Truly 1 percent of this country serves and protects the freedoms of the other 99 percent of us, so many of us don't have that connection. Fortunately, Jill Biden does. She's a blue-star mom. Their son was in the National Guard - or is in the - in - is a Reservist.

But, as potentially the first African American first lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations; conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman?

You look at all the sporting companies out there. I won't name names, but we know who they are. Good brands and logos and things like that, and they have to start catering to real women. Even in how their sports apparel is designed, and the commercials - you want to look at a commercial and see yourself.

Even my husband is happier when I'm happy. He has always said, "You figure out what you want to do," because he's discovered that personal happiness is connected to everything.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before.

I had the honor of meeting a young Pakistani woman named Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and nearly killed just for trying to go to school. I also heard about how nearly 300 girls in Nigeria were kidnapped from their school dorms in the middle of the night. There are girls like this in every corner of the globe. In fact, there are more than 62 million girls worldwide not attending school, and that's an outrage.

First and foremost, I wear what I love. That's what women have to focus on: what makes them happy and what makes them feel comfortable and beautiful. If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.