With Hatred, The Internet
A woman? Being happy and successful on her own terms? We must revolt.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that we as a society simply cannot handle a woman being happy and successful on her own terms.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has released her highly-anticipated new Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, and it’s already been covered extensively and with predictable vitriol on every possible news outlet and social media platform. It’s fair to say that feathers have indeed been ruffled.
“Nobody would ever wear that outfit while cooking.”
“Why was it filmed in a fake house that isn’t actually her house?”
“Why is she trying to be the ultimate tradwife?”
“Cringe.”
“Forced.”
“Performative.”
“It’s so hard to defend her at this point.”
“I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, but…”
Why are we so mad about it?
I think it’s because we find it far easier to tolerate, or maybe even like and sympathise with, a woman who stays small.
Meghan made her choice. She left the royal family, she betrayed us, so why does she get to have a show on Netflix? We defended her but now she’s gotten too big for her boots.
A visibly content mother/wife/businesswoman? Making star shaped sandwiches with Mindy Kaling? No, this won’t do. This won’t do at all.
It’s ironic that when Meghan was being hounded by the press and internet trolls just for existing, we flocked to her defence. Now that she’s back in her homeland, settled into family life and trying to make a career for herself…well, our empathy for the woman who quite literally had to flee the UK because we were so horrible to her has well and truly run out.
Let’s not forget that this woman was once just that: a normal person with her own life and career, who just so happened to fall in love with a prince. In doing so, through absolutely no fault of her own, she became the subject of numerous cruel and, let’s face it, blatantly racist headlines in which her character was brutally assassinated in front of our eyes.
The stakes were inordinately high for 2018 Meghan, and many of us felt deeply for her as she navigated her new role as Duchess of Sussex. In order to marry the man she loves, she had to step away from everything she had ever known, figuratively and literally - her home, her family, her career, her way of life. If she put a foot wrong, the whole world knew about it.
When Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals and moved to California, the British press and public lost interest pretty quickly. The couple were staying in their lane, moving out of the glare of notoriety, keeping their heads down, and we were OK with that. As long as they stayed quiet and didn’t try to ask anything of anyone, we would let them be. But Meghan could only keep up her end of this imagined bargain for so long. Now, suddenly, every move she makes is calculated, every Instagram story disingenuous, every word uttered from her mouth a barefaced lie. She has fallen so far out of favour that it has become some kind of gross spectator sport to belittle and vilify her on social media.
With Love, Meghan is no more ‘tone-deaf’ than every other big-budget cookery show featuring a sprawling kitchen most of us can only dream of, pots and pans of every conceivable size, shape and purpose and obscure ingredients that you have to re-mortgage your house to buy. Nigella Lawson literally has an entire larder cupboard dedicated to exotic chillies from all over the world, but you don’t see anyone taking to social media to bemoan her frivolity when everyone else is buckling under the pressures of the cost of living crisis.
But the worst part of all of this? We don’t even know her. Meghan has become a caricature that we love to hate, a salacious clickbait news story that we just can’t resist, and no amount of homemade bath salts or tiny trowels for kids is going to turn the ship around. It’s too late.
Meghan isn’t supposed to be frolicking in her kitchen garden on our TV screens. She’s not supposed to be signing multi-million-pound deals with Netflix. She’s supposed to be in exile, quietly mothering her children and never, ever asking for too much. If her critics were honest with themselves, they’d admit that they are absolutely furious that she’s pulled this off.
Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please do consider subscribing - it’s free!
So glad to read this. Before I’d even realised her series was out I came across a barrage of posts on here about people ‘wanting to defend her but simply not being able to’ and I found it so bizarre and surprising, not least because it was all coming from women. I watched the show and quite liked it, It was a bit of inspirational escapism because obviously I’d love to have a big farmhouse near the mountains. Yes it was a bit pretentious but as you say, no more than any other series of its kind. I like Meghan, I think she’s brave and talented.
Love reading this! Very current subject and I’ve wondered the same. Why are we so hard on her about this new show?