"She's traded in her solid gold résumé, high-octane talent and role as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals to be a professional wife and hostess."

Oh no! Doesn't she know what that could do to her career?! I mean, look at what it did to Hillary Clinton! Oh, wait...

Cheers,

Winston

P.S. As a feminist, does Debra Dickerson believe that Michelle Obama needs her permission or approval to run her own life?

I know Michelle Obama personally (hence my anonymous, instead of my usual identity). But speaking from personal experience, instead of off the top of my head like Debra Dickerson, it's clear that Debra Dickerson is not fit to lick Michelle's boots.

Michelle Obama is smart, she's tough, and she's at least half -- if not more -- of the Obama equation. If Barack wins, Michelle will deserve as much credit as he does.

She also happens to be much smarter than Hillary was, when Bill Clinton was running, so you are not going to hear Michelle Obama announcing that she's going to be co-president.

But she will be right in there.

I'm sure that had Michelle Obama NOT quit, then we'd have Debra Dickeron's diatribe about unsupportive African-American wives and some pscyhobabble about that.

The bottom line: Debra Dickerson will find ANY reason to trash Barack Obama.

I don't know what her pathology is. Is she self-hating? Is she just a Hillary fan? Is she doing the bidding of Joan Walsh? Is she secretly on someone else's campaign staff? Is she jealous because she thinks SHE should be with someone like Barack? Who knows. Who cares?

What I do care about, however, is Salon's continuing to publish this DRIVEL FROM DEBRA DICKERSON.

ENOUGH Already!!!!

I used to be a premium subscriber for YEARS, and recently decided not to. I got half a dozen "renew now" notices, and responded to each of them by email that I would NOT subscribe, because of the absurdity of Salon publishing Debra Dickerson and Camille Paglia. (No response back, of course, because we know that Joan Walsh and her minions don't bother to ever respond to questions why they publish this trash, or insist on a campaign of destruction against Barack Obama's candidacy).

In an America FULL of opportunities for confused, destructive, conservative, self-hating saboteurs to be published, why Salon has to provide an opportunity for two such talentless hacks is beyond me. And it's beyond my pocketbook as well. Sorry Salon...you may get my click, but you're NOT getting my money.

And Debra Dickerson, you're NEVER getting my respect.

DUMP DEBRA!!!

One would think that top tier community relations/health care executives especially those with a minority pedigree would be able to pretty much dial up their next job at will. I'm sorry if that sounds cynical be we all know the incestuous relationship among medical Boards of Directors, community relations, fund raising, politically connected law firms, and such.

BTW, 'organizing white tie dinners' is actually a part of jobs like that. Community relations has to have strong ties to the coporate, foundation and socialite communities too.

Funny, I seem to recall an outrage over Howard Dean's wife not choosing to quit her job to campaign with her husband (culminating in Diane Sawyer's incredulous questioning about it on Prime Time) I guess you can please some of the people some of the time...

...complete with venomous crazy talk which presumes to know how best others should run their lives . And all in the name of religions - in his case Christianity, in yours a misappropriation of feminism.

People - myself included - read this and conclude all feminists are pissed off, insufferable freaks. Which I don't really believe is the case. Except yours.

Now is the perfect opportunity for the movement to reach out to black women by embracing Michelle and black women's causes in general.

Instead of waiting for "feminism" (white feminism) to embrace the struggles of black women, why not acknowledge the work of Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and other writers who have already worked hard to articulate the unique oppressions that confront black women? The face of mainstream feminism sadly remains largely white and heterosexual, which is why it may seem that we need white feminists to raise our consciousness about the dilemmas faced by black wives of black candidates.

Articles like this are an opportunity to point out that feminism is more than its mainstream, race privileged / class privileged face -- a face perpetuated, to some degree, by mainstream media when they decide who represents feminism.

Mainstream feminist organizations should absolutely seek to represent women of different classes, races, and sexual orientations. But as long as we privilege white feminism as feminism, we lose an opportunity to remind Americans about black feminism and lesbian feminism and other feminisms that take an intersectional approach. So, if you want to bring feminism to black women, you might start by acknowledging the work of the awesome black feminists who have spent their lives doing just that.

What we know:

A) Barak is not black enough for Dickerson

B) Barak is keeping his wife down

C) The Patriarchy is keeping his wife down

D) Michelle is woman enough for Dickerson

I am not sure if Michelle is black enough for Debra Dickerson, or is she merely useful to Debra Dickerson because she has a vagina.

I know that the Obamas have been very useful for Dickerson.

I wonder how many feminists AND wives, much less African American ones, on hearing their spouse has a significant chance at becoming President would be willing to take a few career hits.

Good to know that ain't Dickerson willing to do that for her family. Perhaps that's why she has a hard time with relationships.

It's all about the Debra.

Dickerson's not blaming Mrs. Obama but the expectations that have been built around her to give up her own life for her husband's, and also to say that feminism should include black women. These are both good points. It's unfortunate to see how many rappers have objectified and insulted women for years without many in black communities speaking out- even though most blacks agree that it's deameaning to women. Black womens' voices simply aren't there.

The bigger issue is that there is still a glass ceiling in politics as in many other things and despite a few women who have broken through, most of the times wives who have careers, even very successful ones, are in a dilemma if her husband's career really skyrockets. It's impossible to say that that kind of imbalance doesn't result in some dislocation and loss of equal footing. Whatever achievements she had automatically become overshadowed. You can see the same thing with Shaha Riza saying that she felt being demoted to Wolfowitz's "girlfriend" even though she is a highly accomplished Arab feminist and was a Senior Communications officer at the World Bank. But in the case of a Presidential candidate, it's not just an individual person, it's also what kind of example is set for the rest of the country.