Michelle Obama encouraged girls to push themselves hard at school and to turn any negative feedback into motivation to do better as she spoke Tuesday at an event commemorating international girls day.
The first lady said being a good student gave her confidence.
“I mean, going to Princeton from … a public school where people told me that I couldn’t do a whole range of things, and then going to one of the top schools in the world and being able to compete and to thrive — that is an ultimate confidence booster,” Obama said during an event at Washington’s Newseum.
“And it was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world,” she said.
Obama said that lesson was a driving force behind her “let girls learn” initiative.
Even after accomplishing all that she has, Obama related to the young women in the audience that she too still has to overcome negative stereotypes.
“When you look at me, you see me now as the first lady, but there are still doubts,” she said. “There are still people who question whether I would be a good first lady, question whether I was strategic enough or whether my initiatives would have an impact. So all throughout my life, there are people who have underestimated me, as I’m sure they underestimate you.”
Obama advised the girls to use that to their advantage.
“I always use that as a challenge,” she said. “The one way to get me to work my hardest was to doubt me. And I took that as: ‘I will show you who I am.'”
She then told an anecdote about writing her senior thesis at Princeton. She asked her adviser for a letter of recommendation for law school and he told her she hadn’t really impressed him.
“I went back to my dorm room, and for the next three months, I worked so hard on that thesis,” she said. “Instead of letting that deter me, I used it as a way to boost me to work harder.”
He came around and gave her a glowing recommendation.
“That’s what these women and girls have to do,” she said. “Sometimes we have to work to combat those negative thoughts in our heads about who we are, and how we look, and what people think about us,” she said. “So many of us, as women and girls, we are haunted by the voices of other people who tell us what we can’t do.”
Obama advised women to use the power they accumulate.
“I’ve had to do that in every room of power that I’ve sat in, and I’ve had to learn that my voice has value,” she said about not being afraid to speak up in groups. “And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of me being in the room?”
Obama said women have to learn that just because men are dominating a conversation, it doesn’t make them right.
“And once you realize that they’re not saying anything more than what’s going on in your head, then you start developing the courage to put your opinion right there on the table, right with them,” she said.
