Do Afghan women need saving? This study focuses on the discourse of the USA’s First Lady Mrs. Laura Bush in the years (2001-2009) and how she represents the women in Afghanistan in the context of the USA-led intervention in Afghanistan. My aim is to understand how the USA intervention can be legitimized through Mrs. Bush’s argumentation of bringing human rights to Afghan women. In the analysis in this thesis, Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis is used in combination with feminist and postcolonial theory to understand her discourse about the women in Afghanistan and how her resulting discourse functions in connection with the USA-led intervention in Afghanistan. The study concludes that Mrs. Bush constructs the Afghan women as in need of help and in connection the USA as the helping hand who have an obligation to save the women in Afghanistan. In combination with strategic use of ‘embedded feminism’ and an oriental discourse Mrs. Bush’s discourse functions to make the USA-led intervention in Afghanistan seem legitimate.

This Master's Thesis analyzes various roles that First Ladies of the United States take upon when their spouses are elected President of the United States. Even though the role of First Ladies is undefined, the public still expects a certain level of manners and dedication to their selected causes. The influence of First Ladies is, on the one hand limited by the fact that they do not have any real policies to follow. On the other hand, the platform of First Ladyship offers a great deal to influence and ability to raise awareness to causes they care about. The main argument is that Mrs. Obama had a particular skill to promote her initiatives and to turn negative attention by the media to the rights directions. Additionally, she was able to get the attention of corporations and state officials to help her make a real impact on her initiatives. Her authenticity and fun engaging style helped her with engaging young people into her campaigns and her status of popular First Lady. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to find out how the role of First Lady changed during Michelle Obama's term as First Lady and what kind of influence her initiatives brought. Finally, the analyses shows that Michelle Obama was a very active First Lady that pushed the role of the First Lady forward. Her well though...