The XX Factor: What women really think.

Obama the Feminist Role Model

From David Leonhardt's cool and meaty interview with the president. Obama says:

And so part of what we have to do is to recognize that women are just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than men are today. As a consequence, eliminating the pay gap between men and women, and the pay gap between fields, becomes critically important....

I think that if you start seeing nursing pay better and teaching pay better, and some of these other professions, you’re going to see more men in those fields, although there’s a little bit of a chicken and an egg — if you start getting more men in those fields, then the stereotypes about this being a woman’s field and all the gender stereotypes that arise out of thinking that somehow they’re not the primary breadwinner, those stereotypes start being whittled away.

LEONHARDT: Did Michelle ever make more than you did?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure.

Probably only for a brief time, because I was working three jobs most of the time that I was in the State Senate.... But when I started campaigning for the U.S. Senate and I had to drop some of those jobs, then she carried us for a couple years.