WASHINGTON -- Michelle Obama emerged from a black limousine that pulled up at the White House the other day. She stood in a bold red dress that followed her lines. She smoothed her hair and moved between her man -- the president-elect -- and the first lady. Tall in shiny red pumps, she seemed to tower over them all.

As she stood there, many black women on this side of the White House gate saw something else in Michelle Obama that sunny afternoon: bits and pieces of themselves.

They saw their family in hers, or the family they dreamed of having. Saw a woman whose husband seemed to adore her, giving her hugs and pecks on the lips as if the whole world were not watching.

Women watched Michelle Obama until she disappeared into the White House. Then they began talking.

"I like the way she carries herself," says Liz Nolan, 65.

"I like the fact that she walks with him," says Shenee McRae, 31, "not behind him or in front of him."

"For black women, she is visible proof that you can be anything you want to be," says Greer Jones, 37.

These particular women were at A Natural Motion, Nolan's beauty salon about a mile from the White House. Elsewhere, in offices, in kitchens, on the radio, over the telephone, in churches, on blogs, women are talking and whispering a chorus of amens. Not just black women -- all women. They comment on what they see, or don't see. They opine about Michelle Obama's intellect, her style. Fascinated by Michelle -- first-name basis already.

They noticed the way Michelle, 44, wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail to vote, as normal black women would on the way to the hairdresser the morning before a big event. Two daughters in tow in plaits.

It would be too trivial to say that she is smashing stereotypes of black women, because the stereotypes are so flat, so unreal, that smashing them would be like punching a cloud.

"There's the stereotype of the powerful black woman, the aggressive black woman; there is the stereotype of the over-sexualized, overly sexed black woman; there is the stereotype of the mammy," says Aziza Gibson-Hunter, 54, of Washington, a conceptual artist and mother of four.

What she sees in Michelle Obama is strength: "I saw it in my mother. When I was a kid, I saw it in the women in the church, this dignified strength. I think that is real...

"What this whole situation is doing is inviting people to look behind the projections in their own minds and maybe begin to do some work to deconstruct some of that and find the truth."

The stage is set for soul-searching. "Michelle Obama will be under the microscope in a way no other woman of color has been," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic commentator and strategist who offered advice to the Obama campaign. "There's no question that Michelle Obama will alter the playbook for black women for years to come."

During the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama found herself branded "Obama's baby mama" in a Fox News graphic. Some conservative pundits labeled her an "angry," unpatriotic black woman after she remarked in February, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." By July came a depiction of Michelle Obama as an Angela Davis type.

The controversies highlight how the first lady will need to practice "impression management," said Quinetta Roberson, a Villanova University business school professor who co-authored a law journal article analyzing public perceptions of the future first lady.

"One of the other perceptions around her is that she is a very strong woman, and her influence on her husband and family is very clear," Roberson said. "In his acceptance speech, Barack Obama said she is 'the rock of our family.' "

Yet the positive can easily be spun as a negative, into a stereotype of an "aggressive, somewhat overbearing woman," Roberson says.

People have been drawing conclusions about Michelle Obama by refracting her words through their experiences and biases. Essayist Erin Aubry Kaplan posted this on Salon.com: "Barack's better half not only has stature but is statuesque. She has coruscating intelligence, beauty, style and -- drumroll, please -- a butt."

Still to come will be more serious assessments based on the causes she promotes, her first state dinner.

"I have no doubt that she is prepared for the challenge," said Lani Guinier, a Harvard Law School professor and onetime Clinton nominee for a top Justice Department post. "She and her husband embody a very healthy relationship. That in itself is quite a public and political statement."

For Portia Pedro, 29, a third-year student of Guinier's, the hope "for young black professional women that's embodied in Michelle Obama is a bit different from the hope invested in Barack Obama." "There is a not-so-silent concern that you are less likely to get married and less likely to have children," Pedro said. "The career part is not in question, but can you do that and be married and have a family? If she can do that, then it opens possibilities for other black women."

Some women say Michelle Obama and her family represent nothing really new -- that there have always been stable, married, beautiful black families living in beautiful houses and sending their children to private schools. Michelle Obama told the Cleveland Plain Dealer during the Democratic convention: "When I was growing up in the '80s, 'The Cosby Show' meant so much to African-American families. A lot of people looked at the Huxtables and thought, 'There's no way that family exists.' But African-Americans knew differently. If we don't see those images, then the people don't believe they exist."