--- title: Michelle Obama Jokes 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It description: You can tell she's joking because she rolls her eyes and laughs canonical: https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-07T15:46:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:48.038Z og:title: Michelle Obama Jokes 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It og:description: You can tell she's joking because she rolls her eyes and laughs og:url: https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Obama Jokes 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It twitter:description: You can tell she's joking because she rolls her eyes and laughs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Michelle Obama Jokes That 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Aug 7, 2014 3:46 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Aug 7, 2014 3:46 PM UTC Michelle Obama jokingly said Wednesday that “women are smarter than men” during a conversation about girls’ education with former First Lady Laura Bush and journalist Cokie Roberts at the U.S-Africa’s Leader’s Summit Wednesday. The comment comes around the 2:00 mark, when she and Bush are discussing how countries that oppress women are often countries that are struggling economically. “We can’t waste this spotlight,” Obama said, on the experience of being First Lady. “It is temporary, and life is short, and change is needed, and women are smarter than men.” You can tell she’s joking because of the eye roll, the eyebrow raise, and the fact that the audience laughed after she said it. “And the men can’t complain because you’re outnumbered today,” she continued. There’s a moment after she says it where she’s probably thinking “oh crap, I’m going to hear about this later.” And hear about it she did. Men of the internet did not seem to get that Obama was joking: > [](https://twitter.com/mrdad/status/497400320755249152) > [](https://twitter.com/EdmundCMoy/status/497240232316502016) > [](https://twitter.com/InGodIDoTrust/status/497051386572713984) > [](https://twitter.com/TheMightyCain/status/497046843864264705) > [](https://twitter.com/SteveKlein62/status/497033645627297793) Which might have just proved her point. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/"},"headline":"Michelle Obama Jokes That 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It","datePublished":"2014-08-07T15:46:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:48.038Z","description":"You can tell she's joking because she rolls her eyes and laughs","url":"https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/","keywords":["Living","Barack Obama","politics","Obama","Michelle Obama"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3089041/michelle-obama-women-men-africa-leaders-summit/","name":"Michelle Obama Jokes That 'Women Are Smarter Than Men,' Men Don't Get It"}}]}] ```