The Commander-in-Chief is now officially a Feminist-in-Chief.
On Tuesday afternoon, President Barack Obama used the “F” word while speaking at the White House’s first-ever United State of Women summit. “I may be a little grayer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like,” he told a 5,000-person audience in Washington D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
The President went on to talk about the progress woman have made since 1961, the year he was born. Women now have the majority of college degrees in the U.S., birth control is free instead of being illegal in some states, and women finally have equal pay protection—thanks to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which he signed into law in 2009.
While his speech was largely optimistic, Obama did admit that there is much work to be done when it comes to furthering women’s place in society. He brought up the experiences of his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, as an example: “She’s had times where she’s had doubts, where she’s had to worry whether she was acting the right way, or looking the right way, or too assertive, or too angry,” the President said.
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Luckily, his two daughters share none of those doubts. “They believe every door is open to them,” he said.
In fact, the President mused, “they think it’s weird we haven’t already had a woman president. They expect the world to catch up to them. And I have no doubt that we will.”