Happy President’s Day! 50 Pictures Of First Ladies Being Awesome

As a rabid gang of man-hating lesbians*, there’s nothing we hate more than a holiday dedicated to a bunch of dudes. (Ultimately this leaves us with Purim and Mother’s Day.) Luckily where you find a powerful man, you’ll also find the woman he’s married to. We call those women “First Ladies.” Sometimes they do things and look awesome and people take pictures. Unfortunately, photograph machines are a fairly recent invention so therefore we have a limited pool to choose from. That’s fine because one can never look at too many pictures of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton or Jackie Kennedy.

Last year we did a Top Ten First Ladies of All Time which was pretty rad, possibly way radder than this.

* just kidding

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3267 articles for us.

40 Comments

  1. Whoa. #38 of Hillary…I saw that and was like wtf is this picture of pre-makeover Adele Channing doing here?

  2. Last year’s post about First Ladies was my most favourite.

    But I will never ever say no to the opportunity to look at Hillary and reminiscence over what a soul-crushing defeat 2008 turned out to be!

  3. “A rapid gang of man-hating lesbians.” Are we on motorcycles? Or scooters? WHEN DO I GET MY TEAM AUTOSTRADDLE SCOOTER.

    • I was debating sending her a private message saying “Umm..I think you meant “rabid gang” but who am I to say what you meant..blah..blah..” Now of course, there’s no need

  4. Do Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton get along? Because in my head they’re BFFs. They should make a vlog in the stylings of the Riese and Haviland vlogs of old. I would watch the hell out of that.

  5. I think next year, there should be a post devoted to female politicians with muppets, Ellen, and cats.

    Oh, and I’d bet money that Hillary was a LUG in college.

  6. In the autostraddle tradition of complaining that someone wasn’t represented in a list or gallery, I must ask where is (picked at random from a list of first ladies) Letitia Tyler and Hannah Van Buren?

  7. I fangirl by myself and squeal out loud every time someone even mentions Michelle Obama.

    I just don’t understand how she can be so damn awesome. Push up contest with Ellen. Work out/Dance routine with Beyonce. Arms that make me wonder if she can beat Tina Turner in an arm wrestling contest.

    The woman can do no wrong.

    13 year old girls have Justin Bieber.

    I have Michelle Obama.

  8. Confession: I secretly hoped that John McCain would win last election just because his wife is so hot.

    Us Canadians, eh?

    • Also, because I’m Canadian, I feel it’s okay to say this: Michelle Obama has the mouth of a sand tiger shark.

        • You’re going to start charging us to enter your land full of beautifully priced clothing. Isn’t that enough?

          (I hope the border guys don’t mind counting change)

  9. I love this! 28 is too adorable for words.

    That being said… Eleanor Roosevelt is my homegirl and there is not enough of her on this list.

    the magical appearance of the actual image in this comment is brought to you by the autostraddle community managerettes

  10. I’m totally digging the pic of Betty Ford with her ERA button! imagine that, a Republican woman who was proudly in support of women’s rights.

    also, amen to the comment above– if any first lady should be getting some lovin’ on a website for queer ladies, it’s Eleanor.

  11. I honestly don’t understand what some ppl are looking at, Michelle Obama is the most beautiful first lady ever. She’s also well rounded!

  12. I want the outfit of the lady on the left in Grace Coolidge’s photo, complete with monocle. That monocle is awesome, and it would provide a great excuse to wear a pocket watch.

  13. All the best presidents had awesome opinionated wives, now all we need is one of these ladies to be the president themselves, and have their husbands go on talk shows and the muppets lol.

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