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ABSTRACT
Directly following her husband’s 2008 election, Michelle Obama assumed the moniker “mom-in-chief,” and in her tenure as first lady she has extended this role to “mother” the children of the nation through her policy choices. Noting her Ivy League education and her prior work as a high-powered attorney, many White feminists decried Obama’s maternal focus. Black feminists, however, rejected those critiques, pointing to the progressive potential of Obama’s maternal persona. In this article, I explain these divergent perspectives by examining Obama’s maternal first lady rhetoric through an expansive understanding of context. Specifically, I argue that the varied readings of Obama’s maternal performances reflect the racialized rhetorical contexts within which she was acting and through which audience members understood her. This analysis points to the importance of investigating the rhetorical contexts within which both audience members and rhetors circulate and participate.
Acknowledgments
This essay was presented at the 2015 National Communication Association Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The author would like to thank D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Joan McAlister, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful feedback.
Notes
Although space prohibits me from addressing it, there is a large and varied body of literature that addresses first lady rhetoric. See, for example, Anderson, Citation2002; Blair, Citation2001; Burns, Citation2005; Dubriwny, Citation2005; Erickson & Thomson, Citation2012; Hogan, Citation2013; Joseph, Citation2011; Maddux, Citation2008; Parry-Giles, Citation2000; Parry-Giles & Blair, Citation2002; Sheeler, Citation2013; Watts, Citation2010.
My use of the terms White feminists and Black feminists throughout the article is general and not absolute. In other words, I use these terms as shortcuts, recognizing that most of the criticism of Obama came from White feminists, but of course these critiques do not represent the views of all White feminists. Similarly, most of the challenges to these critiques came from Black feminists, but these challenges do not represent the views of all Black feminists.
See O’Brien Hallstein (Citation2017) for an overview of feminist discussions of motherhood.
Obama frequently speaks on behalf of the “Let’s Move” campaign, and in her speeches she consistently refers to herself as a “mom.” Texts of Obama’s speeches can be found on the White House website: http://www.whitehouse.gov.