ABSTRACT
Michelle Obama seems to have steered her way through the feminist morass with remarkable grace. She stands for a more mature feminism in which women no longer need to rebel against men and compete to be the same as men, as happened during feminism’s adolescence. Michelle Obama is also African-American and her experience of racism — more than sexism — is undoubtedly an important link between her and her husband and their shared vision of a plural society. Women’s image in the US changed radically in the 1920s with the vote and the effects of the First World War. The feminism that is emerging is more sophisticated and nuanced, and, most importantly, more able to encompass diversity—be it gender or race or simply different viewpoints. American feminism first really challenged this split in the 1960s, partly as a reaction to the Baby Boom years of the 1950s in which women were pushed out of the workplace back into the home.
