Bit doing the rounds on Facebook about Michelle Obama has got me all riled!

[AnnieLobeseder]

So this appeared on my new feed today...

One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious.

When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's secret service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner. Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, why was he so interested in talking to you.

She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "so if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant", to which Michelle responded, "no, if I had married him, he would now be the President."
___

It had a huge load of likes and "I love this!"-type comments from women who appeared to be confident and intelligent. So why did they think it was awesome that Michelle Obama was determined to be the President of the USA's wife instead of being the President herself?

Sad.

Maybe because they think that had she wanted to enter politics, she has the brains to have worked out how to do it?

Maybe she is happy with her own career (temporarily on hold), and in addition to her personal success she able to bring out the best in those around her.

Aren't they responding to the implication that Michele is the power behind the throne, the brains of the outfit? I'm pretty sure this story did the rounds before, only it was about Hilary Clinton. And that rang truer. :)

I think that the "joke" was saying that she has the drive and motivation to have helped her husband, whoever that would be, to become president.

She has never entered politics herself and so clearly has no desire to be president in her own right.

I guess it is just a continuation of "behind every successful man is a woman that made him" or whatever it is

I heard this one except it was referring to the Clintons and it wasn't a restaurant owner, it was a petrol attendant.

That joke was doing the rounds a few years ago, but with Bill and Hillary Clinton's names instead. It was rubbish then too.

I think the point is supposed to be that she is the dominant force rather than passive.
Quite obviously it would depend on whether her other partner wanted to be President, and similarly, that she didn't want to enter politics herself.
The inference is that she is associated with success.

I think it's awful too: confine yourselves women - remember, the only success you can have is by pushing a man!

The awful thing is what a back-handed compliment other women end up taking it for. Because of course it refers to the unseen part of (specifically political) public discourse; in order for A. Person to run for office, they have to have a huge amount of support behind the scenes.

It galls because a) support behind the scenes is unseen and unappreciated, particularly when women are involved because 'that's our job' and b) because that's all we're 'supposed to be doing' anyway. Hence the widespread support AND the general feeling of UGH.

Or at least that is how I'd approach it anyway.

Hillary Clinton may have been the subject of the previous incarnation of this joke where Bonkin' Bill was the butt, but I expect she treated it as good PR - the kind of image she wanted to put out when she ran for the presidential nomination herself. Other first ladies were more in the traditional support role, confining themselves to charities and diplomatic silence. I couldn't see this joke working with Barbara Bush or Jackie Kennedy, for example. Could you?

I'm old, and I grew up in America, and I'm fairly sure that I actually did hear a version of this joke about Jackie Kennedy. I think it's probably morphed over the decades, but imho, was based on that old adage of "behind every good man there's a woman," or somesuch.

I'm not sure it's exactly implying that all she wanted was to be the presidents wife, it's saying the only reason anyone gets to be president is with the back up of an awesome spouse, and she knows she is one so therefore anyone she married would have been president.