We Bit the Apple, after all

Oh, Michelle Obama. Even you, with your grace, intelligence, class and ethics cannot escape the shallowness that comprises our media. Never mind your work on education, never mind your eloquent nature or your Harvard and Princeton degrees, not to mention your desire to put your family first. You wore shorts getting off Air Force One. It's over. Hide yourself in a cave for the next few years, and don't emerge unless you're wearing a black suit.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the criticism that The First Lady is receiving for her wardrobe choice on Monday is that she's receiving criticism. She did not overstep her boundaries as the President's wife by being rude to a foreign diplomat. She wasn't seen spanking her children in public. She wore modest shorts in extreme heat. Nevertheless, the buzz this has caused is indicative of how NOT far we have come in women's lib.

We live in a male society. Women still have to fight for the same salaries, we still get criticized if we are moms AND work full time, and god forbid, we should show off our figures on the street or anywhere in public for that matter; any inappropriate comment we face or leering male eyes are our own fault. We should have known better. Men are weak, they can't control themselves, etc, etc. Who knows where this sexism really originated. It doesn't help that the basis of the oldest story in the world revolves around a woman bringing down a man by ignoring the word of God. Whether one believes in the bible or not is irrelevant---that story has founded the idea that a woman is a seductress, tread carefully.

I was always disturbed by how much Hilary Clinton was criticized for her wardrobe choices. Here was a woman who changed the role of the First Lady. She was active, brilliant, outspoken and took risks. Still is. And for this, she was labeled a bitch with no fashion sense (Even though she didn't leave her husband during the sex scandal). And here comes Michelle Obama who DOES have a sophisticated sense of fashion who pushes the envelope (supposedly) by wearing shorts and is criticized for it. The President is not and never will be faced with that issue. He is a man. After all, it doesn't matter what he wears, it matters what he does.

I have no suggestions as to how we, as a modern society and country, can rectify the focus on women's bodies and how they dress. It's more than just a vapid media obsession. It's a deeper, unsettling sign that women haven't reached equality; we are still seen, too often, as nothing more than sex objects, regardless of how devoted we are to our own families, whether its our children or our parents, regardless of how much we support our spouses and/or work for the betterment and advancement of society.

If the focus on Michelle's shorts weren't so funny, it would be pathetic.