The Intelligent, Successful, (Feminine?) Woman

Michelle Obama appeared on The View last week, looking beautiful in a simple black and white dress that she purchased from Black House White Market. She spoke softly about her husband’s campaign, her daughters’ end-of-the-year recitals, and her often mis-cited statement about having pride (or not having pride) in her country. Her appearance was largely in response to attacks from political opponents, most of which characterized her as an angry, unpatriotic, African-American woman who says things like “whitey” and gives “terrorist fist jabs” to her husband as congratulations. Most would agree that Mrs. Obama achieved her goals – she was not divisive or controversial, she expressed pride in her country (for all those who doubted it), and she came across as the feminine wife and mother that many think a First Lady should be.

While I think it was important for Mrs. Obama to show her softer side (merely for the purpose of getting voters to warm up to her) I can’t help but wonder why showing her softer side is synonymous with proving her femininity. I can’t help but question why being a more amiable woman is equated with talking about her duties as wife and mother rather than as intelligent, accomplished, Ivy-League graduate and successful attorney. Granted, the show wasn’t really about her career – it was about giving Americans (particularly American voters) a closer look at the woman who very well may be the next First Lady. But the sexist ideals to which women are subjected are forever present – in Mrs. Obama’s appearance on The View, in politics in general, and in everyday American life.

In the June 16th issue of Newsweek, Ramin Setoodeh addresses this unfortunate reality, questioning whether or not “the guys who held up IRON MY SHIRT signs for Hillary were the same ones who voted Sarah Jessica Parker as the unsexist woman alive in Maxim.” And though I’m sure there are plenty of women who are “unsexier” than Sarah Jessica (crack-smoking Amy Winehouse is one of the many that immediately come to mind), these women probably do not play a forty-something single woman who indulges in expensive shoes and calls her friends (rather than her lover) her soulmates. So why is our society so threatened by women like Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and the fictional Carrie Bradshaw? And why when they can’t be attacked for being unintelligent or unsuccessful, they are immediately targeted as unfeminine? Maybe it’s because it makes critics feel better, perhaps more comfortable in the presence of the so-called unconventional woman. Maybe it’s because our society’s perception of woman has come a long way, but still has a long way to go. But regardless of the root of such criticism, each of these individuals, both fictional and nonfictional, continue to make important strides in the evolution of the role of woman. And as Hillary Clinton noted in her concession speech, the glass ceiling has begun to crack – it is up to this generation of women to continue to break through.