Over on my blog and on Racialicious, I recently wrote about the difference in how white women and black women view the MSM’s feminizing of First Lady Michelle Obama (i.e. it’s focus on her clothes, appearance and role as a mother.)
Most mainstream media are on board the FLOTUS love train. They call the First Lady beautiful. They love her unique style. They cherish those awesome, toned arms. They love her modern marriage. They celebrate her role as a mother. All of this talk about appearance and being a wife and mother–stereotypical feminine ideals–is driving some white feminists to distraction. They think this focus diminishes Michelle Obama’s considerable intellect and professional achievements. Most black women I know see things differently. The so-called feminine ideal is a tyranny to all women, but it is white women who stand as its embodiment. In the public consciousness, black women are almost never the most beautiful ones or the good wives or mothers. White women see Michelle Obama getting pushed into a feminized role and lament that this always happens to women. Many black woman recognize that it rarely happens to us and we are happy that people are finally recognizing our femininity.
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Neither the white ideal nor the black stereotype–Michelle Obama is fiercely herself. And seeing that self lauded as beautiful, strong and feminine does some good for black women and girls. Read more…
In that post, I didn’t spend much time on Michelle Obama’s role as a mother. I should have, because much has been made of the Princeton grad and accomplished attorney’s decision to focus on motherhood, while her husband is in office.
In Salon’s Broadsheet column, Rebecca Traister wrote:
But with progress comes inevitable regress, and in our stouthearted dash to fit this family into a comfortably familiar tableau, we have fallen back into other, far too familiar, cultural traps: you know, like forgetting everything we’ve learned in recent decades about female achievement and identity.
The majority of the coverage of Michelle Obama in the week since her husband was elected has centered on her clothes. Not just the firecracker of a dress she donned on Election Night, but on her personal style, and what she will wear to the Inaugural balls.
Then there have been the oceans of transition pieces, about the adjustments the family will have to make as they move to Washington. In Newsweek came news that Michelle has been consulting with her husband’s former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton, talking not about politics or law but about how to raise children in the White House.
The Associated Press wondered what kind of first lady Michelle will be, and concludes, “the kind of first lady this country has not seen in decades.” You mean, the kind with a high-powered job? No, “the mother of young children.” True enough, and the AP story did include the fact that Michelle is known to be her husband’s closest advisor. But it made sure to emphasize the campaign’s assertions that “she is not interested in shaping policy or reserving a seat for herself at her husband’s decision-making table. She prefers, at least for now, to focus on easing the transition for Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 — getting them in new schools, settled and comfortable with a new way of life.” Indeed, Michelle herself has been flogging the term “mom-in-chief” as the cheerily unthreatening title she’ll assume when she gets to the White House. Read more…
Traister’s point of view echoes that of many of my white feminist sisters. I’ve read similar posts across the blogosphere. The problem is that this point of view imposes the white female experience on women of color, specifically in this case, black women.
Black women have never been viewed as primarily mothers of our OWN children. (ARP columnist Deesha Philyaw wrote an excellent article for Bitch magazine about the invisibility of black mothers in books and media about parenting.) When it was thought that women (read: white women) were too delicate of mind and body to work hard in and outside of the home, black women were largely excluded from that bit of sexism. We were the work horses.
Our culture is comfortable with black women working. In pop culture, we pop up as police women and judges and attorneys and professional caretakers, etc. But whenever we pop up, we rarely are given real lives outside of our work. The love of significant others or children or friends is usually reserved for the “ideal” woman.
Also, when it comes to real life choices, fewer black women, of any social strata, are able or expected to make the choice to be full-time mothers, regardless of what they might want to do.
Sexism subjects women to many tyrannies, but intersectionality ensures that all women are not subjected to the same ones. That America recognizes Michelle Obama as the black mother of black children, that she is comfortable and able to make the personal decision to choose motherhood for a time, I think, is a good thing. It represents a step outside of the stereotype trifecta of Mammy, Sapphire and Jezebel that is the black woman’s burden.
Readers?
I have been ignoring most of the fawning fluff pieces about Michelle Obama and family, to be honest, but I have a generally positive impression of what she’s done so far and the way she’s raised her children. They appear to be happy, smart, well-behaved little girls who are wisely kept out of the limelight for the most part and Obama appears to be a very happy husband. A happy family in the White House is no small feat and will be good PR for the U.S. for the next four years. It’s also widely known that she’s an intelligent woman who ran a hospital at one point, so I don’t think she’s being pushed into the “milk and cookies, stand by your man” role.
I understand this perspective. However, I will have to disagree with some points. The MSM is still viewing Michelle through the white female ideal, so we can’t jump to think they’re finally seeing us for who we are. What I hear from them is that she’s putting on a great performance of white femininity and they’re congratulating her for doing what they thought no black woman could do – subject themselves to a male the way that white women have already been culturally trained/forced to do. I hear them say ‘Yay! She’s given in to the pressures of patriarchy! Look little girls, feminism/womanism is craziness! We’ll reward you if you act like that!’
Their problem with us is that we often don’t know our place as women, period, regardless of race. So I think this is very regressive. The only way for a black woman to be respected is for her to revert to 50s style whiteness. June Cleaver. Their wish is that if we all adopted those ’50s family values’ then blacks wouldn’t be so bad. Hell, if all women reverted, then all wars would end and there would be peace on earth.
This to me is problematic because we are doing what we criticize so much – sacrificing on side of the fight for the other. We are putting blackness in front. It’s not about women working outside the home only, it’s an acknowledgment that females are no less qualified to run things. We’re putting that aside just to get recognition from white males (the supreme patriarchs) that black women are ‘women’ too. That’s a big sacrifice. Just because we worked out of the home first doesn’t mean we have to give that back in order to be crowned as worthy of being feminine. [I won't even go into the masculinity/femininity definitions and their numerous limitations.]
We were pioneers on that front, under some reprehensible circumstances. But that doesn’t mean we throw it away because we learned to do something as a result of slavery and racism. We learned/re-learned to read, learned/re-learned to play music and created our own culture from traditions lost. We don’t throw that away just because we learned it during some painful times. We take the skills learned and use it to move forward.
We must do that here. We take what we learned and redefine what it means to be female. It’s not all about roses and pink dresses and frolicking with the kids. It’s about being so much more. Michelle still has an opportunity to show us that women can be more than dresses and babies, and still have people fall in love with her. If it takes a black woman to lead the way, then we should be celebrating.
[Side note: We have so much more work to do because if we are to see women as equal contributors to society, it doesn't mean they only have to go outside the home to be valued but it also doesn't mean that when we do, we find other women to take care of our children. Work should be divided between parents but we still have women working full time and coming home to their second full time jobs. And not enough is being highlighted about Michelle being the 'breadwinner' for many years, so if they want to talk about modern marriages, leaving that out seems suspect to me.]
I now end my novel.
Oh, @Tami, I *just* read what you said over at Racialicious:
No. I don’t want the press to focus exclusively on Michelle Obama’s appearance, or her role as a mother and wife, or any of those other stereotypically “women things.” I, too, would prefer that we spend time talking about her stellar accomplishments. But in the war for equality their are many battles. The struggle to have women accepted as intellectual and professional equals to men is one. The struggle to have black women accepted as equally desireable and valuable(whatever that means in our culture) as “the ideal” is another. We needn’t focus on one to the exclusion of the other.
I agree. I am just finding that it’s becoming about one or the other – as to why we have one (white feminists) or the other (black womanists) and my wanting both gets torn between the two camps.
Let me know what you think…
“What I hear from them is that she’s putting on a great performance of white femininity and they’re congratulating her for doing what they thought no black woman could do – subject themselves to a male the way that white women have already been culturally trained/forced to do. I hear them say ‘Yay! She’s given in to the pressures of patriarchy! Look little girls, feminism/womanism is craziness! We’ll reward you if you act like that!’
I have to disagree with this sentiment. The point of feminism is to allow women CHOICE, not to push us all into a new, stereotyped ideal. If Michelle chooses to be a full-time mom, it does not mean that she is subjecting herself to a man, or to a prevailing culture. To say that is insulting to all moms who make this choice. I hate this being described as “regressive” or “reverting”. There is a whole new world of smart, savy women out there, working and not. I don’t see Michelle as a June Cleaver type. She is a strong woman with a strong voice who doesn’t seem to be “playing dumb” or changing her personality the way many have done in the past.
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The only full-time mom in the White House is Mrs. Robinson. The truth is Michelle DOESN’T do it all. And she never has. What might we all be capable of if we could get up every morning knowing that our children were going to have the best possible care that day, all day, for as long as we needed it?
Just because we worked out of the home first doesn’t mean we have to give that back in order to be crowned as worthy of being feminine. [I won’t even go into the masculinity/femininity definitions and their numerous limitations.]
We were pioneers on that front, under some reprehensible circumstances. But that doesn’t mean we throw it away because we learned to do something as a result of slavery and racism. We learned/re-learned to read, learned/re-learned to play music and created our own culture from traditions lost. We don’t throw that away just because we learned it during some painful times. We take the skills learned and use it to move forward.
Kandeezie, this straight, married sista has just fallen in love with you! You’ve said exactly what I’ve said again and again when this topic comes up.
I also want to add on the issue of Michelle’s “choice.” Neither Michelle nor Barack are stupid people. They both knew that America is not ready for a professional, careerist working-mom First Lady. As such there would have to be an image change.
So while there was a choice made, it might not have been made simply because Michelle thought, “hey, after all this time of enjoying being a working mom, now I want to do something different.” It might have come down to, “I know that this is a shift I have to make in order to help my husband and not upset the applecart of the American perceptions of the First Couple.
My problem is that in 2009 an incoming First Lady like Michelle still has to consider what Americans can and cannot handle in the image of the First Lady when deciding what image she will choose to adopt. It means that a sista like myself would NEVER be accepted as a First Lady. And that is really sad.
Liana, dead on! Michelle chose it because of the presidency and what Barack’s chances would be if she didn’t stay at home.
My problem is that in 2009 an incoming First Lady like Michelle still has to consider what Americans can and cannot handle in the image of the First Lady when deciding what image she will choose to adopt.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
hillary clinton attempted to flywith being first lady, ala the medcal system. she had to backtrack real fast, to help her husbands position. the consensus didnt like how forcefully and powerfully she acted.
this is every womens problem.
I’m a Chicano male myself. At least in my head, I think I can imagine the conflict feminists could have. You all just keep communicating and working. You have come a long way in making this country better and, as long as you never let your voices be silenced you can’t lose. For the record, I think African-American women are beautiful, bold, and excellent parents.