Meghan: My baby will be a feminist — whether it’s a boy or a girl
Another royal resignation RICHARD EDEN CONFIDENTIAL PAGES 32-33
The Duchess of Sussex vowed yesterday her baby will be a feminist ‘whether it be a boy or a girl’.
In an extraordinary public performance, Meghan even joked that she had already felt ‘the embryonic kicking of feminism’ in her womb.
The 37-year-old also spoke openly about her passion for activism and revealed that harry had already benefited from ‘gender stereotype shifting’ and classed himself as a feminist as well.
Wearing a £185 Reiss dress and £1,245 Alexander McQueen blazer, the duchess was part of a panel discussion convened by The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust – of which she was named vicepresident yesterday – to mark International Women’s Day.
The event at King’s College London brought together a special panel of female ‘ thought- leaders’ – including singer Annie Lennox – to discuss a range of issues affecting women today. The panel was chaired by Anne Mcelvoy of The economist.
Meghan, who has long trumpeted her feminist credentials, was described by the panel’s host as ‘a royal not afraid to embrace full- on feminism’.
Asked how her pregnancy was going, she said: ‘Very well. It’s funny, I’d actually been joking these past few weeks I’d seen this documentary on Netflix about feminism and one of the things they said during pregnancy was “I feel the embryonic kicking of feminism”, I loved that.
‘So boy or girl, whatever it is, we hope that that’s the case, our little bump.’ It is thought she was referring to Johanna Demetrakas’s 2018 film Feminists – What Were They Thinking?
Asked whether feminism could be a subject for men, too, the duchess said that it was important for ‘men to understand they can be feminists as well’ and that they shouldn’t be ‘threatened’ by having a ‘woman by your side, not behind you’.
On the subject of how she had begun to identify as a feminist, the duchess repeated the now-famous story about how she wrote a letter of complaint about a ‘sexist’ TV advert for washing up liquid at the age of 11, before the advert was then changed by its creators.
‘I was able to change this commercial. It really set up the trajectory for me to say, if there was a wrong, if there is a lack of justice, and there is an inequality, then someone needs to do something. And why not me?’ she said.
As an adult, Meghan said, she quickly realised that education for girls was key to changing communities in developing countries, as it has a ‘ripple effect’ on so many things.
‘It really does solve so many of the world’s problems when girls have access to education,’ she said.
‘Billions of dollars on the table are lost by girls being pulled out of education.’
She said her new role as vice-president of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust would enable her to spread her message across the globe.
‘It is about global feminism, it is about a parity and equality for all of us,’ she said.
Discussing the public reaction to her feminism and the fact that it has sometimes been criticised as a bit ‘woke’ – a word used for someone who is overly earnest – Meghan insisted she didn’t read pieces about herself or look at social media.
‘I don’t read anything, much safer that way,’ she claimed. And she exhorted people to do something rather than just post messages on social media. ‘hashtags are not enough,’ she said, urging her listeners to make a donation or ‘sponsor a girl’ because ‘that is how we start to effect that change’.
Meghan’s naming as the first vicepresident of The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust is an outward show of support from the monarch.
The position was specially created for the duchess after harry was named as president of the newlyformed organisation last year.
The trust was set up to champion, fund and connect young leaders around the world who are driving ‘positive social change’.