She spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie Abe, at a girls' education event about her new campaign, Let Girls Learn.
"...While we have made tremendous strides in girls’ education in the United States and Japan, women in both our countries still struggle to balance the needs of their families with the demands of their careers. We still struggle with the outdated belief that a woman cannot be both an accomplished professional and a devoted mother; that she has to choose between the two. But the reality is that when we put limits like this on women’s lives, we stifle their potential, and, more importantly, we miss out on so much of what they have to offer our societies. And for me, that’s where this issue gets personal."
Mrs. Obama continued with her own personal and inspiring story: See, I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, a place where hardly anyone went to university. Many people worked long hours for low salaries, struggled to pay their bills. As a young girl I was bright, outgoing, with plenty of thoughts and opinions of my own, but like a lot of young women, I was often primarily defined by my relationship to the men in my life. I was my father’s daughter, or, even though I was just as smart as my brother -- I could hit a ball just as far, I could run just as fast -- I was always just his little sister. When I got to school, I sometimes encountered teachers who assumed that a girl from a humble background like mine wouldn’t be a successful student. I was even told that I would never get accepted to the prestigious school like Princeton University, so I shouldn’t even apply. Like so many girls across the globe, I got the message that someone like me wasn’t supposed to have big dreams; that I should keep my head down, my voice quiet, and I should make myself just a little smaller to fit other people’s modest expectations.
But I was lucky. I had parents who believed in me, who urged me to speak up and make myself heard in the world. So I held fast to my dreams. I worked hard in school. I went ahead and I applied to Princeton -- and I got accepted. I went on to become a lawyer, a city government employee, a hospital executive, and the director of an organization that trained young people to serve their communities. And most of all, I became a mother, which is by far the most important job I will ever have in my life.
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