Most people have some sort of personal issue. I certainly do, and of course my issues are related at least in part to my upbringing. So it is with pretty much anyone I know well, and so it of course is with Henry Charles Albert David. It could not be otherwise.
So yeah, he’s a bit of a monster, as you say, but it’s still fucking gross. I have some people in my extended family I have no interest whatsoever in, but not in a thousand years would I assault them in the press.
For a man who has a great deal of familiarity with the media, he seems oddly ignorant of one of the great truisms of life; if you’re always calling other people assholes, you sound like an asshole.
I don’t know why this would help anyone, and I don’t see why Harry and Meghan would want it. They don’t need the jobs and don’t need the money; I am sure they’re making substantial bank from this ongoing public shitflinging gig they have, and they get to live in Southern California. It might help a real microrealm like St. Vincent with tourism, I guess. No substantial country like New Zealand or Canada would want to change their Constitution to adopt a couple of reality TV stars.
So Kate is being “snobbish” by being offended by a sexist and condescending slur about her “hormones” affecting her brain? Seriously? Meghan has talked a lot about stereotypes and words/phrases that are used against women, and then she uses one of those same phrases and doesn’t get why Kate might not appreciate it?
In all seriousness, women’s hormones clouding their thinking and affecting their ability to control themselves is one of the oldest stereotypes used to denigrate women. How many adult females have NOT had to endure cracks about “that time of the month” and “baby brain” and similar? If Meghan said anything close to that, she deserved to be slapped down hard, as that is simply something that you don’t say to any woman to whom you are not really really close. I’m not remotely close to royal, and I would be highly offended by a casual acquaintance dismissively asserting my hormones were affecting my intellect.
When Kate was pregnant with Louis and this incident allegedly occurred, Meghan wasn’t her sister-in-law yet, and there’s little evidence the two women were well-acquainted at all. Yes, they were pretty much casual acquaintances, people who’d been introduced but had not yet established any strong relationship. (And being related by marriage doesn’t necessarily imply any strong relationship will ever develop.)
That’s true. Me too, of course, but people who lost a parent that age are in a different category. It’s a difference of degree. That doesn’t excuse bad behaviour in adults, but I do think it’s a factor here that’s beyond the ordinary “my parents screwed me up” narrative that we almost all have.
Now I’m confused about the timeline and don’t care enough to look it up. But why would the four of them have been meeting together if they didn’t know each other? Seems like at least they must have had a “probable future sister-in-law” relationship.
In such a situation, if someone speaks to you in a more intimate way than you are comfortable with, you should take it as a compliment, signifying that they hope to have a close relationship with you. You don’t treat them like they were some random person on the street taking liberties. Reacting as Kate allegedly did is sending a clear message that she didn’t accept her as a member of the family.
There is a wide variety of cultures and individual attitudes regarding levels of formality in a personal relationship–what the various levels of formality are, whether and how someone might move up or down in those levels, and what kinds of interactions are appropriate for those relationships.
Sure, there are a wide variety of cultures, but I’m not aware of one in which “scolding someone who is about to marry into your family for committing an etiquette faux pas” is considered a good way to get the relationship off on the right foot.
Telling somebody who just insulted you that they did in fact insult you and shouldn’t do that anymore is pretty common in many cultures. “Oh, you have to accept being insulted because this woman is going to marry into your family” isn’t. Insulting somebody who is already a member of the family you’re marrying into isn’t either.
They’d been introduced. They knew each other. That doesn’t mean they were close friends at the time, and being insulted is a bit more than just “a more intimate way than you are comfortable with.” An insult is not an act of intimacy; it’s an act of denigration, of asserting you are better than the person to whom you are talking. “Your hormones are screwing up your brain” is not a compliment under any set of circumstances.
Back in 2007, Harry and William organized a memorial service for Diana ten years after she died. My father had died a year before Diana, and I remember thinking how odd it was to have another memorial, particularly given the original memorial when she died. It just struck me as evidence that they had not quite come to terms with their mother’s death. Don’t get me wrong, we’re getting close to thirty years for my father’s death and I still miss him, but it wouldn’t occur to me to set up another memorial for him.
That’s what I’m getting at. I’m pretty convinced that Meghan had NO idea that her freedom would be curtailed to the degree that was likely suggested.
I also suspect that as a successful American woman, there was a large element of “Subordinate? Fuck that.” to it, which is understandable. I think there was likely a big clash between her independence and expectation to be treated as an equal, and not be expected to be some kind of subservient outsider. And if there was racism involved, that would just be gasoline on the fire.
I disagree with your assertion that this is a clear and unambiguous insult as opposed to a clumsy attempt at “girl bonding”. Coming from a man, it would be different. But from a woman, are we really supposed to interpret that as “Your hormones affect your emotions and cognition because you are weak and pathetic, whereas I never experience any such issues”?
But then I just went back and read the post again, and apparently at the same meal Meghan got pissy with her future brother-in-law for the unforgivable sin of pointing his finger at her. So I’m back to my original position of “fuck all these toffs and why am I wasting my time reading this thread”.
My sentiments exactly. Megan, I think, expected some grace and understanding. She might have even hoped for a little bonding - “us against the crazy press”. But, in a moment when she made a lighthearted comment, she was told that she wasn’t close with her (impending) sister-in-law, and needed to be more formal in their interactions. It would be off-putting to me, too.
Again, I agree entirely. It sounds like this was part of a casual conversation, when Megan made a lighthearted joke. Even if the joke didn’t land, to be told that some informal remark had been the source of ongoing friction clearly sends the message that Megan would not be given the benefit of the doubt, and little effort would be made to accept her, even when they were behind closed doors.
I relayed the story, but I believe when I heard it that it was presented as William was lecturing Megan. The power imbalance - as loudly reflected in the book title, Spare - sounds like some thing that Will/Kate have no compunction about flaunting.
Just my two cents; but I hear you on how much of a waste of time this is.
I don’t know how she wouldn’t know that. I’m American. The closest I’ve come to the Royal Family is standing outside Buckingham Palace. But I understand marrying into the Royal Family means giving up freedom.
Now that I think of it I’m a direct descendant of Edward I. So screw all you peasants.
“Your hormones are screwing with your brain” isn’t a lighthearted comment when coming from somebody you don’t know well. In particular, Meghan didn’t have kids at that point, so no, she’d never had any issue with pregnancy hormones. this wasn’t some “bonding moment” about shared experiences. There was no “us”; it’s you, Kate, who is messed up. M might well have intended it to be lighthearted, but she missed the boat bigtime.
I also don’t get the expectation that sisters-in-law are necessarily going to be close. Two women from very different backgrounds and experiences and life histories are not obligated to be besties just because they marry brothers. “She was told she wasn’t close to [Kate]”? Why would she need to be told whether or not she had a close personal relationship? She ought to have known whether she had yet developed the sort of relationship where they could laugh and joke and trade insults and share deep emotional experiences or whether they were still in the ‘getting to know you’ stage. “Probable future sister-in-law” doesn’t mean “already fast friends,”
There’s no indication here that Meghan ever apologized for the baby brain comment, or even understood why the comment fell flat (assuming it was intended to be lighthearted in the first place). Even if you unintentionally hurt somebody, getting offended because you were called out on it (“Meghan, in turn, was reportedly offended by the reprimand”) isn’t going out of your way to smooth things over.
Yeah, that’s the part I don’t understand about the whole situation. Harry had had his life tightly constrained and controlled; he never talked about that with her? What DID they talk about before marriage?
American Female, second wave feminist, etc. “Baby brain” is sexist and actually not factual. However, most women I’ve known through my life chat about this sort of thing, even casual acquaintances. In American culture, at least in my experience, it’s a sort of female bonding thing.
I have no real life understanding of British culture or any idea how Royal culture functions, but it seems like a rather over reaction. If Kate reacted as reported, I would think that she could have been a bit more diplomatic if she was really that offended. Exp: “I’m not really comfortable discussing my hormones or my pregnancy in that way, Meghan. It just isn’t really something we do here.”
I’m really not all that offended by, “Baby Brain” I think it’s silly and sexist, but it ranks rather low on my outrage scale.
So if Meghan had been pregnant, it would have been OK? What if a woman made that comment to you, but you didn’t know if she’d ever been pregnant? Would you have to ask her about her medical history before you knew if you’d been a victim of a horrible, unforgivable personal attack or not?
There are two possibilities here: #1 Meghan, upon seeing that Kate is pregnant, assumes her brain is malfunctioning due to an overload of hormones and makes a comment about it. This would have been an uncool thing to do. Is this what we think happened? Cuz if it did, Meghan was 100% wrong, hilariously wrong, and should have apologized.
Option #2 Kate, who is pregnant, mentions something about being forgetful, and Meghan responds to Kate’s comment by referencing a condition many pregnant women complain about, and which has been formally studied numerous times. (found this out on the Mayo Clinic website) This is fine. If Kate didn’t want to talk about her forgetfulness with this “casual acquaintance”, she should have shut her piehole and talked about something appropriate for their relationship.