Where Are the Feminists for Michelle?

Their sense of outrage doesn't seem to apply to black women
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 21, 2008 1:12 PM CDT
Where Are the Feminists for Michelle?
Michelle Obama, third from left, on the set of "The View," Wednesday, June 18, 2008 in New York.    (AP Photo/ABC)

Like strong women before her, Michelle Obama has been “demonized” in the press—so why aren’t feminists coming to her aid? asks Mary C. Curtis in the Washington Post.
Feminists spoke out when Hillary Clinton faced sexism in her campaign—but the cause hasn’t embraced women of color. “In America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women,” Curtis notes, adding that the anti-Michelle campaign "has not caused a rift between black and white women so much as it has exposed it."

“Just as you didn't have to be for Clinton to decry the sexism” in her press coverage, “you don't have to be an Obama supporter to defend Michelle” from racial and sexist stereotypes, Curtis writes. “I get it: Your candidate lost. You're angry," she says to Clinton supporters. But that’s no reason to stay quiet. (More Michelle Obama stories.)

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