Why Princess of Wales’ ‘personal’ charity note proves Meghan Markle wrong
The Princess of Wales has undertaken an unusual outing – and in doing so, she highlighted one of her sister-in-law’s biggest missteps.
Back in the 80s, when Diana, Princess of Wales was starting to work with HIV and AIDS sufferers, the late Queen was flummoxed.
“Why,” she asked the princess, “don’t you get involved with something more pleasant?”
It thrills me to my feminist core to report that three decades on, the royal family has long turned its back on “pleasant” or naaiccce causes.
Today, Queen Camilla is focused on domestic violence and is the patron of Nigeria’s first sexual assault centre while Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh is tackling sexual assault in war zones and travels to countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.
On Tuesday, it was Kate, the Princess of Wales’ turn to get in on the act. (Did someone just yell ‘about bloody time?’)
There was the 41-year-old, clad in a frock so ladylike Emily Post would have approved, out doing her day job of opening things while wearing pearls. This time the venue was Hope Street, a new centre for women in the justice system which will allow them to remain with their children.
But then Kate’s visit veered off into new territory when she added a handwritten note to a ‘tree of hope’ containing messages for the residents. Hers read, “I see you and I am with you. Good luck in all that lies ahead. Catherine”.
Bells started ringing and Twitter promptly had a minor conniption.
Here was the princess penning a personal, supportive note to a marginalised group of women and which ended up in the public domain. Remind you of anyone?
It was only four short years ago – I know, it feels like about 44 years ago – that another royal WAG was doing something very similar.
It was February 2019 and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, along with perpetually-grinning, can-you-believe-she-picked-me Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex were in Bristol.
During their trip they visited One25, a charity that helps women escape from sex work, addiction and homelessness.
Suddenly, Meghan had a brainwave.
“Oh actually do you have a Sharpie marker? I have an idea,” she asked, according to the Telegraph.
“I saw this project this woman had started somewhere in the States on a school lunch program. On each of the bananas she wrote an affirmation, to make the kids feel really, like, empowered.”
Declaring “I am in charge of the banana messaging!” and armed with a marker, the duchess then penned “you are special” and “you are strong” on the phallic fruit.
The press, still largely in the honeymoon phase with the American palace recruit, then proceeded to have something of a field day at her expense.
Even the women the gesture was aimed at did not “feel really, like, empowered”.
One sex worker named Nikki told The Sun at the time that it was a “really stupid” move.
“People out here struggle to eat and sleep and she gifts us some words on a piece of fruit. She has the means to help us more than that. It’s offensive, you know,” she said.
No matter how sweet and genuinely well-intended a gesture the scribbling-on-the-nanas had been, instead it actually felt decidedly cringe-worthy. It felt wholly, uncomfortably American, a dolloping of over-the-top syrupy emotion that felt performative. Here was caring being done conveniently for the cameras.
It might have been a spontaneous moment and an off-the-cuff idea, but instead it came across as a stunt and perhaps as a bit of a play at becoming Diana 2.0, another royal wife breaking the rules and thus winning the hearts of the people.
Fast forward to this week with Kate’s note – a move that in terms of the British press made about as much of a wave as a martini glass accidentally lurching off the railing of Britannia back in the day. (RIP you majestic waste of cash).
Some on Twitter were quick to raise the double-standard flag, while the Telegraph’s royal editor Victoria Ward pointed out the resemblance between the princess and the duchess’ messages.
Who remembers the �
— Victoria Ward (@victoria_ward) June 27, 2023
The Princess of Wales left a note for women convicted of minor crimes living at Hope St-a new development that allows them to stay with their children & avoid jail.
Meghan was widely ridiculed after writing inspirational messages on 🌠for sex workers in2019 pic.twitter.com/oYlM6cOyQl
Except the two instances are only superficially similar.
One was planned, one wasn’t. One would seem to have been at the behest of the charity, one wasn’t. One was a considered, intelligent note, the other written in the Instagram-ese of trite self-empowerment.
Kate was at Hope Street as part of her lifelong, she’ll-be-at-this-for-decades work trying to fundamentally shift the way Britain raises its children.
Much of her focus is on the support that parents and caregivers get, thus theoretically creating happier and more emotionally-well children and then adults down the track. Adults who are less likely to suffer from mental health issues, addiction or homelessness.
The Princess of Wales’ Early Years work has more academics involved than could fit in a crowded Oxford common room when the chocolate bourbons come out, and a host of billion-dollar global companies on board to boot.
What Kate gets and Meghan didn’t quite twig in her approximately hot minute on the royal clock is that for an HRH’s work to be meaningful to the public, it needs to be part of a bigger picture and a bigger plan.
What Diana understood (and Charles with his Prince’s Trust did too) was that for the monarchy to be relevant, it could not be founded on piecemeal photo ops and well-meaning moments. It needed to stand for something and for it to play a larger and genuinely meaningful role in public life.
And to achieve that takes planning, thought and time, something that the Sussexes never seem to have really applied to their HRH careers.
It was only a scant 20 months between their wedding and their hasty dash for the exit, during which time Meghan was pregnant and then on maternity leave.
If only – IF ONLY – they had given it a bit longer, if they had found a way to hold on and to not decide to throw their toys out of the pram. If only Harry had twigged that his biggest success – the Heads Together mental health work he had done with brother Prince William and Kate and his Invictus Games – were proof positive of this very fact.
Deliberate, structured and well thought out projects designed to have a longer-term impact were the very things that had taken Harry’s reputation from Mayfair hair-trigger tempered party boy to adored, highly-respected royal worker. (Back then the duke vied with his grandmother the late Queen for the number one spot when it came to the UK’s most-liked Windsor).
What Kate and One25’s Nikki both know is that tokenistic gestures from royalty will only backfire and be seen for what they are, even if hearts are in the right place. Big-picture pitching in to change things practically and tangibly are what matters.
Ironically, the women Meghan intended to uplift with her “banana messaging” never actually got to read them.
A week after that outing in 2019, The Sun revealed that the fruit had instead been used for cakes “because more women could have a share”.
And what the late Queen must have thought of this perishable fruit manoeuvre – well, do we really think it was “pleasant”?
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and freelance writer with 15 years’ experience who has written for some of Australia’s best print and digital media brands.
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