Oh, Meghan! Writing twee slogans for sex workers on bananas won’t change ANYTHING
IHAVE an idea,’ Meghan announced ominously on Friday afternoon before asking for a marker pen as she helped pack food parcels for sex workers. Just imagine what went through the mind of Anna Smith, chief executive of British charity One25 at that moment!
Meghan wasn’t about to sign her autograph, surely? No, that would be crass: this wasn’t a Hollywood red carpet but a kitchen in Bristol’s deprived St Paul’s district. And, oh dear God, what if the duchess gets ink on her £1,500 chiffon Oscar de la Renta dress? Would the charity have to foot the bill?
Meghan then asked to be handed the bananas that were included in plastic carrier bags along with crisps, blankets and, er, condoms. Was this a pregnancy craving? Was she about to eat the prostitutes’ picnic in search of potassium and carbs? Then she did something very strange indeed.
On each banana, she carefully inked a self-help message, a pickme-up, a validation, a handy mantra for women who probably don’t own Ikea kitchens where they can hang up posters along the lines of ‘Keep calm and carry on’.
Each banana now bore the words ‘You are loved,’ ‘You are strong’, or ‘You are special’, each one punctuated by a little love heart. Awwwww.
Meghan had got the idea from a school cafeteria manager in Virginia who had done something similar last year.
‘I saw this project this woman had started in the States on a school lunch programme,’ she explained. ‘On each of the bananas she wrote an affirmation to make the kids feel really, like, empowered. It was the most incredible idea, this small gesture.’
TWITTER was ablaze yesterday with emojis of hearts and flowers, and praise along the lines of, ‘LOVE this. It’s the small things that make a large difference’, ‘I don’t know a better person!’ and ‘She’s such a mensch!!’ Even normally sensible newspapers and news websites found the scribbles ‘uplifting’ and ‘inspirational’.
Apparently, Meghan and Harry had ‘battled the snow’ to reach Bristol. Oh, how brave they were, tucked up inside that cosy chauffeur-driven limousine.
We can only be grateful that Meghan didn’t, like, scribble: ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.’ As we know, many women who become sex workers suffer from mental health issues.
We can also thank the Lord that Meghan didn’t daub: ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ I imagine terror is what races through these women’s minds every time they get into a car with a man.
But that’s the problem with selfhelp mantras: even the most wellintentioned can misfire dreadfully. Because the scribbled-on bananas change nothing. Not because they will soon turn brown, destined for landfill. Not because, well, do women on the streets, in sub-zero temperatures, actually want to eat bananas in the first place? Is the inclusion of one of their five-a-day a bit of politically correct virtue signalling when, in reality, each of these women’s five a day has an altogether different, more shocking, meaning?
And should they even glance at the slogans, I’m sure the sex workers are intelligent and lucid enough to understand these platitudes are simply untrue. Because they are not strong: if they were, they would seek help to stop selling their bodies.
They are not loved: if they were – by a man, by their families, by friends – they would be given shelter, a job.
They are not special: they know this every time they have sex with a man for money.
It’s a very American thing to do: tell people lies that don’t really work to sell books or a brand.
People were encouraged to own their own failures back in the 1990s. Life is a journey, so the thinking went, with bumps and setbacks along the way that can be overcome if only you can achieve a better mindset.
These sort of messages are wellmeaning, of course, but also dangerously misguided. They give the illusion that we are all in charge of our own destiny, if only we’d pull our blasted socks up. The problem is, not everyone’s life’s journey will work out. It won’t always be okay.
Sometimes women are victims. Sometimes women aren’t powerful: we are people-pleasers, shy, unconfident, fragile. No amount of ‘positivity’ changes the fact that a woman was abused as a child, beaten up by her husband, or sacked, or raped, or robbed.
Words are easy. Which is part of the problem with Twitter: outpourings make the writer feel better, but not necessarily anyone else.
Meghan’s childish daubings are what we women always say to each other when we’ve been dumped, fired, or gained two stone: ‘It’s his loss’; ‘This will make you stronger, it’s a new chapter’; ‘The extra pounds look good on you.’
It’s the lazy friend’s shoring up of our egos that doesn’t involve lifting a finger. It’s far harder to offer a bed for the night, or rewrite some- one’s CV and pull in favours, or lend them money, or be a gym buddy. I’m sorry to bring up Diana, but she knew that holding someone’s hand wasn’t enough. She had to put her own life on the line, as she did when campaigning to ban landmines.
What these women on the mean streets of Bristol need is practical help – everything else is just window dressing. Even retired footballers, not the most intelligent of beings, gave over an empty hotel to the homeless one winter.
We know Meghan has a big heart: she adopted a beagle, after all. Unfortunately, the women she is trying to reach with her messages are nowhere near as cute and cuddly and easy to love.
I’d have more admiration for her if, when she’s finished doing up that ‘cottage’ in Windsor Great Park, she were to open its doors as a refuge instead.
That would show these women they are loved. That would prove they are special.