Wow, it's amazing how much thought Michelle Obama had to put into every detail of this appearance on The View.

Quoted: Obama had approached the appearance, to quote Barbara Walters' on-air reading of the morning's New York Times, "with an eye toward softening her reputation." To this end, she did not do her hair in the Jackie Kennedy flip that André Leon Talley—the Vogue editor who Page Six alleges to be her style guru—pegs as central to her "image strategy."

This article is interesting and encouraging. But I think it puts too much emphasis on TV's influence and doesn't acknowledge that attitudes towards women would already have to be changing for people to embrace rather than reject these new values. I also think more of these articles should look beyond education as a cure-all, and talk about the organizations helping both rural and urban women to become earners, empowering them economically.

Quoted: For millions of women in developing countries, the benefits of TV may be substantive, not frothy.