First Lady Michelle Obama
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And so the debate about What She Means shifted again, but this time it was feminists wondering if she or her handlers were using the J. Crew twin sets and Donna Reed hair to reassure white voters that "she's just like you." Under the liberal magnifying glass, Michelle was suddenly a victim, forced by her husband's ambitions and society's expectations to tone it down, soften it up, step back. "How will Michelle Obama feel as she becomes what she has long resisted--an extension of her husband?" asked Rebecca Traister in a Salon article called "The Momification of Michelle Obama." She was giving up her job, her $212,000-a-year salary and her independence, which prompted the commentariat to lament the sacrifices she was having to make in terms of her identity. Even her own mother told PEOPLE that "Michelle had worked so hard to get where she was. I kind of feel bad for her."
Asked about this analysis now, Michelle rejects the idea that she has had to sacrifice at all. "I know women who have given up a lot of themselves," she says. "And there were times in my marriage where I put stuff aside. This isn't one of those times." And she didn't change, she insists; people just had time to get to know her. On the other hand, she brought to the White House a longtime friend and marketing executive who, as social secretary, describes her job as managing "the Obama brand." In any case, by the time she held the Bible for her husband on Inauguration Day, her approval rating had jumped nearly 40 points. And she was just getting started.
Girl Power
After four months in the White House and two years on the campaign trail, she's learned how to help people relax around her so she can get down to business. She makes fun of herself and of her husband, and teases a male reporter about his struggle to accurately describe her outfit during her European tour. "You didn't know you'd be covering cardigans," she says, but that's O.K., since her husband doesn't know cable-knit from argyle either. When she tries to explain why she's constantly hugging people, she reaches out and grabs your arm and holds it. I'd be intimidated too to meet the First Lady, she says. "That's why I'm so touchy with kids, because I think if I touch them and I hug them, that they'll see that it's real, and then they'll relax and breathe and actually kind of enjoy the time and make use of it."