Smart Sensuality Woman Michelle Obama Knows that Veggies are Good for Feminism

President Obama isn't the only member of Team Obama getting a First 100 Days report card. First Lady Michelle Obama is also on the 'firing line'.

Not to worry. We all know that FLOTUS has charmed the world at large and Americans at home, especially American women of every political persuasion.

Simply stated, we love the sum and substance of Michelle Obama, and that love isn't skip deep. We love her soul, spirit, and stylish ways, her sound judgement and sensuality. Michelle possesses the intellectual brilliance of Hillary Clinton and the nurturing warmth of Laura Bush.

As a Cultural Creative, Smart Sensuality woman, Michelle Obama leads with her senses, in concert with her brainpower. She is a new model of excellence in womanhood, refusing to abandon core female principles, to gain success in the corner office.

Many Modern women don't understand this life strategy, believing that Michelle leaves her fully-realized, best self underdeveloped, because she doesn't operate like a Hillary Clinton (who I supported) policy wonk. (Please note that Hillary is now taking a few lessons from Michelle's playbook.)

Michelle Obama leads the pack in this new 'style' of powerful, influential Smart Sensuality woman, leaving some women confused about her priorities, because they define effectiveness differently than Michelle-Style.

Nurturing Lifeforce

How can a Harvard/Princeton grad make her mark, picking up a shovel and digging in the garden? This is treachery to the feminist movement! Just yesterday, NY Mag wrote:

As First Lady, Michelle Obama has lots of aides and advisers, and — unlike Angelina — uses them to help project an image of her as a mother who just had to move her family halfway across the country, loves to grow her own vegetables, takes interest in a healthy lifestyle, and mixes her designer clothes with affordable pieces. A glaring omission from that equation? Her intelligence and keen interest in policy. We don't talk about those things — which is upsetting to many feminists — because Michelle doesn't want us to. Yet.

Poppycock!

The nation's relationship with food is a key plank in Michelle Obama's policy list. It's some feminists (and I am one) who can't get their heads around the idea that food is not a 'mom's issue' or a 'woman's issue', but a public policy issue.

Children should also be a feminist issue -- beyond following up on dead-beat dads -- and so should be the lack of romance in many American marriages.

What Modern, briefcase-carrying feminists are suggesting is that until Michelle Obama behaves like one of the boys, she isn't unleashing her brainpower on the nation. Living in Wall Street and a friend to men, I'm one woman who still hopes for a major dose of estrogen-based thinking in the coming years.

via eyeflyer at FlickrModern feminists and 'successful' women everywhere must understand that the First Lady's priority focus on childrearing, reading and education, a positive relationship with food (which the majority of women lack), health and exercise, gardening, the environment, public service and PDAs ARE the priorities of Cultural Creative, Smart Sensuality women around the world.

Michelle's is a HUGE platform.

FLOTUS is tapping into a growing question that thinking people are asking around the: what constitutes the 'well-lived life'? At the end of the day, what are the 'life essentials' that matter?

In critiquing Michelle for not operating on all six cylinders and holding back on policy subjects, her Modern women critics don't share examples of issues she's neglecting.

The fact that Michelle picked up a shovel, rather than standing behind the podium in a Prada suit, to talk about organic food, is an example of the Cultural Creative woman at work, vs the Modern.

Cultural Creative women support the Slow Food Movement, eating local, reaching out to neighbors and community, caring about the environment, and what's happening to kids in Africa and all around the world. Top of the list, Cultural Creative women care about authenticity -- of being their best selves, on their terms, and not those of society or the media.

Michelle Obama is marching to her own drummer, pursuing authenticity, confounding fashionistas, stylists, Arnold Scaasi and many magazine editors along the way. Get used to it, because increasing numbers of women will operate like Michelle Obama.

Defining the Smart Sensuality, Cultural Creative Woman

via eyeflyer at FlickrI coined the term 'Smart Sensuality' after years of tracking the lives of American women in my professional work. Then I received the 'gift' of Michelle Obama to make my point clearly.

Michelle Obama is a Cultural Creative woman, for all the reasons I've stated.

Along the spectrum of Cultural Creative women -- all of whom are more tied to their 'senses' in an appreciation of nature, arts and crafts, the 'haves' and 'have nots' -- we have Cultural Creative women who care about fashion and style, and those who don't.

Many Cultural Creatives believe that America is over-focused on consumption, that we are polluting the planet beyond repair, and that we should generally stop buying more things. Other Cultural Creatives -- the Smart Sensuality women -- are proponents of responsible, sustainable consumption.

None of the Cultural Creative women believe that 'things' make the person, or that a woman must have a podium, in order to be heard. Unlike the Moderns, who tend to believe that material wealth and gadgets signifies personal success, all Cultural Creatives believe that materialism is suspect as a life priority.

Feminism and Smart Sensuality

When an intelligent, educated (whether college or in life-training), loving, healthy, nurturing, exercise-driven woman looks in the mirror and sees a life-affirming, authentic woman, she is probably a Smart Sensuality woman.

When this same woman admits that men matter to her, and that she can be her best herself, without hammering men, she is probably a Smart Sensuality woman.

When this woman -- if married or partnered -- doesn't put her guy (or gal) last on her priority list (which studies of women show that we do put dead husbands last after housework, kids, paid work and anything else on the list), she is probably a Smart Sensuality woman.

Smart Sensuality women do not need to prove our feminist credentials at the expense of men. At the same time, we are working aggressively to improve the lives of women -- calling men on the carpet where necessary, being specific -- not general and all-encompassing -- in our remarks.

In summary, Michelle Obama is not suppressing her intellect and her talents, in an attempt to 'out Laura' Mrs. Bush. Michelle Obama is not represssing her best self, trying to live down the angry Black woman image.

I do believe that Michelle Obama's Smart Sensuality operating style understands the powerful role of symbolism in people's lives. As a sensualist, she knows that symbols and other irrational experiences define human experience.

The First Lady is dramatically redefining the role of a successful woman in America, in terms that resonate well around the world. I was shocked a few years ago, to see how absent American women are from the global think-tank tables on the critical issues of our time -- the challenges that threaten to destroy human history.

Modern, successful, independent, 'me-focused' American women aren't interested in participating in these organizations. So many of us want to know 'what's in it for me?' We are too busy with our careers to involve ourselves in global think tanks.

Smart Sensuality women, and Cultural Creatives around the world, break from the Moderns on this subject of me-ism, and what defines a self-realized person. Nurturing and giving are not bad words. Selflessness is not heresy and a form of subjugation.

Michelle Obama is miles ahead of most feminists in understanding that the tomorrow's woman -- the future feminist -- is first and foremost a Cultural Creative woman.

Modern feminists and all pundits who write that Michelle Obama is underplaying her intelligence, totally miss the fact that FLOTUS is leading with her right brain, not her left. But both are in concert, producing her uniquely wonderful symphony about a well-lived life.

Cultural Creative women have ascended in popularity for years now.

CHICAGO- JUNE 15: (L-R) Sasha Obama, Malia Obama and Michelle Obama listen to Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama give a Fathers Day speech at Apostolic Church of God June 15, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. Obama spoke about the importance of fathers being involved in the raising of their children.Many are young women, like my assistant Feanne and other younger-women bloggers featured on Anne of Carversville. Many Cultural Creative women are like myself -- older women who have lived corporate lives and operated on Modern principles, but often with a Cultural Creative, post-sixties history and a knawing sense that our values are out of whack and the world is careening out of control.

We embrace Michelle Obama, hearing her policy statements and appreciating the fact that she's picked up the shovel, to begin digging. We are doing the same things in our own lives. In fact, millions of folks are digging, all around the country.

Modern women should put down their laptops, get out of the conference room and take a deep breath with a walk along the water. The paradigm is changing. There's a new Smart Sensuality girl in town: Michelle Obama.

The biggest challenge to Modern women, who totally embrace 'rational' values of success is not knowing when the music has changed. I say the same to feminists, whether Moderns or Cultural Creatives (who should know better). Stop talking, please, and listen for a change. Hear the new voices around you, led by Michelle Obama.

Futurists know that the world never stands still. Neither do people -- when they're committed to growing, that is. I repeat: it's time for a reflective pause and self-education, ladies. Then the arguments and challenges can begin again about whether Michelle Obama is operating on six-cyliners or suppressing her best talents as America's First Lady.

Peace out. Anne

Read also via Anne of Carversville: Michelle Obama Ignites the Smart Sensuality Torch, Inspiring a Cultural Creative Moment