Mrs. Obama Meets Mrs. Windsor: The Nation

Quoted via The Nation:

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In some ways it's an echo of the cultural tension within the "women's lib" movement of the 1960s and '70s: relatively privileged white women wanted to be liberated into the workplace; relatively exhausted and exploited black women wanted to be liberated from it. It's a tension that's still recognizable to some degree, if only as parallel reactionary forces. If Hillary Clinton was dogged by accusations that she was too much the aggressive career woman, Michelle Obama is now besieged with criticism that she's not nearly careerist enough.

I don't wish to romanticize either the "pricelessness" of domesticity or the econometrics of the workplace. My point is this: what's frequently missing from the discussion of black women is their role as loving mothers, beloved wives, valued partners, cherished daughters, cousins, relatives. Lord deliver us from the best of our few so-called role models: hard-working, hard-edged disciplinarians, the ultimate iron-willed church ladies. Where, for heaven's sake, is a picture of black femininity (in particular, that of darker-skinned, nontragic femininity) that might signify beauty, chic, elegance, vulnerability, sophistication? more