Today, August 4, is President Obama’s birthday. He’s turning 55. Did you get him anything? Because he has a gift for you: This “exclusive” essay for Glamour magazine in which he mansplains what it means to be a feminist.
Beautiful essay by @POTUS about his feminism and just wow: https://t.co/CzY1mUSV4U
— Gwenda Bond (@Gwenda) August 4, 2016
On his birthday, @POTUS gives us a pretty sweet gift: an essay in @glamourmag about why he's a feminist. https://t.co/wH9T8ACNWH
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) August 4, 2016
The President of the United States just made me cry. THANKS OBAMA. https://t.co/wH9T8ACNWH
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) August 4, 2016
Obama’s 1500-word feminist opus, which reads like one of his uplifting speeches, begins by reminding us how cool it is to be a man who lives in the White House and gets to fly on Air Force One. He hails the progress he and his fellow feminists have made in the past hundred years, and especially during his eight years as commander in chief. “I say that not just as President but also as a feminist,” he explains.
But “there’s still a lot of work we need to do to improve the prospects of women and girls here and around the world,” the president writes, promising that he, a man, will “keep working” to achieve feminist progress. “In fact, the most important change may be the toughest of all—and that’s changing ourselves.”
Lest anyone think that he had never outed himself as a feminist until now, Obama reminds readers that the subject is something he “already spoke about at length” back in June, at the first-ever White House Summit on the United States and Women. He credits no actual women for helping to organize the event, letting the reader assume he did it all on his own — typical man.
Obama writes that he, as a man, understands the subtle prejudices women put up with on a daily basis. “Gender stereotypes affect all of us, regardless of our gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” he explains.
Obama’s feminism, he insists, has allowed him to reflect on how he thoughtlessly burdened his wife Michelle with the responsibilities of raising their daughter, while he was off chasing personal ambition in the male-dominated field of politics. He didn’t even realize he was doing it at the time — again, typical man.
“I can look back now and see that, while I helped out, it was usually on my schedule and on my terms,” he writes. “The burden disproportionately and unfairly fell on Michelle.”
Obama knows all about the struggle women endure, he assures us. “I’d like to think that I’ve been pretty aware of the unique challenges women face—it’s what has shaped my own feminism.”
And what male essay on feminism would be complete without a discourse on masculinity and the challenges of being a man? “It’s easy to absorb all kinds of messages from society about masculinity and come to believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a man,” Obama writes. “Life became a lot easier when I simply started being myself.”
The president concludes with a reflection on the “historic” election America faces in 2016. “Two hundred and forty years after our nation’s founding, and almost a century after women finally won the right to vote, for the first time ever, a woman is a major political party’s presidential nominee,” he writes, but doesn’t even mention the name Hillary Clinton, or any of the other unconventional aspects of her candidacy, such as her extreme wealth — earned entirely on her own — as well as her advanced age.
Are you kidding me?
Obama has a message for America’s sons and daughters: “I want them to know that it’s never been just about the Benjamins; it’s about the Tubmans too…That’s what twenty-first century feminism is about.”
Thanks for explanation, Mr. President.
