I do try to give everyone a fair crack of the whip – really, I do. But I have to say that Meghan Markle doesn’t make her life any easier when it comes to giving people the opportunity to take a swipe at her.
The latest ill-judged move was on social media, where she boasted about her busy working life to the soundtrack of Dolly Parton’s Nine to Five. This is the anthem of hardworking women all over the world. And yet here is Meghan Markle giving the working women’s theme song a Duchess-reboot, when the most difficult thing she does is agonise over whether she should wear Dior or Givenchy. It’s like she really does believe that she’s got a full-time job doing very important things.
On Wednesday, Meghan shared the brief reel on her official Instagram account, highlighting her latest trip to Washington DC, where she discussed her Netflix partnership and her brand, As Ever. The video featured snippets of the Duchess at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit and her travels around the capital. She said it was “24 hours of impact (and fun)” and added “love being surrounded by strong women supporting each other!”. Pass me the sick bucket, please…
The truth is that while she cosplays as a female entrepreneur, the real female workers of the UK and US are setting their alarm clocks for 6am, tearing around the house to complete an unrelenting obstacle course of packing school bags and sorting childcare before rushing out of the door. They are not taking a week to decide on the perfect outfit or the best way to pose for a picture at Paris Fashion Week.
The whole thing is embarrassing. It’s like she thinks she’s spewing a dictionary of terms that other female entrepreneurs will nod along with and applaud her for using. But really they’re too busy worrying about their bottom line to notice or care about her efforts.
Then there’s the cringe-fest that was the women founders dinner. The Los Angeles dinner party ‘A Seat At The Table’ was hosted by Emma Grede, the British chief executive of fashion brand Good American and a founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s Skims. But the depressing all-woman, vegan soiree is where LinkedIn guff seemed to take human form with the attendees vowing to lift each other up. I literally couldn’t imagine anything worse. Definite Mean Girl vibes.
Meghan seems desperate to gain the admiration of people who work day in day out to keep the show on the road. My suggestion to her is clear – swap the nannies and personal chefs for a proper shift somewhere, then get back to us.
