history, its namesake/publisher/doyenne shares cover space with someone else: Michelle Obama, the first pretender to Oprah’s title of America’s favorite black female celebrity. Dayo wrote about this cover when it first came out, but it took a good long session of bus-stop staring to drive home how weird an image it actually is. There’s always been something Napoleonic about the narcissism of Oprah’s inevitable presence on that cover, and she doesn’t cede her place without a fight: The space is almost exactly evenly divided between the two women. Michelle, who towers over Oprah by half a head, smiles and spreads out her hands in a laying-down-the-law kind of gesture. Oprah holds hers together in prayer position, like a supplicant, her face turned toward Michelle, her expression tense. (Or am I overreading?) Of the hundreds of photos that must have been taken during the shoot, it's amazing that Oprah (who, I assume, gets final cut) chose this one. It's a telling portrait of uneasily shared power, right down to the fact that Michelle’s broad shoulders are literally blocking Oprah’s name.
Another striking element of the picture is Michelle’s belt, a wide strip of transparent plastic with a big round buckle (emphasizing, inevitably, the comparative narrowness of her and Oprah’s waists.) No other first lady in history could have worn that belt. (The very material it’s made of didn’t exist until Mamie Eisenhower’s day.) It brings together a mod Space Age sensibility (Twiggy might have worn it in 1969) with a populist embrace of cheap materials—it’s an accessory you could imagine finding at H & M or Forever 21. This week, watching Michelle cut a style swath through London, I keep thinking that the woman who can unseat Oprah from the cover of her own magazine, and do it wearing a see-through belt, is a force to be reckoned with indeed.
(Thanks to Mrs. O, the invaluable Michelle Obama fashion blog, for the images.)
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There's been some buzz today about whether Michelle Obama breached protocol by half-hugging the queen during her visit to Buckingham Palace. Given that the answer is a resounding "no," this is likely to die down pretty soon. Still, it's worth watching this CNN clip discussing the nonissue just for the slow-mo, repeated playing of the incident—a treatment better saved for scenes like this.
Buckingham Palace aside, my question about hugging—and maybe this is one for Penny, The Big Money's new advice columnist—is in what work settings an embrace is appropriate. I've often found myself the only female in a conference room, and as we go around doing obligatory hellos, I watch the men give one another hearty handshakes, then reach out to me for a hug. I find handshakes a bit forced and am generally happy to hug. Still, it feels like a slight of some sort not to be greeted by the same professional custom given to the guys. Should I more aggressively thrust out my hand so they grab that instead? Am I reading too much into this? (Judging by today's news coverage, though, it's fair game to overanalyze hugs.)
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So the American public has sounded off—and the stank-face has it! The "angry" Michelle Obama is oddly compelling to some of the average men and women surveyed—the counterintuitive, apparently gender-neutral enjoyment of a spanking speaking. I can't help but have many opinions on Michelle Obama, which range from praise for her double-dipping in home life and work life, her evasion of ready-made racial categories for black women (Mammy or Jezebel?) to distaste for her meta-modeling of a White House victory garden. But oh man does Stanley Crouch have an opinion. From his piece on The Root today:
Michelle Obama is much more than the superficial assessment of being a “real” sister or “too real,” which is usually attached to some sense of pathology and deprivation. Every background contains stupidity and evil, and no one seeking to understand the troubles and the mysterious aspects of human beings should ever forget those facts of life. It is quite clear that this is not a bitter woman, and it is just as evident that she has forgotten nothing. She embodies that quality of deep Americana essential to what got us through slavery and all of the tribulations that followed it until the votes were counted on Nov. 4, 2008.
She is both brilliant and down home, free of the solitary confinement of ethnic nationalism and low expectations for the nation. Like her husband, Michelle Obama embraced the deathless presence of the bitter and the sweet in both human life and our national history. That embrace retooled American patriotism and established a maturity that was not expected in our time of protracted adolescence and overstatement.
Above all else, the first lady has done everything exactly her way, never seeming to hide her heart behind a pit bull exterior, which is the crucifix of the contemporary female for whom respect arrives with far more regularity when the tool used to beckon it is a cold, cold bark.
OK, get through it. Now: I like Crouch’s embrace of Obama’s embrace of the sweet and sour, the contradictions that come with making it to the middle class in a place where the black middle class came to make it; of going to a great school (and enjoying every advantage that comes with it) at a time when faces like hers were few and far between; and of being the closest thing America has to a real-life princess at the same time that Disney is getting around to its ragin’ Cajun version.
I accept that the global public is coming around to the “pit bull exterior” they so disliked during the 2008 campaign—but am convinced that there is a meaningful difference between affection and respect. A barking woman (and let's not forget, bitches bark) may be respected, but she doesn’t elicit the warm sentiments Crouch feels toward Michelle. Rather, I think that public adoration of Obama (rather like the self-styled “fighter” Hillary Clinton) is still leavened with a little bit of fear. Would Obama prefer pure affection? Perhaps—though fear is good for the eat-your-vegetables business of being FLOTUS.
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Hanna: I was at a "cowgirl" bachelorette party in Texas this weekend, and everyone was talking about Michelle's gardening look. "Heels????" one asked, incredulously. "To hoe?" (Texas is the capital of stylish outdoor clothing: Cowboy boots and hats look good on everyone, but they're also practical.) She looked silly, I agree, but I'm with Dahlia: Let's give Michelle a break. She's gotta wear something.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure you're right the White House garden is just another instance of bourgeois locavorism. Apparently, many Americans hit by the recession are planning vegetable gardens, or so this piece reported. It noted "double-digit" growth in the number of vegetable gardens and reported that many seed catalogs "have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers." Who knows, of course, whether those seeds will ever be planted.
I like the White House garden. And, in my eyes, it's not just another way of touting the so-called superiority of organic food you can buy at places like Whole Foods, aka Whole Paycheck. Yuppie fetishizaton of organic food, by the by, has led to real, and dangerous, confusion of "healthy" food with "organic"—or expensive—food, according to this New York Times piece. By contrast, the garden underscores the fact that vegetables and fruit are healthy, wholesome, and available (in season) to many. Democracy at work!
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Hanna and Dayo: Ouch. Imagine if Michelle Obama had been caught breaking ground on her victory garden in her mommy jeans and a plaid shirt. “What a Hag!” the headlines would read. “E-I-E-I-No!” She couldn't show arms. She couldn't wear pearls. So she opted to do what all women do when they have no good fashion choices: She wore plain, skinny, well-fitting black clothes and hoped her wardrobe would fade out behind the 23 fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School with their shovels and wheelbarrows and puffy coats. No such luck.
The Obama crop isn’t just slated to “delicately garnish the plates of dignitaries.” The plan is to send produce along to Miriam’s Kitchen, a local soup kitchen. This is a nice small lesson in stewardship and compassion that’s been spun as elitist and anti-feminist and inauthentic and out-of-touch because that’s how we talk about nice small gestures. Maybe there really is nothing to wear for those occasions on which one can do nothing right.
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This weekend, I sat through a couple of heated discussions about that photo on the front page of Saturday's New York Times, showing Michelle breaking ground for that vegetable garden on the South Lawn. The views divided roughly between: a) annoyed feminists, who said some version of: "enough with the happy shots of kiddies swinging and mom planting vegetables. What will they bring out next? The checkered apron? After all, in Chicago it was Michelle who wore the pants in the family." And then b) enviros, who said some verion of : "Cool! They finally got that vegetable garden on the South Lawn."
As for me, I'm mostly taken by the unspoken irony I read in the photo. Despite what readers of the New York Times think (and the White House, apparently), this urban locavore movement is something that's gospel among a small percentage of people who can afford to shop at the farmer's market (see example of excesses of movement here). Most people, I think, just go to Wal-Mart and plant pansies on the front lawn.
And while Michelle is concerned about childhood obesity, she doesn't strike me as a rip-up-the-front-lawn kind of gal. How do I know this? Look at what she's wearing. Those could be muck boots but I believe they have heels. And she's in a long sweater, fashionably belted, and all black. And her hair looks perfect. Ladybird at least put on some gardening gloves and a sun hat for the photos. Michelle looks like she's impatient to get to dinner. Between this and the sleeveless gowns, I'm beginning to think Michelle rebels against the strictures of first lady life silently, through her outfits, the sartorial equivalents of a middle finger.
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Seriously, I write about sex, so I know I'm not the best one to ask. But it seems like ever since—well, I want to say ever since the Obamas got elected, it's all sex all the time. At least in the media. Usually, there are periods of time when you'll see more sex-related stories than others. In the spring. If there's a political sex scandal. If another low-ranking celebrity spawns another low-budget sex tape. After election night, I noticed there was a slow but discernible increase in the number of sex-related "news" stories. Sure, there were the obvious ones—the "aren't the Obamas sexy" ones (click here for the latest from the meme that wouldn't die)—and then there were the recession ones—call girls are dropping their rates! housewives are selling sex toys to make extra money! recession sex: here's how to have it!—but I expected at some point for all the sex stories to stop. But they haven't. They keep, well, coming. So, did the Obamas spawn this mini-sex revolution—or was it all that hope—or is it just me?
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Can we talk about Caitlin Flanagan's underminer-y commentary on Michelle Obama's hostessing? Flanagan contributed a short essay to New York Magazine's cover story package on Mrs. O, and the entire thing is a litany of backhanded compliments:
Michelle Obama cuts a pretty figure in her big-and-tall gal ready-to-wear, and she has Joe Kennedy’s understanding of the power of family photographs to advance a political career. Like Hillary she lacks taste; her consumer preferences seem to have been rendered into being by the Mall at Short Hills. But ours is not the moment for taste. Or, for that matter, for a Nancy Reagan/Candy Spelling hyperattention to “gifting.”
Is Flanagan just a clear-eyed Obama observer, ignoring the swoons over Michelle's style and telling it like it is? Or is she just being contrarian to get our attention?
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From today's New York Times:
[Gourmet editor Ruth] Reichl would like the White House kitchen to issue regular news releases that describe what the first couple and their daughters are eating. (Then parents across the country could tell their children, "You know, Malia and Sasha were eating salad yesterday ...")
Excellent idea! What 10-year old would not benefit from national news releases detailing the number of calories she consumes daily? Why not release updates on Malia's BMI as well? Then the girls would know that they are eating salad for America.
The Times' article is on Michelle Obama's "Healthful Eating" agenda. I cringe every time Obama slips into domestic goddess mode, and this is no exception. I do not want the first lady's agenda to have anything to do with kitchens or children's libraries. I do not want her to submit recipes to cookbooks or talk about her efforts to make her husband pick up his dirty socks. I realize that Obama is trying to navigate an incredibly backward set of norms (Washington is a conservative place no matter who is in power), and that David Brooks will find her terrifying no matter what she does, but I wish she would resist the impulse to become our Nurturer-in-Chief. (When Hillary Clinton said that she would not "stay home and bake cookies," it was not the caloric content of cookies that concerned her.) The idea of Michelle doing talk shows about how to prepare kid-friendly broccoli dishes while her husband is discussing nuclear armament with Russia makes me want to do a lot of things, and planting a sustainable vegetable garden is not among them.
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With none other than Michelle Obama! After nine years of stubbornly holding off on appearances with well, anything that is not a saleable accessory (not even so much as a cabana boy), Oprah caves on the cover of her magazine, O. The dish:
Winfrey also has an interview with the new First Lady that addresses everything from the joys of White House pie to Obama's decorating philosophy, which seems to have a lot to do with sofas. "I want comfortable sofas," said Obama in the interview. "You've got to be able to make a fort with the sofa pillows! Everything must be fort-worthy."
As a child who constructed obstacle courses and secret islands from couch cushions, that's kind of an awesome sentiment (will the cushions, like the new White House playset, be engraved with former presidents' names?). More remarkable, however, is that Oprah may have actually realized that someone is more bankable than her. Barack Obama certainly holds his own as a magazine cover sales god, but Michelle is giving both her husband and the megastar who campaigned for him a run for their money--appearing on sellout covers from Vogue to People (the O photo boasts a rare sleeved Michael Kors look). Oprah acknowledged as much in the magazine: "people do judge a magazine by its cover, which is why it's important to me keep the cover of this one looking fresh," said Winfrey.
Snap! Lipstick Level: 95. Both Madame Os probably still buy their own gloss—but watching richer-than-sin Winfrey trying to hustle a little extra cash on the side is surely a sign of the apocalypse.
Earlier: Introducing the Lipstick Level: A Recessionometer
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I love this "We Can Do It!" T-shirt featuring Michelle Obama. The original star of J. Howard Miller's iconic poster has been widely misidentified as Rosie the Riveter; in fact, it was Geraldine Doyle. In any case, the first lady makes a suitable replacement as the 21st-century woman who has it all: brains, beauty, and brawn.
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I just finished paging through the latest issue of Vogue, which the editors have billed as the "Power Issue." In addition to a profile of cover girl Michelle Obama, there are pieces on Carla Bruni, Silda Wall Spitzer, Melinda Gates, and Queen Rania of Jordan. Exceptional, intelligent, accomplished women, all. But I couldn't help noticing that all are famous chiefly in their role as helpmate to an even more famous husband. And, yes, all have turned that role on its traditional head, and yes, all were just as exceptional and accomplished before their marriages. But would they have been included in the issue without that new last name? The grouping seems to suggest they would not. (To be fair, there is also a story on Twilight author and self-made woman Stephanie Meyer, but she's not mentioned either in the cover lines or the editor's note, and relegated all the way to the back of the book. It seems almost tacked on; one never wants to be too matchy-matchy, and they'd already used so much first spouse in this issue!)
I don't pick up Vogue expecting it to be Ms., but still, this issue is clearly intended as a self-conscious departure from the usual breathless accounts of socialites who have just vacationed somewhere fab, or started fashion companies on a whim. It's meant to be Serious with a capital S, and to explore the ways women wield tremendous power in spheres outside of fashion. And it's precisely that intended scope that makes the implied definition of how power can be gained appear so incredibly narrow. In an odd way, it's collectively insulting to all the women included in the issue, who—as the profiles within prove—are anything but narrow-minded themselves.
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It looks like perhaps beholding Obama as a mere saint might not be wishful thinking enough for some folks. An update from the far realms of fantastical projection, via a press release that popped up in my inbox this afternoon:
In a recent appearance at a Washington, D.C. elementary school, President Barack Obama indicated that his favorite superheroes are Spiderman and Batman. But who do Americans think Mr. Obama would be if he were a superhero, and what about the other inhabitants of the White House?
Recent poll data from E-Poll Market Research's E-Score® Character and E-Score® Celebrity surveys suggests that Mr. Obama's personality profile most closely matches that of Batman from the recently revamped film franchise, while Michelle Obama compares closely with Princess Fiona of the Shrek series. Additionally, Vice President Joe Biden's personality shows a close resemblance to Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots from Transformers. ...
... Can this trio of Superheroes turn the White House into a new Justice League? Can they vanquish the nasty recession, health care troubles and evildoers both foreign and domestic?
Uh-oh. Batman as played by Christian Bale has vexed politics at best—though I guess maybe Obama's comment that he'd meet with dictators without preconditions is kinda sorta like Batman's willingness "to go outside the law to meet terrorists 'on their own terms.' " (But Bale can't play our President Calm-Cool-Collected!) I guess I can buy Michelle as Fiona. (From Wikipedia: "She is really a very down-to-earth and independent woman who is a match for Shrek at burping and farting, is a loyal friend, and unlike princesses of fairy tales, an expert in hand-to-hand combat with knowledge of Chinese martial arts.") And while I'm no Transformers expert, it appears that Optimus, like Biden, is a bit of an old-school warrior for justice, had his original moment in the ‘80s, and has enjoyed a recent renaissance in the spotlight.
So who's Hillary? Who's Rahm? Who's Daschle? Who's our Joker?