In the first episode of her Archetypes podcast, Duchess Meghan discusses with tennis pro Serena Williams the resentment women face when called “ambitious”. This met with criticism from some listeners.
After a long wait, Duchess Meghan has released the first episode of her podcast “Archetypes” on Spotify. In it, the 41-year-old challenges societal gender stereotypes that often prevent women from realizing their full potential. The mother of two talks to tennis pro Selena Williams mainly about the dislike women face when they are called “ambitious”.
Accordingly, “ambition” was not a “dirty word” for Meghan until she started dating Prince Harry. “Apparently, ambition is a horrible, horrible thing for some – at least for a woman. Since I’ve felt the negativity behind it, it’s really hard not to feel it.” She couldn’t overlook it either, since there are “millions of girls and women who regularly make themselves smaller, so much smaller”.
Ambitious men, on the other hand, are seen in a more positive light than women who have the same drive. Inequality increases when children are involved. “The double standard of how men and women are treated after having children is so real, I felt it,” says Meghan. Williams agrees with her friend: “A lot of times, women definitely get put into those different boxes when we’re ambitious or when we have goals or when we achieve our goals.”
There is also “the misunderstanding that as an ambitious woman you have an agenda, that you have to be calculating or selfish or aggressive or progress-oriented,” Meghan continues. “And that you somehow deserve what’s thrown at you when you’re that wild, that strong, that brave.”
The (negative) reactions to the podcast were not long in coming. Above all, an anecdote that the Duchess of Sussex tells at the beginning is met with criticism. In 1993, at the age of twelve, the American objected to a sexist advertisement for Procter kitchen sponges
“I was ready to switch off when I heard the story again,” writes a Twitter user. Elsewhere, it says it’s “pathetic” that the 41-year-old still has to rely on this story from her childhood. The British royal commentator Angela Levin evaluates the podcast on “Talk TV” as a “blow against the royal family”. Meghan is “ungrateful”, sees himself as a “victim” and misunderstood the term “ambition”.
Meghan, on the other hand, agrees with Laura Kray, faculty director of the Institute for Justice, Gender and Leadership at Berkeley University, who is switched on halfway through the podcast. Her research has revealed that there is a “persistent double standard” about how ambitious women are perceived in society and particularly in the workplace.
“We see that identical behavior is viewed more negatively in a woman than in a man. An ambitious woman is seen as power-hungry, manipulative and untrustworthy, while an ambitious man is seen as someone to emulate,” says Kray. “He’s seen as a role model, a captain in his industry. We see people using these different terms for the same behavior, so the only explanation is that it boils down to antipathy towards women.”
In the following episodes, Duchess Meghan would like to go into more detail about the labels that “hold back and undermine women”. She also wants to focus on terms like “diva”, “slut” or “crazy”. Her other guests include prominent women such as singer Mariah Carey, actress Mindy Kaling and comedian Amanda Seales.
