I have never been overly enamored of the Royal Families of Europe. I find it odd, especially here in America, when we are glued to our televisions to watch someone in Great Britain get married simply because they were born into a family someone decided thousands of years ago is better than the rest of us. I will usually watch an interview or review pictures with a kind of mild interest and if I miss those things completely it never bothers me.
Jokingly, I chalk it up to my Irish/Scottish ancestry. While I was raised primarily with my mother's family and, so, have usually identified as Italian it does not take much to remind me of my ancestral roots. Let anyone pay too much attention (yes, that is a subjective decision on my part) to what a particular Prince or Duke in England says and I can feel 10thousand years of ancestry rising up with a giant, "OH SHAAADDDUP YOU BRITISH BASTIDS!" choking my voice. I am not particularly proud of this, okay? I share it only to give you some background.
Add to that the history of the British Royals leaving The Church because they were more concerned with their heirs than the Eucharist and you have the perfect storm with me. I regard people who jump out of the Barque of Peter so they can do whatever they want with pity. I look at the history of what happened as a result of Henry #8 deciding he wanted a male heir instead of a female heir and I am sorry Guy Fawkes didn't succeed.
All this being said, I found the furor over the Oprah Winfrey interview with Meg and Harry really interesting. The interest is not just over what she said - anyone with even a SLIGHT knowledge of history knows that the ruling class of Britain is mired in racism as well as religious bigotry and always has been - but over the reaction of people I thought were loving and devoted to Jesus. Frankly, I have been a bit shocked at how much they hate her. Why?
They have a 'feeling'.
What is the feeling based on? Nothing, as far as I can tell, other than they look at her and decide that they don't like her.
What is interesting is my recognizing that their reaction to her (Meg) is something women raised like me have been fighting against our entire lives.
I come from an unusual line of women. Because my immigrant Italian grandmother found herself a widow with two young daughters to support after the death of her first husband, she instilled in her children the importance of being able to support themselves. While other Italian girls were not leaving the house unless they were getting married or they had died, my aunts were being sent to the Business Colleges and taught to not just be able to earn a living but to be able to earn a living using their brains.
My grandmother had been brought up as a lady's maid and companion to a young child in a great house in Genoa. She had, therefore, exquisite manners and sensibilities above her peasant roots. That was passed on to us. I was taught etiquette and expected to behave in a way that my peers were not, which made me a target of both intrigue and jealousy.
Later, as I listened to the woke feminists of my college and post-college years, I heard the women around me complain about how they were not taught to stand up for themselves, to live on their own, to support themselves or to be able to tell their 'truth' without being put down 'by men'. You can't imagine my anger at hearing their complaints.
It was these women - my peers - who made my young life absolutely miserable because I HAVE been brought up in a way they were now proclaiming to be desirable. And the funny party? It was NEVER the males in my life who put me down for being that type of woman and it isn't men who put me down for that today - it is women. Sure, occasionally a man would find me too abrasive or decide I was 'too independent' but most of the pushback for being a loud, funny, determined and sensitive girl came from other girls.
Later, when I found the nerve to talk about this, these same women (now also older and wiser) had the guts to acknowledge what I was saying. They spoke of wanting to be a certain way and being too frightened of the consequences, and they also spoke of joining in on bullying tactics so they would not be outside the social circles so important when we are 12 and 13 years old. Other women, who had experienced what I experienced, also shared their pain and I did not feel alone or odd. Those of us who had been raised by strong mothers to be ladies of grace and dignity, to know right from wrong and what spoon to use, to be able to function at a football game or an afternoon tea, to be able to carry on a solid conversation and not be ashamed of our own likes and dislikes had really had a rough go in childhood. Today, we are (for the most part) okay and grateful for the strengths instilled in us but let me tell you, when you are 10 and people are not letting you sit with them at lunch because they do not like the fact that you get good grades and got chosen to read the poem at the School Recital? Man, that stuff is tough.
When I review the footage of the interview, I see a poised and confident woman trying to carefully navigate a minefield of social intrigue while not losing sight of her truth. She is careful to praise people who treated her well while firm in her presentation of what happened. She is aesthetically pleasing, obviously at ease in her own skin in a way that shouts that such ease has been hard won, in love with her husband and child and intelligent.
So, what is happening?
Those who see that type of woman as a threat have decided she is evil incarnate, cannot be trusted, is a 'vamp' (yes, that word has actually been used by a self-proclaimed Good Catholic who Loves Our Lady) and her story is being questioned.
And frankly, the only reason I can come up with for her not being believed is that she is one of THOSE types of women - the type that is both sensitive and strong, who tries her best to cooperate until she just cannot stand the illogic that is rampant around her and who, usually in defense of children, finally has enough and pushes back against the system hurting her and her family.
Why this is not admired by feminists (men and women both) the world over, when women are being proclaimed as worthy of being scientists, artists, mothers, CEO(s) and whatever they heck they want to try to be is just odd to me.
So, as the dust settles and the teams are chosen, women like me just shake our head. To us, this is one more example of how you cannot win for losing. Too poised and confident? You are stuck up. Too careful in choosing your words? You are a liar. To pretty? You are a vamp.
Nothing really changes, I guess, except our age. Thank God, I know longer worry about who I am going to sit with at lunch.
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