Brit Royalty - Author Tells it Like it Is and....

[J'ean Skirt]

*snip lots of good stuff I totally agree with*

I don't feel sorry for her. She's a grown woman and chose this life. But I do empathize with her as I can only imagine a fraction of the pressure she's under. I am glad she wanted this, that she likes this, because it will make her successful and less likely to be miserable. This is not a meta-statement about my desire for a monarchy but about what I see as a young woman who in many ways is the paradigm of how society views and treats women. And how it engages with class.

I also think the British monarchy is a radically different institution for the far more mellow, down-to-earth Scandinavian monarchies. They're worlds apart, as are their general societies.

I fully believe Kate chose this life with a lot of freedom, probably more freedom than Diana had when she was sacrificed to the Monarchy. But it doesn't mean that it's all good parts. There are a lot of negatives to being a woman in the public eye. Almost everything you do will be criticized by someone.

I was thinking last night why "she should have not taken the risk" upset me so much, and I finally figured it out. I am somewhat well known in my field and am very publicly a woman in a male dominated field. Just by existing openly as a woman on the internet I am taking a risk that someone will invade my privacy or decide I am a target or decide I need to be taught my place.

Kate's "risk" is a bit different, I don't really think anyone wants to see my chubby naked body. But I am extremely sensitive to the fact that, at any point, some man or men online could decide that I am their target. Kathy Sierra was publicly a woman on the internet, talking about Linux useability issues, and she was threatened and hounded out of the public eye for no more reason than some man decided she was to be shut up.

I will admit, I am sometimes scared that my name is public. That my phone number is published online. That my address is pretty trivial to find. Not because I'm doing anything wrong. But simply because I am a woman and I choose to involve myself in the public sphere. That is itself risky and I often feel vulnerable.

The alternative? To keep sweet, be submissive and not dare to speak when the Men Are Talking. Screw that. But it doesn't mean I am not sensitive to the idea that I am taking a risk and am vulnerable.

[Soldier of the One]

Bisky, I am in a somewhat similar position to you and completely agree and empathize. I too work in a male-dominated field, out in the public eye and those of us women (or gays) who do are more vulnerable to criticism. Hugs!

[Convicted Blossom]

A transcript of Hilary Mantel's lecture can be found here. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

Mantel actually conducted a brilliant analysis of how royal women have been treated by society and institutions, her mention of Kate Middleton was very brief and most certainly was not an attack on Middleton. In the opening to her speech Mantel said:

Last summer at the festival in Hay-on-Wye, I was asked to name a famous person and choose a book to give them. I hate the leaden repetitiveness of these little quizzes: who would be the guests at your ideal dinner party, what book has changed your life, which fictional character do you most resemble? I had to come up with an answer, however, so I chose Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and I chose to give her a book published in 2006, by the cultural historian Caroline Weber; it’s called Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution. It’s rather that I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung. In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore. These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant. They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.

She then goes on to speak of Marie Antoinette, her brushes with current royal persons then a review of the lives of the wives of Henry VIII, Diana Princess of Wales.

We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we license strip joints and lap-dancing clubs. Adulation can swing to persecution, within hours, within the same press report: this is what happened to Prince Harry recently. You can understand that anybody treated this way can be destabilised, and that Harry doesn’t know which he is, a person or a prince. Diana was spared, at least, the prospect of growing old under the flashbulbs, a crime for which the media would have made her suffer. It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn’t mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago.