"This Is What a Feminist Looks Like"

August 4, 2016 6:57 AM

SL Glamour. "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" by Barack Obama
posted by roomthreeseventeen (46 comments total)

"We need to keep changing a culture that shines a particularly unforgiving light on women and girls of color. " Representation MATTERS!!!!

"I want them to know that it’s never been just about the Benjamins; it’s about the Tubmans too." Damn. I love Barack Obama.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:04 AM on August 4, 2016 [48 favorites]

This paired with Justin Trudeau telling folks that he's a feminist when he was elected is lovely.
posted by Kitteh at 7:10 AM on August 4, 2016 [10 favorites]

Fantastic. Gonna miss you, sir.

I always appreciate it when men make this kind of genuine stand, if only because men pay better attention to other men, even the well-meaning dudes. (At this point, though, most of the guys who explicitly don't care to listen to women probably don't believe Obama is an American citizen.)

I hoped he would be wearing one of those "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" T-shirts. Myself I have never gotten one, because, frankly, I don't think it would surprise anyone viewing the T-shirt upon me, plus I didn't want to get insulted by passersby. Maybe I should go for it. Or perhaps getting a shirt with a big H would suffice.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:10 AM on August 4, 2016 [8 favorites]

It will be just the best if President Obama becomes one of the most prolific writers post-office, I bet he could do an insanely great blog.
posted by sammyo at 7:13 AM on August 4, 2016 [60 favorites]

I can look back now and see that, while I helped out, it was usually on my schedule and on my terms. The burden disproportionately and unfairly fell on Michelle.

this is an important realization, and one i need to think about in my own life.
posted by dismas at 7:17 AM on August 4, 2016 [70 favorites]

I would personally like to see him become a prolific writer of majority opinions.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 7:18 AM on August 4, 2016 [125 favorites]

Obama is as close as anybody has gotten to actually making me like a US president.
posted by signal at 7:30 AM on August 4, 2016 [11 favorites]

It will be just the best if President Obama becomes one of the most prolific writers post-office, I bet he could do an insanely great blog.

"That goddamn pothole still isn't fixed. I called the Secretary of Transportation again, but he says 'You're not the President anymore, Mr. President', like that makes any sense at all."
posted by Etrigan at 7:35 AM on August 4, 2016 [60 favorites]

This is a fantastic article. The fundamental decency, competence and dignity Obama restored to the office cannot be more starkly contrasted with the GOP nominee. While I have strong disagreements with him on a number of issues, I remain convinced that he was the rock of stability that may have been the only thing keeping Congress and the Supreme Court from pulling America into the abyss over the past few years.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 7:38 AM on August 4, 2016 [38 favorites]

Reconsidering, I shouldn't have said restored. He brought those virtues to new heights.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 7:39 AM on August 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

"My, but what big ears the POTUS has."
"All the better to hear you with."

This is a man who listens.
posted by drlith at 7:50 AM on August 4, 2016 [12 favorites]

Feminism is Freedom t-shirt.
posted by jillithd at 7:50 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Barack Obama is the forty-fourth President of the United States.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 7:50 AM on August 4, 2016 [8 favorites]

I have such a big problem with some US policies Obama has a hand in -- but he seems to be a genuinely intelligent, caring man. He's reflective in a way that most politicians aren't.

We need more presidents like him.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:52 AM on August 4, 2016 [10 favorites]

This is great. I would like to have seen this, or perhaps a slightly edited version not addressing the reader as a woman, simultaneously published in a men's magazine. I bet Glamour has some brother-magazines from the same publisher and it's not too late (welll it's too late for simultanous, but close enough).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:52 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, very huge shout out to the president for the inclusion of gender identity in this piece.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:57 AM on August 4, 2016 [11 favorites]

Countess Elena: I hoped he would be wearing one of those "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" T-shirts. Myself I have never gotten one, because, frankly, I don't think it would surprise anyone viewing the T-shirt upon me, plus I didn't want to get insulted by passersby. Maybe I should go for it. Or perhaps getting a shirt with a big H would suffice.

I have and often wear one of those t-shirts. I've gotten nothing but positive reactions to it, but now, depressingly, I'm thinking the reactions might be different for women.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:23 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

It is certainly true that raising a daughter raises one's consciousness about what it's like to be a woman in this world. I always thought of myself as a feminist (cis man), but I didn't know the half of it. Now and then I wear a shirt she gave me while she was in college "This is What a Feminist Looks Like." A waitress thought it was unusual enough to take a snapshot of me. After reading an Intersectional Feminism thread on Facebook (a man can't be a feminist, they opined) I thought I'd cross out "Feminist" and write "Ally," but when sharing this thought with a bunch of high school students, they said, "No, don't do that!" They went on to share their perception of an "ally" as someone who just sits on the sidelines.

Anyway, yeah, good writing, Prez Barry.
posted by kozad at 8:29 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can we just do away with the *hand in front of mouth*th Amendment this one time and just let him have a third term? Please?!
posted by snwod at 8:32 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is what a feminist looks like. (Warning: photo of me)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:47 AM on August 4, 2016 [14 favorites]

Are we suuuuuuuure we can't just elect him for another term, by acclaim?
posted by Lynsey at 9:19 AM on August 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

> Are we suuuuuuuure we can't just elect him for another term, by acclaim?
> posted by Lynsey at 12:19 PM on August 4

FOUR MORE YEARS!

(I'm trying, Lynsey)
posted by magstheaxe at 9:24 AM on August 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'd adopt the slogan "This is what a feminist looks like," but too many people already think feminists are all fat and ugly, and I don't want to play into their stereotypes. :(
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:26 AM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

On the night after the Brexit vote, I was in a hotel bar in Ireland with a very international crowd. Talk turned to the U.S. election and why we couldn't just reelect Obama. I explained that we'd have to repeal the 22nd amendment and the general reaction was, "Why aren't you doing that?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to vote for Hillary, but I am seriously going to miss voting for this man. He has done so much to fight the culture of toxic masculinity in this country by example, and that matters so much.
posted by lemonadeheretic at 10:16 AM on August 4, 2016 [10 favorites]

Can we repeal that whole two terms amendment the conservatives pushed through after FDR fixed the goddamn country?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:26 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can we just do away with the *hand in front of mouth*th Amendment this one time and just let him have a third term? Please?!
...
Are we suuuuuuuure we can't just elect him for another term, by acclaim?
...
FOUR MORE YEARS!
...
Can we repeal that whole two terms amendment the conservatives pushed through after FDR fixed the goddamn country?

Instead of electing the first woman to the presidency?
posted by indubitable at 10:30 AM on August 4, 2016 [14 favorites]

I think President Obama is also super ready to do something else.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:37 AM on August 4, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think President Obama is also super ready to do something else.

Word.

Let the woman in already.

--
I had a hard time making it through this article. Had to keep stopping because my eyes were welling up and I ain't got time for that shit, today. So validating. I feel so, so very sorry for those people that get reflexively angry about the word feminist and who are filled with bile at the thought of a Hillary presidency. My life is fuller for women champions.
posted by amanda at 10:43 AM on August 4, 2016 [8 favorites]

Instead of electing the first woman to the presidency?

Obama snatches it out of her fingers again!
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:00 AM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

The NYer linked this 1996 interview of a young couple, Barack & Michelle Obama.

MICHELLE OBAMA: There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career, although it’s unclear. There is a little tension with that. I’m very wary of politics. I think he’s too much of a good guy for the kind of brutality, the skepticism.

So prescient.
posted by Dashy at 11:58 AM on August 4, 2016 [25 favorites]

I have and often wear one of those t-shirts. I've gotten nothing but positive reactions to it, but now, depressingly, I'm thinking the reactions might be different for women.

My husband has one; he regularly wears it to his RC airplane club. The reactions he gets still surprise him.

1) Every woman at the club is more friendly to him; many have started including him in the "hey, I'm fetching lunch; you want something?" runs without asking.
2) Many parents of teenagers (ok, many female parents of teenagers, whose husbands are sometimes in the area) ask him for advice on How To Raise Teenage Boys Not To Be Dirtbags.
3) Several of the guys think it's a hilarious joke.
4) Several of those guys are starting to realize it's not, and this confuses the hell out of them.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:58 AM on August 4, 2016 [41 favorites]

What would it take to get Barack Obama on the Supreme Court?
posted by TrishaU at 12:23 PM on August 4, 2016

Good news everyone! I have the obvious solution for your sticky little problem of not enough Barack in the White House: Michelle Obama '24.
posted by Harald74 at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2016 [13 favorites]

You're into that whole political family dynasty thing anyway.
posted by Harald74 at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

What would it take to get Barack Obama on the Supreme Court?

There is precedent... William Howard Taft
posted by cirhosis at 12:36 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

What would it take to get Barack Obama on the Supreme Court?

Many people have proposed this, but Michelle has all but promised to murder him if they don't move out of DC in 2017.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:38 PM on August 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

Many people have proposed this, but Michelle has all but promised to murder him if they don't move out of DC in 2017.

Slight derail, but they'll be staying in DC until Sasha graduates from high school in another couple years.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:51 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

He woke up like that.
posted by truex at 1:01 PM on August 4, 2016

Woke Obaema
posted by Dressed to Kill at 1:58 PM on August 4, 2016

I in no way intended to block the first female president, I'll certainly be voting for her. But I would have taken four more years of the first President Clinton, and I'd certainly take another four of Mr. Obama.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:39 PM on August 4, 2016

I have such great hope for our future.
posted by triggerfinger at 4:54 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

in 2017 as soon as reasonably possible.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:22 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

On the one hand, if anyone has earned a retirement of keeping to himself and being out of the spotlight, he has. Whatever my thoughts on W might be, I think after 8 years, you earn some downtime. I wouldn't blame him at all if he moved back to Chicago and just hung out at home relaxing for a while. I really don't think we have the right to ask anything else of him.

On the other hand, I am glad we elected him young, because he could be a thoughtful commentator on just about anything he set his mind to and I'd love to see him in some kind of elder statesman/goodwill ambassador position.

But if he wanted to run a basketball blog like Bullshitting with Barack about his team, okay, that's fine too.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:10 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

Good news everyone! I have the obvious solution for your sticky little problem of not enough Barack in the White House: Michelle Obama '24.

Oh man. I'm pretty sure there is nothing less appealing to Mrs. Obama. Since I recently heard her say so in an interview.

She has done an exemplary job as FLOTUS and seems to be a supportive partner but she has always been pretty transparent that she was willing to give this President thing eight years, max.
posted by tippy at 10:54 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I recently tried to decide whether Malia or Sasha would be the first to run for president and ended up very close to just writing Obama family fanfic. I will really, really miss having this glorious, goofy, awesome family in the White House. "We'll teach them how to say goodbye," indeed.

But bring on Hils, I'm also ready for a woman.
posted by Ragini at 12:57 AM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also, very huge shout out to the president for the inclusion of gender identity in this piece.

I love how he addressed the intersectionality of sexism and racism, too. With all that, and his realization that he's been part of the problem for his wife, it very much reads like someone who actually gets it rather than someone who suddenly decides to declare he's a feminist to be a hero to his daughters.
posted by lazuli at 8:16 AM on August 6, 2016 [3 favorites]