The Sunday papers are full of tributes to Michelle Obama, the inspiring, Smart Sensuality woman who is America’s First Lady.

I’m thinking of her, too, but as she relates to my research on the emerging Smart Sensuality women, a Cultural Creative woman in a demographic values landscape comprised of Traditionals, Moderns, and Cultural Creatives.

In the spotlight also this morning is the Modern woman Bonnie Fuller. Offering texture to my thinking are Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown. This triumvirate’s diverse analysis of Michelle Obama outlines a relevant and important shift in American women’s values.

via Huffington PostThe national embrace of Michelle comes from the fact that in a world where we just don’t really know what to believe in these days, Michelle Obama makes a resounding statement about authenticity, self-reliance, and personal values.

Michelle challenges women of every age to walk tall in our own size 11 shoes, believing in possibilities that stretch and redefine us.

These are core values for a Smart Sensuality woman, a Cultural Creative female who cares about style and her physical appearance, wellbeing and sensuality. Because she cultivates her very best self, the Smart Sensuality woman nurtures who she is — brain and body — in order to help others: her family, her partner, her employer and co-workers, her country and community.

To lead at her maximum capacity, a Smart Sensuality woman puts herself first, so there’s enough of her to go around. This thinking is a foreign concept to most American women, who specialize in self-denial and sacrifice. Unfortunately, resentment and anger often accompany these acts of selflessness, extinguishing the flame of personal possibility.

Michelle Obama is a spectacular torch bearer of the new kind of Smart Sensuality woman.

Modern Tabloid Turnoff

Of all the pundits tracking Michelle Obama, one seems to be uniquely out-of-step with America’s evolving mindset. Her name is Bonnie Fuller. I mention her, not to be antagonistic or critical of a woman far more accomplished than I am in media.

Bonnie Fuller is a superstar, having served as Vice President and Chief Editorial Director of American Media (Star, Shape, Men’s Fitness, Natural Health, and Fit Pregnancy) and Editor-in-Chief of US Weekly, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, YM, and FLARE magazines. Generally credited with inventing the “celebrity lens” school of journalism, she is a frequent contributor to a variety of media outlets including HuffingtonPost.comAdvertising Age and regularly participates on media industry panels. via BonnieFuller.com

My demographic analysis of American women, is partially based on the research of Dr. Paul Ray, originally of American Lives, and now Integral Partnerships.

In Dr. Ray’s research, Bonnie Fuller would be categorized as a Modern woman, not a Cultural Creative.

Her status as a Modern woman and creator of the “celebrity lens” of American journalism is obvious in her writing about Michelle Obama.

Bonnie invents stories that don’t actually exist. This is her tabloid mentality. The country wasn’t up in arms over ‘sleevegate’ but by saying that we were, ‘sleevegate’ became a reality in people’s minds. The facts were never there to support Fuller’s assertions that millions of Americans were ‘up in arms” over Michelle’s baring hers.

The vast majority of American women either love her arms, saying they would follow her lead if they had her body, or think we should stop talking about her clothes and physicality entirely. There was no ‘sleevegate’, but instead a vibrant, positive and good-for-women discussion about the symbolism of Michelle’s arms.

Yes, a small minority of women disapproved of her Michelle’s sleeveless dressing.

Standing Tall, Smart and Beautiful

French First Lady Carla Bruni with Michelle Obama in Strasbourg during the NATO summit. The press spilled a lot of ink comparing their fashion choices.via LA TIMESI was so glad that Michelle wore her high-forehead new hairdo again this weekend, after Bonnie Fuller wrote a scathing article this week called Michelle Obama’s Lost Her Mind! 3 Reasons She’s Suddenly A Fashion Disaster.

On the subject of Michelle’s hair, Fuller wrote:

WRONG because that new hair do made our gorgeous First Lady join the mile-high club — the mile-high forehead club, that is. Had you ever noticed that Michelle had a landing strip across the top of her head? Me neither, until now. But exposing her huge forehead wasn’t the only thing wrong with this 4 inch hair pullup — the world now thinks we have a conehead for First Lady.

Besides sounding like a Republican Conservative — a member of the haughty, bitter, not-nice women who leave appalling comments about Michelle on Page Six of the New York Post — Bonnie Fuller may be alone in thinking that Michelle is a ‘conehead’. (I haven’t checked the Blogosphere on this word for Michelle.)

Whether you like the hairdo or not, it’s Michelle’s choice and that of her very talented hairdresser. It seems to me that Michelle’s forehead reveals her significant brainpower.

The Individual Wears Argyle

Reading Bonnie Fuller’s itemized list of Michelle’s style WRONGS made me wonder about her own fashion credentials. Being the editor of fashion tabloids doesn’t exactly make you Anna Wintour.

Most important, Fuller is flying solo in her absolute trashing of Michelle Obama in Michelle Obama’s Lost Her Mind.

Reading the comments at Mrs O and other blogs, not everyone loved the argyle sweater, but younger women saw it as ‘cool’ and most women viewed it as a sign of Michelle’s individuality, even if they themselves wouldn’t wear the sweater.

Yes, Oscar de lar Renta was ‘put out’ with the First Lady this week for her sometimes casual style, but most of us understand that Michelle’s walking to her own drumbeat, is more relevant than being fashion perfect, in a Jackie-O sort of way.

Jackie-O was 50 years ago. We live in the 21st century now, in an evolving Cultural Creative moment, where clothes don’t ‘make the woman’ and the global economy is under relentless pressure.

Far more important than the hairdo or the sweater on April 1, 2009, was the positive message that Michelle delivered to the girls of London’s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School. The fact that Michelle herself was tearful as she spoke, branded her beautifully-human self on our waiting brains.

Bonnie Fuller can write that this was the day the earth stood still over an argyle pattern, but the fact is that most of us share Rhett Buttler’s view: “Frankly, Scarlett (Bonnie), we don’t give a damn.”

We’re spellbound, like the rest of Europe, with Michelle’s total-woman self.

While we’re interested in her clothes and personal style, we’re even more interested in her message. Quite frankly, that’s the essence of Parisian chic: each woman should cultivate her own individual style. Fuller’s assertion that Bruni trounced the First Lady in fashion intelligence is totally off base.

Write This Down: New Message for American Women

Fuller’s rants underscore how totally out of touch she is with the message shift around Michelle as a Cultural Creative, Smart Sensuality woman.

The Moderns believe that clothes, appearances, tabloid journalism, and money are what count in life. He or she who has the most stuff wins. There are plenty of Moderns to go around still, but they are not in the ascendancy.

The Cultural Creatives , two-thirds women, have less commercial matters on our minds. The Smart Sensuality component among us does spend money. Style is important to us, but we seek authentic fashion that expresses our individual identity.

We don’t live in fear of the fashion Don’t, although we Do care about getting it right, as often as possible.

Unlike “Sex and the City’s” Carrie Bradshaw, who obsessed for a week, over her morning fart in bed, Cultural Creative women know that “s—- happens”.

In the midst of an American and global economic meltdown, we have more important things to worry about. Smart Sensuality/Cultural Creative women are far more than the sum of our farts — horrifying and embarassing as they are, taking away our venner or glossy magazine perfection.

Only a completely self-obsessed Modern woman spends days in anguish over such a trivial event (not revealed in this video).

Forging Ahead

The Moderns created our current mess and the Cultural Creatives will get us out of it.

David Brooks has written an excellent NYT opinion piece Greed and Stupidity, articulating the fact that in 20 short years, the financial markets moved from being 16 percent of the American economy to 30 percent in 2000, and 41 percent now, as global markets collapse with little substance behind the sizzle.

Whether you believe that greed ruled, in the form of a winner take all ponzi scheme, or Stupidity, in the form of financial companies bundling, weaving and hybridizing all kinds of financial products that had no substance, the Modern values world is crashing all around us.

Personally, I thought that technology was the big driver in the new American economy, that we sacrificed manufacturing jobs to create technology jobs. The simple statistics David Brooks shares with us are a jaw-dropper in my opinion, a frightening look at the reality of American business today.

How in the world did the financial sector become 40% of the American economy, when these guys can’t explain what they actually owned? Was it really the testosterone influence?

Someone needs to tell Carrie Bradshaw that THIS economic reality is truly DEEP S—-.

I encourage Carrie to obsess about how Wall Street became 40 percent of the American economy. In the show, the fart obsession went on far longer than is shown in our clip.

Nothing of Value

There is apparently little substance — no tangible value — in the financial products created by the Moderns, just as their was no substance in the Michelle pregnancy stories or Fuller’s ‘sleevegate’.

Bonnie Fuller called Michelle a ‘conehead’ because she’s trying to sell Bonnie Fuller, Inc. This is Modern thinking. Substance isn’t required. We’re in the world of ‘derivatives’, financial or media-driven.

Fuller is singing off key, of course. Yes, she has an audience, but her tabloid tactics are ringing very hollow in our ears these days. Her voice is lonely, not because we no longer want a contrarian point of view, or everything Michelle does is just perfect.

Her hyped up words have no value. They are empty in a world that’s frankly tired of the Moderns, who have brought the world to the brink of catastrophe.

Women like Tina Brown or Arianna Huffington are speaking to the truer essence of Michelle’s reception in America and around the world. And we must remember Oprah.

Unlike Bonnie Fuller, Tina Brown is a Modern woman making a smartly-chosen Cultural Creatives shift. Tina Brown doesn’t intend to be a dinosaur. Arianna’s roots have been fully invested as a mover and shaker Cultural Creative woman for many years.

Fuller is the odd woman out here, in this changing values landscape. She is potentially passé for a relatively young Modern person. Or Fuller’s deeply entrenched in the Republican Conservative, Page-Six camp.

A Smart Sensuality Moment

Tracking, observing, listening, reading about Michelle this week allows us to articulate and better understand my concept of the Smart Sensuality woman and her Cultural Creatives roots.

Michelle is fascinating because she comes out of the Ivy League, but has retained her South Side Chicago girl identity.

Unlike so many of us — including myself — Michelle has never waivered in the woman she set out to be. Her relentless dedication and belief in her own authenticity, coupled with her education and family support, have produced a brilliant life strategy that’s a model for us all.

Michelle Obama’s not merely Modern smoke and mirrors, a superficial ‘self’ created in the mold of fashion magazines. Michelle Obama is a genuine, bona fide real luxury in a world that’s rediscovering the importance of fine tailoring.

Michelle is no conehead. She’s the new leader of the Smart Sensuality woman pack. We can buy her J Crew sweaters and kitten heels, hoping that some Michelle magic dust will land on us.

Reality is, that we ladies (and men, too) have a larger reconstruction project at hand. We must set our lives straight, once and for all, digging deeply beneath the surface. The O-effect challenges each of us to leverage our individuality, dancing brilliantly in our best selves around values that go back to Aristotle.

Just Say No!

The country didn’t do so well, responding to Nancy Reagan’s admonitions about drug use. It’s time to try again, to just say ‘no’.

As an American woman, stop worrying about whether Bonnie Fuller calls you a Do or a Don’t. Live by Michelle Obama rules, and you’re a Do, no matter what Bonnie Fuller writes about you.

Smart Sensuality women are on a new road to liberation, a newly-defined vision of feminism, based less on rules and psychological retribution, and more on self-liberation.

Let us get going now, because we have an awful lot of work to do, firstly on ourselves and also on cultivating the new garden of Cultural Creatives values.

These critical new beliefs matter to the future of global humanity and Planet Earth.

Reading today that the financial markets had become 40% of the American economy, I’m ready to say once and for all, that the ‘jig’s up.’

The Modern moment is over. May it rest in peace.

Much love, Anne