All men who fear strong women, take a good look at Michelle Obama's gym-enhanced arms:

First Lady Michelle Obama stands tall and regal in her official portrait, a double strand of creamy pearls around her neck, her figure clad in a fitted Michael Kors dress. But there's one aspect of this seemingly benign photograph that's causing something of a commotion, and it lies in that exposed 10-inch-or-so stretch between her shoulder and elbow. The first lady is buff, and she's not afraid to show it.

Her curvy biceps have become something of a lightning rod for remarks from both sexes in a larger discussion of how much female muscle constitutes too much. While some praise Obama as a role model in a world gone obese, others say she's gone too far in displaying the fruit of her workouts. Read one online forum comment: "There is nothing uglier than manly, muscular arms on a woman. Mrs. Obama should be hiding them instead of showing them off."

And though strong legs and a flat belly are often interpreted as sexy features on a woman, bulging biceps . . . not so much. "It crosses the boundary from having sexy, toned arms to having arms that display, 'Hey, I'm working on being strong.' " Banet-Weiser says. "The evidence of that work . . . is quite threatening."

This is the Gail Trimble syndrome on display again. Most people simply don't like assertive, strong and competitive women, because it threatens their self-image. Women perceive other competitive women as bitchy and arrogant, which is why they can't work together, and men typically want subordinate women or else they feel their male position is under threat.

My 2 cents: stop playing sensitive Communists. Enforcing one standard on all people doesn't work. We don't need to get self-defensive as soon as we spot a female bodybuilder or a dominant woman at a work place. Some women have lower doses of estrogen, which grants them some typically male-oriented features. They need to exist, too. In fact, they make society more interesting and challenge other women to get their act together and improve themselves. Here's a few reasons why we should embrace strong, manly women more than what we currently do:

1. Stop worrying about going home from the movies when it's late--your partner will kick the ass of anyone trying to rob you.
2. Now you are two active people who can work on the house, even if it means carrying heavy stuff and climbing on dangerous roofs.
3. In case you lacked one before, you now have a good reason to work out, so that you don't appear as a wuss among your male friends.
4. You may be the only guy in town whose wife is a firefighter at day, and heavy weight lifter and mom at night.
5. There will be less wild arguments in the house, for if you try to play patriarch, she will beat the crap out of you.
6. In other families, children will be able to fool their mothers by playing on their feminine emotions. Not with this mom, always ready to lift them by their ears all the way back home.

I think the case is closed: when you think about it, alpha females are pretty cool. We need more of them.