Last Tuesday, when Michelle Obama took a fashionably shod toe and dipped it into her husband’s efforts to address the nation’s higher-ed gap, the move was greeted by some feminists with a relieved, “It’s about damn time!”

Here, finally, was an issue worthy of the Ivy-educated, blue-chip law firm-trained first lady, a departure from the safely, soothingly domestic causes she had previously embraced. Gardening? Tending wounded soldiers? Reading to children? “She essentially became the English lady of the manor, Tory Party, circa 1830s,” feminist Linda Hirshman says.


Speaking last week at Bell Multicultural High School, a couple of miles north of the White House, the first lady touted the importance of a college degree, citing her own journey from a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s South Side to Princeton as evidence of how far hard work and good schooling can take you. “I’m here today because I want you to know that my story can be your story,” she told the predominantly low-income, heavily minority student body.

The personal plea was part of a glitzy rollout for a new administration initiative. Working with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the first lady will become an “ambassador” for the new “ North Star” program meant to make the United States the global leader in the percentage of young people it propels through college (we currently rank 12th, according to the White House), with special outreach to communities on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Coverage of the new program stressed that it marks a rare foray into policy by FLOTUS. The New York Times observed that many of Michelle Obama’s supporters have been itching for her to move beyond “evangelizing exercise and good eating habits,” noting that, despite her widespread popularity, the first lady has long “been derided by critics who hoped she would use her historic position to move more deeply into policy.”

Don’t count on it. As President Obama claws his way through a second term, the sense of urgency for his well-educated wife to do more—to make a difference—may well be mounting. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. In fact, East Wing officials I spoke with stress that Michelle Obama is not about to tap her inner wonk—she will focus on young people, not policy—and while the task of promoting higher ed may be new, speaking directly to kids is simply what Michelle does. Sure enough, in a sit-down with BET’s 106 & Park the week after the Education Department rollout, there was the first lady in full mom mode, lecturing students about nothing more politically controversial than the need to do their homework and get to school on time.

So enough already with the pining for a Michelle Obama who simply doesn’t exist. The woman is not going to morph into an edgier, more activist first lady. The 2012 election did not set her free. Even now, with her husband waddling toward lame duck territory, she is not going to let loose suddenly with some straight talk about abortion rights or Obamacare or the Common Core curriculum debate. Turns out, she was serious about that whole “ mom-in-chief” business—it wasn’t merely a political strategy but also a personal choice. “We got exactly what we were told we were going to get,” Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University, reminds me. “When the Obamas were campaigning in 2008, the American people were informed that she was going to primarily be taking care of her children.”

Her Ivy League degrees, career success and general aura as an ass-kicking, do-it-all superwoman had some women fantasizing that she would at least lean in and speak out on a variety of tough issues. It was not to be.

And why not? Both Obamas have long been upfront about how much Michelle resented being thrust into the role of Supermom while her husband dabbled in politics. (That bit in the Audacity of Hope about how, after Sasha’s birth, Michelle’s rage at her husband’s worthlessness on the homefront was “ barely contained” is downright painful to read.) And yet, she was always the one to make the concessions in an effort to re-create a very traditional Norman Rockwell portrait of family life similar to the one she grew up in. Once Barack hit the big time, the pair more or less transferred this domestic dynamic to the White House, where the spotlight was scorching but at least the support systems were better. Whether other women regard this as a cop-out or a brave new model of empowered womanhood likely depends on both their politics and their feelings about the first lady herself. But it is what it is, just as Michelle Obama is who she is—and to some degree always has been.

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The post of first lady is never easy, bringing with it all of the scrutiny but none of the power of the presidency. Trickier still, first ladies tend, to varying degrees, to get swept up in the debate du jour over how much progress women are (or are not) making in our society. “Any time you’re in that kind of position, with that kind of visibility and power, you become iconic,” observes feminist and author Rebecca Walker, daughter of novelist Alice Walker. “You become a lightning rod for everyone to project and work out and discuss all their issues about femininity.”

And this particular first lady carried a uniquely heavy load of expectations. Michelle Obama’s status as the first African-American first lady raised hopes that she would focus a spotlight on the myriad problems eating away at minority communities. At the same time, her Ivy League degrees, career success and general aura as an ass-kicking, do-it-all superwoman had some women fantasizing that she would, if not find a clever way to revive the 2-for-1 model pitched by the Clintons so long ago, at least lean in and speak out on a variety of tough issues.

It was not to be. At first, many saw politics in Michelle Obama’s discretion; perhaps, they theorized, she would be liberated once the hassles of winning reelection were behind them. Early in Obama’s campaign last year, columnist Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Mommy Wars, grumped, “Are fashion and body-toning tips all we can expect from one of the most highly educated First Ladies in history?” Observed Steiner, “I for one have seen enough of her upper appendages and her designer clothes, and read enough bland dogma on home-grown vegetables and aerobic exercise, to last me several lifetimes.” (Steiner did, however, posit hopefully that, whether or not the president won reelection, “freedom from popularity polls will mean more straight talk from his wife.”)

As for the first lady’s warmer, fuzzier PR efforts—the televised workouts and kids-show cameos and “ mom dancing” with Jimmy Fallon—Hirshman, a retired Brandeis University professor who set off a firestorm with her 2005 American Prospect article asserting that women who leave the workforce to raise their children are making a huge mistake, contends: “After the feminist revolution, you don’t envision a brilliantly educated, well-connected grown woman doing that kind of thing.”

But do it she has—and more. Frustration flared when the first lady stumbled into the raging heart of the Mommy Wars. In her speech to the Democratic National Convention last summer, she dropped in the line that “at the end of the day, my most important title is still mom-in-chief.” Much of the nation may have been charmed; feminist commentators, not so much. “Why does mom-in-chief have to be the most important thing this strong, vibrant woman tells us about herself as she flexes the strange but considerable power of the office of first lady?” Emily Bazelon lamented on Slate. On the feminist website Feministing, Lilith Dornhuber was even harsher: “Judging by Michelle Obama’s speech, feminism is dead to the Democratic Party.”

Fast-forward to now. Earlier this month, Keli Goff, a correspondent for the African-American online magazine the Root, wrote a column calling on Michelle to ditch the cardigans and take her power suits back out of the closet, “now that she no longer has to worry about her public image as a super-strong, super-fierce black woman who might cost her husband votes.” Goff urged a “no-holds barred” first lady to “preach” about everything from Supreme Court nominees to the racism fueling some administration critics to “issues of reproductive and sexual health.”

From Michelle Obama's past work we know that she cares about more than gardening and clean drinking water, Goff tells me. “She is one of the most influential black women on the planet, and I consider it a national shame that she’s not putting the weight of her office behind some of these issues.”

The common counterargument to all this angst about opportunity lost is that a more aggressive, more activist, more out-front Michelle Obama would have become an immediate and massive political liability for her husband. First ladies must walk a fine line between getting involved and meddling (see: Clinton, Hillary), and Lawless sees this particular first lady’s focus on softer, non-contentious issues as Political Survival 101. “That’s the lesson learned after the Clintons’ experience in 1992: that there are enough reasons for people not to like a president” without his wife becoming an additional flashpoint. As it is, Michelle Obama has consistently enjoyed a level of popularity to which her husband can barely aspire. (Her approval rating has hovered in the 60s, whereas his has now dipped into the low 40s.) While POTUS slugs it out in the partisan trenches of government shutdowns and sequestrations, FLOTUS has managed to remain above the fray—with her toned arms and her veggie garden and her radiant mom-in-chiefness—the rare figure in Washington of whom the American public can still bear the sight. As Lawless sums up the situation, “How can you hate a vegetable garden?”

Besides, say the first lady’s defenders, feminism these days is in the eye of the beholder. Sure, some might prefer a more in-your-face, running-with-the-big-dogs model, aspiring to be the next Hillary Clinton or Sheryl Sandberg, but others see the movement as having moved on to be all about personal fulfillment and choices. As an exemplar of this version, they insist, Michelle is doing the lord’s work. “She’s the embodiment of a power mom,” gushes Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, founder of MomsRising.org. “She uses her role both as First Mom and First Lady to advocate for families and children. She sets an important example.” Former White House communications director Anita Dunn offers (unsurprisingly) an even glossier view. “What is wrong in this day and age with a woman who’s a highly successful, accomplished woman being proud to be a mother? If we can’t accept the fact that that’s really a good thing, then we actually haven’t come all that far.”

Most delicately, there’s the defense that Michelle Obama must tread lightly to avoid being stereotyped as an Angry Black Woman—an image critics were clearly itching to saddle her with early in the 2008 campaign. “Black women are perceived as more argumentative, contentious, fists in the air,” Walker argues. In grappling with those perceptions, she says, “I wouldn’t necessarily say Michelle Obama had to kowtow to some demand that she become a June Cleaver type. I would say she understands the need to help people understand a model that they may not have been familiar with, and to help them learn how to trust something that they may not have been able to in past.” Then Walker laughs wryly. “You’ve got to be real here. This is America. Our history demands strategy—and grace and finesse. It’s a miracle to me that she’s been able to do it as well as she has.”

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Michelle’s critics acknowledge the delicacy of her position. Even as Hirshman marvels that someone of the first lady’s “capacities and education has done so little of substance,” she posits that the “intersection of race and gender” puts Michelle in a particularly “treacherous” spot. “When you stand at that intersection, you manifest both of the scariest threats to the straight white male establishment in one person. You’re like ground zero.” Hirshman gives Michelle props for having the discipline to “stay out of the range of fire for six years.” She notes that the first lady “had a really hard task, and she handled it with exquisite and superbly canny, disciplined perfection.”

But, adds Hirshman (and the “but” is pretty devastating), “The way she did that was to give, for all intents and purposes, an almost music-hall-level imitation of a warm-and-fuzzy, unthreatening, bucolic female from some imaginary era from the past.”

As for efforts not to be defined by her race, you can only fret about that for so long, argues Goff. “Those of us who are black know what it’s like to have been the only black person in a particular job or in a particular room,” she tells me. And for a while, Goff says, she cut the Obamas slack, assuming they did not want to be accused of being “pro black.” But with the second term well under way, she insists, it’s time for the first couple to step up and tackle touchier issues—especially those that disproportionately impact the black community, such as AIDs and out-of-wedlock births. “Black Americans shouldn’t demand more from [the Obamas], but they also shouldn’t expect less,” Goff says.

Would Michelle Obama finally find herself in political hot water if she wades into more fraught waters? “Probably,” acknowledges Goff. “But so what?! You have the bully pulpit for not much longer.” She urges the first lady: “Give the American people a little bit more credit and have a little bit more courage.”

Then again, encouraging low-income youth to get a college degree isn’t exactly climbing out on a political limb.

In that sense, Goff considers the new education initiative a promising development. “I think it is terrific, refreshing and about time!” she emailed the morning of the announcement. “It is also strategically smart. Many African Americans have long sensed that there are issues this White House has avoided wading into for fear of being seen as favoring the black community. As a result in some ways our community has gotten less policy engagement from the administration of the first black president than other communities, even though we are struggling more.”

Then again, encouraging low-income youth to get a college degree isn’t exactly climbing out on a political limb. While the details may differ, the first lady’s new focus fits neatly in line with her old ones, says Dunn. “She has picked issues with an intersection between the public and private, where organizing from the outside can make a significant difference.” Forget mucking around in legislation or policy arcana, Dunn says. “This is her sweet spot: to raise the importance of an issue to the audiences who need to hear it.”

“She spends her time in areas where she thinks she can really make a difference,” an East Wing official tells me, waving off any suggestion that the first lady is interested in assuming a more out-front position as her time in the White House dwindles. “This is not about spreading herself thin and raising her profile. This is about drilling down and finding areas of opportunity to help people.”

All of which seems to make perfect sense. Of course, Michelle Obama isn’t going to alter her carefully calibrated course going forward, reasons Lawless: “Would you? Everyone likes her. And people that don’t like her don’t like her for reasons that have nothing to do with her.”

Someday somebody will shatter the conventional First Lady mold. It just won’t be Michelle Obama.

Michelle Cottle is a Washington correspondent for The Daily Beast .