Former first lady Michelle Obama reportedly offered a pointed opinion of work-life balance and marriage equality for women, saying that the idea that women can have it all is untrue because “that s— doesn’t work all the time.”
“Marriage still ain’t equal, y’all,” Obama said to a crowd gathered in Brooklyn on Saturday for a leg of her international book tour, several news outlets reported. “It ain’t equal. I tell women that whole ‘you can have it all’ – mmm, nope, not at the same time, that’s a lie. It’s not always enough to lean in because that s— doesn’t work all the time.”
The former first lady appears to have been disagreeing with a feminist philosophy shared by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg in her book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” which encourages women to be more ambitious.
According to reports, Obama quickly apologized for using the expletive, telling the crowd: “I thought we were at home, y’all. I was getting real comfortable up in here. All right, I’m back now. Sometimes that stuff doesn’t work.”