Strength of a woman
In conjunction with International Women’s Day, Tammy Chan shares her pick of three inspiring books by female authors about strong women
TITLE Becoming
AUTHOR Michelle Obama
PAGES 448
PUBLISHER Crown Publishing, Penguin Random House
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES have never really been my cup of tea and as interesting as the personality may be, I’ve always found reading about other people’s lives a “struggle”.
There are only a handful (actually, only two so far) of personal memoirs that I’ve completed in my entire life. This book by Michelle Obama is one of them — a brilliant autobiography which managed to keep me glued right to the final page.
Through the pages of Becoming, we follow the growth of a woman and although I’m not wired like Michelle Obama, I can relate to some of her emotions and feelings.
There’s a part in the book where she included a conversation with her mother about not getting job satisfaction and fulfilment at one point in life. That really resonated with me.
I also admire her because of her strength as a supportive wife, which catapulted her husband,
Barack Obama to become one of America’s greatest Presidents.
Her honesty and openness about her own struggles and insecurities when becoming First Lady also offer hope to us mere mortals that it’s okay to be afraid, but also, to always strive to be and do better.
It’s refreshing to see successful women but even more so to realise that there are real men (like Barack Obama) who are not threatened by a woman’s success. Instead, he inspired his spouse to create her own empire.
The former First Lady is an eloquent writer, with a style of writing that’s so crisp, lucid and intelligent that you can’t help but be engaged.
Even with little knowledge of the American political scene, I find this book easy to understand and in fact, learned a lot from it.
With this outing, we’rereminded again of how Michelle’s strength, vision, integrity, humility and intelligence made her a true role model for all women (and men) out there striving to BECOME.