Meghan Markle is a UN Ambassador. Meghan Markle is a Global Ambassador for World Vision Canada, helping to further the clean water project in Rwanda. Meghan Markle is a counsellor for One Young World and has spoken on gender equality and modern day slavery. Meghan Markle is a blogger who focusses on ethical fashion brands. Meghan Markle is an actress who stars in one of the United States' most popular television shows.
But we're not really talking about that.
Because Meghan Markle is also the rumoured new girlfriend of Prince Harry and so, because the world is full of wankers, has become the subject of sexist and downright offensive news articles and comments.
For starters, there's her appearance on Suits. In it, she plays Rachel Zane, a legal clerk who is the accomplice and love interest of main character Mike Ross. It's alright as a show, good for a hangover day, but, in it, there's a couple of scenes where, gasp, Rachel and Mike have sex. It was stills of these scenes that were printed in all the papers. These scenes where Meghan is playing a character over say, this image where Meghan is in Rwanda with World Vision, something she actually did in *real *life.
Mulitple old shoots of her have also been pulled out of the woodwork. 'Prince Harry’s rumoured girlfriend Meghan Markle poses for racy bra-flashing photoshoot for Men’s Health' reads this headline, alongside fully-clothed pictures of Meghan that are fully three years old.
Then there's the issue of her half-sister, a woman who's comments have been printed and re-printed, trying and finding Meghan guilty before she's even uttered a word. 'Hollywood has changed her.' 51-year-old Samantha Grant said. 'I think her ambition is to become a princess.
'Meghan is narcissistic and selfish.' She continued. 'I think the Royal family would be appalled.'
Classy.
Then, there's the commenters on news website and social media.
A snippet of some of the opinions on Meghan...
Sooo, that's nice isn't it.
The truth is, if the genders were reversed and Prince Harry were Princess Harriet and Meghan Markle was Michael Markle, this whole thing wouldn't be an issue. We'd judge 'Michael' on his business accumen, gush over pictures of his humanitarianism and praise Princess Harriet on finding herself such a nice young man. As it is, we're programmed as a culture to find a way to bring her down. To paint her as a golddigger, as a sexual predator, as someone undeserving of poor Prince Harry.
The truth is, whether or not they're together, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are grown-ups. If they're together they've entered into this relationship willingly and it's up to Harry to decide whether or not Meghan is the girl for him, ditto for her. Slut shaming her isn't going to get you anywhere so, how's about if we can't leave her alone, we take time to actually listen to the important stuff Meghan has to say.
Here's Meghan in a UN video about the importance of female leadership. Less than one quarter of the current world leaders are women. And you know what? Meghan's not OK with that, and you shouldn't be either.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.