First Lady Michelle Obama attended the African First Ladies Summit on Tuesday and spoke alongside former First Lady Laura Bush to promote health, economic empowerment, and education for women.
According to a pool report, both first ladies discussed the importance of being role models for young girls who may feel pressured to give more importance to their looks than to their values — leading Obama to talk about her famous bangs.
“But being able to pursue our passions and do things that not only help our country and connect us with the rest of the world, it’s a great privilege,” Obama said, as quoted by the pool report. “So while people are sort of sorting through our shoes and our hair — and whether we cut it or not … we take our bangs and we stand in front of important things that the world needs to see. And eventually, people stop looking at the bangs and they start looking at what we’re standing in front of.”
