Former First Lady Michelle Obama was the keynote speaker at the this year’s United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles this past Saturday. The summit’s website describes the event as a "national organization for any woman who sees that we need a different America for all women to survive and thrive." This year’s Women Summit had thousands of women in attendance and a goal to ensure the women left "with new ideas and partners, hands-on training and the tools and resources they need to make change at all levels."
"When the most qualified person running was a woman, and look what we did instead, I mean that says something about where we are," said Obama about the election’s results. "That's what we have to explore, because if we as women are still suspicious of one another, if we still have this crazy, crazy bar for each other that we don't have for men. If we're not comfortable with the notion that a woman could be our president compared to… what, then we have to have those conversations with ourselves as women."
In the 2016 election, 95% of black women and 70% of Latinx women without a degree voted for Clinton, 92% of black women and 66% of Latinx women with a degree voted for her as well — resulting in 54 percent of women who voted for Clinton.
Obama mentioned wishing that "girls could fail as bad as men do and still be OK." However, she does encourage women and girls to have high aspirations and speak their minds. She talked about looking forward to a time when gender equality evens the chances for female candidates. When someone chimed in that she should run for office, Obama explained why that kind of thinking is part of the problem.
"That's not the answer, either. When I hear people say, 'You run,' it's part of the problem. We still didn't get 'Yes we can' right. It's not yes you can, it's yes we can. And until we get that right, it doesn't matter who runs. And look, I don't think I'm any different from Hillary."
Check out the full conversation below:
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