09 July 2009
Michelle Obama Presents Modern Image for Black Women
Helping families find work-life balance will be one of her causes
Washington — Every time Michelle Obama appears as first lady, the combination of her professional and domestic success challenges stereotypical media images of black women in America.
As the first black woman to become first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama is shattering generations-old stereotypes about black women and working mothers. “To have a black woman in that position brings black women into the forefront as full-fledged American women and, more importantly, ladies,” Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, told America.gov. “It affirms black women’s womanhood, their humanity, their femininity.”
A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Michelle Obama had a successful career as a corporate lawyer and executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before her husband, Barack Obama, won the U.S. presidential election. The accomplished professional woman with a stable marriage and two cute, well-behaved daughters contrasts sharply with media images of black women as overweight, overbearing figures of fun in slapstick movies or hypersexual dancers in music videos.
“Popular depictions either cast them as emasculating shrews or sex objects to be exploited,” Gillespie said. “For a generation of young girls, they now get to see a very positive image of what a black woman looks like. … She’s in a good position to be a positive image for American society and also for black America.”
The history of black women being stigmatized in the United States comes out of slavery, which tore apart black families and allowed white male slave owners to abuse black women, Bart Landry, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, told America.gov.
After the Civil War ended slavery, black women “were seen as part of the work force that would rebuild the economy of the South,” Landry said. While many white women were shunning paid jobs in favor of “the cult of domesticity” prevalent in the 19th century, black women “were ridiculed for playing the lady.”
Though negative overall, this message had the side benefit of freeing black women to pursue career success without the ambivalence that many white women experienced when they left the domestic sphere, said Landry, author of Black Working Wives.
Indeed, black women today are more likely to achieve higher education degrees than black men as black women earn 57 percent of all bachelor’s and professional degrees awarded to African Americans, according to Census Bureau data. More education generally translates into higher earning power.
Thus, Michelle Obama presents another important image: a black woman who is successful professionally but also a devoted mother and wife. During her husband’s presidential campaign, she insisted on being home for ballet recitals or sports that involved her daughters and only rarely stayed away overnight, according to David Colbert, author of Michelle Obama: An American Story.
“Black women are extremely encouraged and proud to see someone like Michelle Obama in the White House,” Tarshia Stanley, an associate professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, told America.gov. “She’s representative of a huge group of people who take their mothering seriously, who do it well, but haven’t gotten press.”
The night that Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, he thanked his wife as “my best friend for the last 16 years, the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next first lady.”
“All women admire the way he speaks about her and values her. It’s very appealing,” Liza Mundy, a Washington Post staff writer and author of Michelle: A Biography, told America.gov. “For African-American women to be able to say to their sons, ‘This is an example of a relationship,’ is very valuable.”
Both Barack and Michelle Obama have spoken frankly about the difficulty in balancing home life with her work and Barack Obama’s political career.
“There’s no question that it was tough. She had this very demanding job at the university,” Colbert said. “If he was at work, he was far away. If he wasn’t, he was thinking about it. He was always writing a book.”
Eventually, Michelle Obama started getting up at 4:30 a.m. to exercise at the gym on the days that her husband was in town. When the girls woke up, Barack Obama would have to feed and dress them because she wasn’t there, he said.
As first lady, she plans to advocate for work-life balance. But even if Barack Obama hadn’t won the presidential race, she hoped his candidacy would correct misperceptions of black families.
“Michelle Obama said from the start of the campaign, ‘If all I do is show that we’re not all from welfare families or [all] athletes, but we’re ordinary professionals in functional families, that will be enough,’” Mundy said.
Photo Gallery: U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama Through the Years