The Meaning of Michelle Read online

  Let’s Move! also allows the First Lady to get out into the world and interact with folks outside the Beltway bubble. That is not a small thing. Think about it. It’s not really home if you can’t throw open a window for a breath of fresh air or take a walk alone or run to the store to grab some peanut butter by yourself. And virtually every word you say, any position on any subject, must first be filtered through a team of communication specialists.

  Serving as First Lady on any stage comes with enormous privileges. But in order to truly appreciate and honor everything First Lady Obama has achieved, we must first understand that all First Ladies—like most women—are still trapped in a box of outdated expectations.

  In First Lady Obama’s case, it is a fabulous white box on a very large stage, and she has done a lot to push the walls back and expand our understanding of what a political marriage can be. But the walls are still there, and they are still terribly restrictive.

  As I write this, the First Lady’s approval rating is remarkably high, given this era of scorched-earth media coverage. But while I think she deserves every percentage point and more, I wonder: To what degree is her popularity a function of how divine she looks in a dress? And how many of us envy her toned arms as much as her intellect? Just like every woman, she is still judged first and foremost by her appearance, and where she falls on a scale of “fierce” to “frumpy.”

  Because we are pummeled with airbrushed, magazine-cover versions of Michelle Obama, it’s easy to forget who she was before becoming became First Lady. The brilliant Harvard Law student who marched in the streets to push her school to hire minority professors doesn’t get talked about, and have we forgotten the highly capable executive who worked as Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago? How does Michelle’s past connect to the Michelle Obama who became First Lady? Are her poll numbers a reflection of her impressive history and attributes?

  Every political spouse, myself included, must weigh how her words and actions will reflect on her partner. The First Lady learned early on that opponents of her husband would not hesitate to twist her words to suit their purposes. I’m thinking about that time back in 2008, when they tried to paint her as Benedict Arnold after she said “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.” The meaning of her statement was twisted when it was shortened to, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” When you go through nonsense like that, it’s only natural to become cautious.

  And of course there are different rules for Black women—the judgments come more quickly, and they are far more difficult to overturn. Doesn’t it make a lot of sense for a no-nonsense kind of woman like Michelle to survive this madness by moving through the world with “show, don’t tell” and “if you can’t be free, be a mystery” determination?

  But I still feel a little cheated. Have we made any progress over the years? Will our next First Lady have an easier time of it, or will the box Michelle Obama so valiantly expanded shrink back to its previous dimensions?

  * * *

  America’s reaction to the passing of First Lady Nancy Reagan is a fascinating case study of how far we have come—and how far we still have to go.

  I was stunned by the tone of her obituaries and remembrances. Sure, there was the typical pablum about her fabulous frocks (the New York Post: “Behold, Nancy Reagan’s 10 greatest outfits”), but all of a sudden the press couldn’t contain their praise for her strength, her influence, her unbreakable partnership with President Reagan—qualities that were held against her as First Lady. In fact, when she was in the White House some three decades ago, critics labeled her a “dragon lady” and implied that she should be seen and not heard. Every move she made was viewed with suspicion, and many Americans seemed to think she abdicated her right to be a free-thinking woman of action when her husband became president.

  Apparently Nancy Reagan thought otherwise. She considered it her right to speak her mind and offer advice whenever it might be helpful to him. After all, the oath of office does not override the vows of marriage.

  Now that she’s gone, America seems to agree with First Lady Reagan. But no such luxury has been afforded to her successors; the specter of being smeared as a “dragon lady” or worse—much worse—has not gone away. First Lady Barbara Bush was labeled “America’s grandmother” and is largely perceived as a traditional First Lady, although it only takes a few clicks to find articles that question whether she had an undue influence over her husband (or her sons). First Lady Laura Bush was often portrayed as someone whose passion was books, not public life, which is surely a gross oversimplification. And of course, Secretary Hillary Clinton’s experience as First Lady is proof of how vehemently some will fight the idea of our president taking full advantage of his partner’s skills and knowledge. If Secretary Clinton returns to the White House in January, it will be fascinating to see how First Gentleman Bill Clinton is covered by the press. My guess is that we won’t see many slideshows documenting his ten greatest outfits.

  As a society, it is long past time for us to move beyond these “isms” and realize that we all benefit when our elected leaders are blessed with equally strong partners. We need to start celebrating female achievement in real time, not after the fact. And let’s start with Michelle Obama. We don’t hear much these days about her influence behind the scenes. But as I recall that backstage conversation we shared and the assured look on her face as she dropped her hard-earned knowledge on me, I am certain that we haven’t yet begun to understand the crucial role she played as partner to her husband.

  I hope we will, one day soon. I am delighted that the First Lady has launched her global initiative, Let Girls Learn. And she has said that she plans to do some writing too. I, for one, have my fingers crossed for a memoir that charts her remarkable journey.

  Perhaps one day we will sit together over a cup of hot tea or glass of wine and chat about the road ahead and the paths we have carved out for ourselves.

  My prayer is that this book is just the beginning of a celebration that will only become louder and more jubilant, as Michelle Obama’s legacy grows alongside our gratitude for her giving so generously of herself.

  Becoming the Wife

  CATHI HANAUER

  The truth is, I don’t know much about Michelle Obama, other than what everyone knows. She’s tall, she’s radiant, and yeah, the woman rocks some beautiful clothes. Her smile is both drop-dead and genuine. She can dance, and she’s brilliant. And her arms? I can’t even.

  In fact, as a tiny, scrawny white woman who couldn’t dance if the floor was on fire, wouldn’t know a Jason Wu dress from a Target bargain frock, and spends most of her work day in bed under fourteen blankets (I’m a writer, I live in New England, we keep the heat low), I wouldn’t be surprised if someone suggested I’m about as unlike Michelle Obama as two women roughly the same age with two children can be. Yet, in one way—and it’s an important one—I really identify with Michelle. And that’s this: She and I have both had to learn to be The Wife.

  * * *

  For me, it worked like this. When I met my husband, Dan, I was a 27-year-old magazine editor in New York, working for a well-known monthly in a job that had both glamour and perks. I had landed an internship there the summer before senior year of college; they’d hired me back on graduation, and I’d worked my way up to senior editor by age 25—not so unlike Michelle (other than, okay, our salaries, educations, credentials…), who by 25 was already a successful corporate lawyer in Chicago. My job was fun, challenging, exhilarating. But—like Michelle—I wanted something that felt, to me, a little more meaningful. She wanted, it’s now known, to get out of corporate law and do something that would allow her to “give back” and “exhort others to do the same.” I wanted to write novels.

  And so, after a few years of taking fiction workshops at night and spending weekends scribbling away, I applied to M
FA programs. I picked one that was both affordable and a nice life-change (Hello, University of Arizona), traded my full-time job for a monthly advice column, at the same magazine, that would mostly fund my new lower-cost life … and off I went to spend a blissful two years in the desert immersed in reading and writing.

  That’s where I met Dan.

  To be accurate, we met when I flew out to visit the school and asked the director for names of some women in the program I might talk to. Dan was not a woman (nor is he now), but somehow his name made the list, and all the women were too busy while he was happy to grab a free lunch.

  * * *

  Michelle met Barack when, as a 25-year-old associate at the Sidley & Austin Chicago law firm, she was asked to mentor a summer associate named Barack Obama, a 27-year-old Harvard Law School prodigy who was described by one of his professors as possibly the most gifted student she’d ever taught. Michelle, no sucker for superlatives (she herself was once called, by a partner at S&A, “possibly the most ambitious associate that I’ve ever seen”), was instantly suspicious. What’s with that name? she’s reputed to have thought. And was she really being asked to mentor this dude just because they were both Black in a mostly White firm? Justifiably, she approached the whole thing with a hint of wariness. As she told David Mendell, the author of Obama: From Promise to Power, “I figured he was one of these smooth brothers who could talk straight and impress people.” Still, she took him to lunch, despite his “bad sport jacket and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.”

  I, too, had been suspicious when I met Dan. Why was this person available for lunch when so many women weren’t? At the time—in year four of the three-year program—he was teaching a class or two and working on his writing until he figured out what was next. Smart, calm, and contemplative, Dan was a nice contrast to my control-freak, first-born, Type A mania. (In fact, as the second-born of two and a reliable Type B, he was held back in kindergarten because he barely talked before age five; his older brother did the talking for him.) Over sandwiches, I peppered him with questions that were as much about him as about the graduate program.

  After college, he’d moved to Park City, Utah, where he worked as a ski instructor (winters) and a janitor (all seasons) for a few years until mopping floors got old and he applied to graduate school and ambled down to Tucson. At the time we met, he was earning about an eighth of what I was, living in a small room in a house with two women (i.e., someone else could be counted on to replace the toilet paper and wipe the counters), and driving a 12-year-old Subaru with nonworking A/C (this was the desert, remember) and 175,000 miles on it.

  Similarly, Barack’s car, when he met Michelle, “had so much rust on it that there was a rusted hole in the passenger door,” she told her local newspaper, the Hyde Park Herald. He was broke, his wardrobe was “cruddy,” and he “wasn’t ever going to try to impress me with things.” And yet, somehow he charmed her. After their initial lunch, he took her to a community organizing meeting, and she saw the way he connected with people (getting a hint of the big dreams he had—and that he might actually accomplish some of them). He was “the real deal,” she said. Soon they were dating, and now, rather than being put off by his differences—his white Kansas grandmother, that he was raised “on an island” (Hawaii)—she was intrigued.

  Around the same time, 1,700 miles southwest of there, Dan was, for his part, charming me. He wore faded jeans, faded shirts, big (faded) work boots, sunglasses that, when not on his eyes, dangled from a stretchy thing around his neck. (I wore, as he tells it, black Ray Bans that covered most of my face and an enormous black leather coat in the oven-like heat.)

  Still, I wouldn’t fall for Dan—or believe he was quite the star he was reputed to be in the program—until I saw his supposedly brilliant stories for myself. So I requested some writing samples from his classes, including, if he dared, his own. And before I knew it, I was sitting in a bubble bath reading one of his stories, and going, “Whoa. This guy can write.”

  * * *

  One thing led to another, for us and for Michelle and Barack, and one day—in fact, less than three months apart the exact same year—1992—all four of us married: Dan and me, Barack and Michelle. She changed her name; I didn’t; she wore a much more traditional wedding dress (mine was tea length, strapless, and, okay, a little slutty). And then all four of us continued to pursue our work. In Dan’s and my case, we maintained separate residences at first, since I didn’t want a husband distracting me from the novel I was writing. Michelle, it’s been said, felt similarly about her career: “Barack and I have lived very separate professional lives,” she said of their pre-POTUS/FLOTUS years. “He’s done his thing, I do my thing.”1

  Dan eventually finished the writing program, with enough published stories to comprise a collection. But he didn’t have luck publishing the book as a whole—which might have led to a teaching job somewhere—so we moved back to New York, and he got a job as an assistant program editor at Stagebill magazine, making $18K a year. Then—praise the lord—I sold my novel in a two-book deal.

  We lived in a one-bedroom walkup in a mouse-friendly tenement above a bakery, where the power went out weekly, the couple upstairs fought so violently we once had to call the cops, and, at times, brown water ran mysteriously down our bathroom walls. But we were surviving, sort of, and pursuing our dreams, more or less.

  And then I got pregnant. The baby was planned and wanted; we were both 31, ready to attempt a family. But the triple whammy, for me, of nonstop “morning” sickness plus trying to learn how the hell one takes care of a child; a second novel under contract that was proving much harder to write than the first; and the loss of the devoted and insightful community of writers an MFA program can provide—all along with the expense of living in New York—took its toll. And that’s when—like Michelle!—I first realized that motherhood was not something I could do on the side while fulfilling my work ambitions. The next decade for both of us was a nonstop flurry of work, marriage, running a household, and birthing, nursing, and raising two young children. Of it, Michelle—who eventually left corporate law first to work for the mayor, then to direct a program that provided leadership training and mentoring for young people, and then, by the time her older daughter was seven, to be a VP at the University of Chicago Hospitals—has said: “I wake up every morning wondering how on the earth I am going to pull off that next minor miracle of getting through the day.”2

  My own similar struggles took the form of creating and editing an essay anthology called The Bitch in the House, which, when published in 2002, became a bestseller. The book was about realizing, once we walked through the doors feminism had opened for my generation and Michelle’s, that at the end of the day, you still were The Mother, The Homemaker, The Wife—all in a manner your husband wasn’t. Put another way: Unless you were one of those rare women who could relinquish the role of Primary Parent and were married to one of those rare men who could and would take it on, your priority had to be the children and running the household. It’s been said that Barack is a loving, compassionate father, and I’m sure that’s the truth; after all, why wouldn’t his naturally warm personality carry down to the way he raises his kids? But it’s also been said that Michelle, gorgeous as she is in designer dresses, still wears the pants in that family when it comes to the family, and I’m sure that’s the truth, too. Someone, after all, has to buy the kids’ clothing, set up the parent-teacher conferences, and know when the daughters’ basketball games are (not to mention bring the sliced oranges on Snack Day and get both parents to show up now and then)—even in the White House. And it’s hard to imagine that someone being the same man who, as a U.S. Senator in 2004—and just as Michelle was asking herself those hard questions about work-life balance—was, as described in the Washington Post, “dazzling the country with his eloquence at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and being talked about as a presidential candidate”;3 even harder to imagine that same someone being the man who was responsible
for both the death of Osama bin Laden and the passing of health care reform in America.

  Thus, for the Obamas, that person was, and still is, Michelle. Not so much when she married Barack, but when she became a mother, and then when she agreed, albeit reluctantly, first to take leave from her lucrative job to campaign for Barack, and eventually to move her daughters and her own mother from Chicago to D.C. so her husband could become president. In all of those ways, Michelle, arguably as brilliant, talented, and capable as her husband, gave up at least some of the carefully constructed and nurtured career path she saw for herself in order to be President Barack Obama’s faithful wife and FLOTUS.

  This is not, mind you, to say that Michelle quit working when her luggage showed up in D.C. The woman is not sitting around eating presidential bon bons at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, though I certainly hope the perks of her job allow her a few now and then. But what did change, work-wise, for Michelle—as it did for me, and as it does for so many college-educated women, particularly once children are involved—is that we both reached a point in our lives and marriages when we agreed to become the “helpmate”—The Wife—as our husbands took on the more important and lucrative work role. We did this for the greater good of our marriages, our families, and in Michelle’s case, the world; and maybe even, as mothers, for ourselves. Michelle became Mrs. President. And I became Mrs. Modern Love.

  * * *

  This, for me, happened after I published The Bitch in the House, and then Dan followed with The Bastard on the Couch (subtitled 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings about Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom). Cute, right? The New York Times thought so. They asked us to bring that kind of material to their pages by starting an as-yet-unnamed personal essay column about relationships.