‘Difficult’ is a label used to silence strong women: Markle

Meghan Markle, who was once dubbed Duchess Difficult, has suggested the word 'difficult' is code for 'the b-word'.

Meghan Markle. Photo by Chris Jackson

Meghan Markle, who was one dubbed Duchess Difficult, has suggested the word 'difficult' is code for 'the b-word'.

Meghan Markle has said calling a strong-minded woman “difficult” is really a way to “hide some of her awesome qualities”.

Reflecting on her nickname “Duchess Difficult” in her latest Archetypes podcast episode, Markle said that while “not everyone is going to like you, the goal can be for them to respect you”.

She also explored the term “bitch” - referring to it as “the b-word” - and suggested that “difficult” was “really a codeword for the b-word”.

“So, perhaps the truth is that labelling a woman as the ‘b-word’ or as ‘difficult’ is often a deflection,” she told her listeners. 

“A way to hide some of her really awesome qualities, her persistence or strength or perseverance, her strong opinion, maybe even her resilience and those are the very qualities we’re going to be uncovering today.”

Meghan Markle. Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, Markle said her generation was “raised with television in the same way that this generation is raised with social media”.

Her favourite TV show was US quiz show Jeopardy, she revealed, with her obsession running so deep her friends sent her messages of condolences when host Alex Trebek died. 

“I was and I still am, a word nerd,” Markle said, before listing words starting with B such as beautiful, blessed, beguiling, blissful and bedazzling.

“Yet when you hear someone say ‘the B-word’ — I think we are all clear that none of the words that I just said is what they’re talking about,” she added.

But Markle’s guest for the episode, comedian Robin Thede, explained how she used the term “bitch” for endearment. 

“I call my girlfriends ‘bitch’ all the time, I’m like, ‘hey bitch, oh you look good bitch’, all that kind of stuff,” she said. “But if a man is like, you know, ‘oh you ugly bitch’, or something like that, I’m mortified and offended and I want to fight.”

Robin Thede. Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for Fast Company.

In a voiceover, Markle responded: "I mean, for a person who hates the word so much, this is giving me hives.”

"Nevertheless, I will say, it’s all really interesting to me, what Robin is talking about,” she continued. 

“Because, as you may have guessed, I have zero interest in reclaiming this term. But these women I respect, whose work I love, a lot of them are entirely comfortable with that; they want to do that to take the power of it."