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Michelle Obama Urges Girls to Focus on Their Education, Not Dating: “Compete With the Boys”

Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama urged young girls to focus on their education rather than dating in an empowering heart-to-heart this week -- find out exactly what she said and watch her *mic drop*

Drops mic — and the truth! First lady Michelle Obama urged young girls to focus on their education rather than chasing boys in an empowering heart-to-heart this week at Glamour's The Power of an Educated Girl panel in Harlem, NYC.

Us Weekly attended Obama's talk on Tuesday, Sept. 29, where she was joined by Charlize Theron. While many empowering points were made by the women on the panel, the highlight of the chat was when FLOTUS literally and figuratively dropped her mic.

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"There is nothing sexier than a smart woman," Theron, 40, first noted to attendees. "We have been told to live by a certain mold, especially women, and it’s time to break it. And it is up to us to do that. Stop waiting for men to do that, look in the mirror and see yourself and say, 'I am sexy, I am attractive, I am smart, I am intelligent, I am powerful. I have a voice, I look cute in these jeans.' …That’s up to us. We have to take ownership in all of that stuff. We can’t have boys designate that for us anymore."

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Obama, 51, then chimed in. "Let’s be clear: You don’t want to be with a boy that’s too stupid to know," she said as the room erupted into cheers. "And I want to encourage all of us as young women and older women, we have to raise our own bars. You cannot be successful hanging around people who drag you down. You have to fill your bucket with positive energy and if you have people hanging around you that are bringing you down and not lifting you up, whether that’s your boo or your best friend, you’ve got to learn how to push those people to the side. And you’re going to be doing that for the rest of your lives."

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In fact, the mom of two daughters — Malia, 17, and Sasha, 14 — encouraged women in the room to "compete with the boys… beat the boys."

"There is no boy, at this age, cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting an education," she elaborated. "If I had worried about who liked me and who thought I was cute when I was your age, I wouldn’t be married to the president of the United States."

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Obama then hilariously pretended to *drop the mic* as she received a high five from Oscar winner Theron. "The only thing I would just repeat is that… don’t underestimate the power of your voices," she told attendees. "If you think like, everyone here goes back and educates 10 other people in their lives about this issue and then those 10 educate 10 more and 10 more and 10 more, just think about how many people will be aware of this issue and will start thinking of ways in their own minds and their own communities for having an impact."

"There is no task, there is no effort that is too small in something like this. And one thing I’ll say about change… is that change happens incrementally," she concluded. "So we can’t be discouraged. Solving this problem will take generations."

Watch her drop mic above!

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