Michelle Obama is once again casting herself as a victim, lamenting that her many elite credentials and lucrative career have been overshadowed by her role as the wife of a president.
According to Gateway Pundit, the multi-millionaire former First Lady used a recent appearance on the feminist Call Me Daddy podcast to complain that Americans supposedly know her only as Barack Obamas spouse, despite her Ivy League pedigree and high-powered professional rsum. She recounted that, upon entering the White House, People would be like, Well, how do you know what to do in this role? And to me, it was clear that you dont know anything about what I did before I came here.
Obama then rattled off her credentials, insisting that her past accomplishments had been erased in the public mind once her husband entered the Oval Office. But I was like, well, I went to Princeton and Harvard. I mean, I practiced law. I was an assistant to the mayor in Chicago, she said, adding, I ran a nonprofit, a 501c3. I was a vice president for community relations at the University of Chicago Hospitals. I was a dean of students.
She complained that her identity had been reduced to that of a political spouse, despite her long record in elite institutions and well-paid positions. All of that just disappeared in the course of this whole election, and you now see me as just Barack Obamas wife, Obama said, framing herself as an overlooked professional rather than one of the most publicly celebrated women in modern politics.
The former First Lady also revisited her long-running fixation with fashion coverage, suggesting that media attention to her clothing somehow trivialized her. That quickly my shoes become the most important thing about me not unique to me, it can happen to the best of us, she said, before explaining that she tried to manage, rather than reject, the fashion narrative.
So, I shied away from fashion leading the conversation. But I knew I didnt completely control it, she continued, before describing how she and her team decided to weaponize style for political messaging. So, lets lean in. Lets lean in with what we do. Lets make sure that we have a plan and a strategy in place for how fashion, just like everything we did in the White House, would have meaning and impact.
Obama also used the platform to promote a familiar progressive theme: prioritizing career over family and traditional motherhood. You dont have to get off your career track. And I dont even recommend it, she said, urging women to stay in the workforce rather than step back to raise children.
She portrayed child rearing as a potential trap that leaves mothers empty-handed once their children become adults. Because kids grow up fast. And then theyre gone. Youve sacrificed everything. And you know, when they leave, they leave. They close the door and act like you never sacrificed, Obama remarked, a view sharply at odds with conservative ideals that honor motherhood as a vocation, not a burden.
As part of a broader podcast tour to promote her new book, Obama also injected racial politics into fashion and consumer choices, calling on listeners to scrutinize the racial identity of designers behind the labels they buy. If I hear of someone whose fashion that I like, and I know that theyre a person of color, I try to make it a point, but the clothes have to be available, she said, suggesting that shoppers should consciously tilt their wardrobes toward favored identity groups.
You know, I think we can all do some work to think about that balance in our wardrobes, you know, she added, before pressing her audience to audit their closets through an ideological lens. What does our closet look like and whos in it? Who are we supporting in it? You know, and I think if you have the money to buy Chanel, then you have the money to buy everybody.
And so let us be mindful, I think would be my advice, Obama concluded, turning even personal fashion choices into a political act, while many Americans struggling under inflation and economic uncertainty may find little sympathy for complaints from a wealthy, globally famous figure who continues to insist she is misunderstood and underappreciated.
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