The Sussex Saga: A misogynistic side show
Since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their intentions to step down from their senior royal roles at the end of last week, it has become the story of the moment. It’s dominated newspaper headlines. It’s been the lead item on news broadcasts. It’s fuelled heated discussion on every television chat show and radio phone-in. Meghan has been accused of being controlling and manipulative. Harry has been portrayed as an emasculated, henpecked husband. Should they be stripped of their royal titles? Who is going to pay for their security?
However, the main question I have is What is this story distracting us from?
Difficult to believe that only a few weeks ago, the royal at the centre of a colossal s**t storm was Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Following revelations about his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations that Epstein trafficked the then 17-year-old Virginia Guiffre to have sex with him, he appeared on BBC’s Panorama, and gave an interview that can only be described as a car crash.
In what appeared to be his attempt to take control of the narrative, he simply ended up confirming what many of us already knew. That he is an entitled, arrogant man who uses his position to shamelessly exercise special liberty – doing whatever he feels necessary, on or beyond the boundaries of ethics and law, to serve his own expressive and instrumental interests[i]. He showed no sympathy for Epstein’s victims in the Panorama interview and said he did not regret his friendship with Epstein. He later scrambled to limit the damage, claiming that he did have sympathy for the victims and regretted not showing it in the interview. It was clear that Prince Andrew has three priorities: me, myself and I.
Prince Andrew has allegedly been engaging in misogynistic, egocentric behaviour for decades (for example as described in this 2006 Independent article) and was eventually tripped up by his own hubris. Critical questions were asked about how someone in his position could engage in the kind of conduct that he did. Who allowed this? Who knew about his ‘partying’? Who failed to police his behaviour? If this is what has become public, what other murky claims are lurking behind the scenes? However, that story seems to have quietly gone away in recent weeks.
Harry and Meghan’s announcement that they are stepping away from royal duties has generated much discussion about the standards of conduct and behaviour we expect from high profile members of the royal family. However, their behaviour pales in insignificance when compared to Harry’s Uncle Andrew and there are evident double standards at work here.
Harry and Meghan are individuals who have consistently stuck up for people in less fortunate positions than them through their charity work. They are new parents beginning to think about their future and envisage a life in the best interests of their family. Prince Andrew has consistently abused his power and privilege to live the lifestyle he thinks he deserves and the wellbeing of others has hardly factored in his decision making. Yet it’s Harry and Meghan – well, largely Meghan – having the mud slung at them now.
The implications of Prince Andrew’s behaviour? His mum cancelled his birthday party, he didn’t fully participate in some royal festive events (the adult equivalent of being ‘grounded’) and he ‘stepped down’ from his royal duties. He’d clearly had something of a telling off. The implications for Meghan and Harry of their announcement? “Crisis talks” and a “Sandringham Summit”.
The widespread vilification of Meghan reeks of misogyny – drawing upon historical tropes of women as untrustworthy, deceitful and hysterical[ii]. Strange that headlines drawing attention to Prince Andrew’s alleged abuse of women have been replaced with misogynistic headlines vilifying Meghan. Seems that it’s easier to practice sexism and patriarchy than it is to challenge it.
Prince Andrew’s history of misogynistic behaviour was built on and legitimated by traditional patriarchal authority insulated by class privilege. Harry and Meghan’s behaviour represents a challenge to that type of power structure. Meghan is a woman whose identity is not premised solely on her roles as wife and mother. She had a professional and personal life before she met her husband, which she seems reluctant to simply erase upon marrying. However, a strong and independent woman from Los Angeles who won’t be told what to do by the establishment does not sit comfortably with the Windsors. Her passion for issues and causes relating to women’s empowerment and gender equality are reframed as evidence of her ‘pushiness’ and ‘difficult’ nature. Her autonomy and the vile reaction to her exercise of it is more revealing about the unrealistic androcentric ideals of the House of Windsor than it is about her.
The criticism of Meghan resonates with the themes I come across in my work investigating gender-based violence. Women are held wholly responsible for the situations they find themselves in. The onus is upon them to change and adapt to the world around them rather than upon the inherent sexism, misogyny and other forms of structural discrimination that characterise that world. Women are problems to be managed, monitored and processed until they comply with ‘traditional’ expectations about who women are and how they should behave rather than heterogenous individuals with strengths and agency. In framing Meghan as the aggressor, articles like this one create a sideshow which distracts us from the dark side of the royal family.
The royal who has demonstrated the most harmful pathological behaviour in recent years is Prince Andrew. Misogyny is at the core of his narcissistic conduct. This is clearly something the fourth estate doesn’t want to spend too much time on. It defies the simplistic explanations that characterise contemporary journalism and holds up a mirror to pervasive sexism that runs through the veins of our social institutions, the media included, so it is swept under the rug and minimised. The Harry and Meghan story provides a tantalising opportunity to close down criticism of the structures and values which enabled Prince Andrew to get away with deplorable behaviour for as long as he did and reinforce support for the patriarchal traditionalism that the monarchy represents.
Meghan has been demonised as an outsider and portrayed as a threat to be contained. However, rather than individualising the issue and problematising her, shouldn’t we be looking at the bigger picture, questioning the tendency of our social institutions to perpetuate divisions, inequalities and discrimination? The Sussex Saga is a convenient distraction from this. We need to keep prodding away at the Prince Andrew issue, this is an opportunity to hold our monarchy and mainstream media to account and begin to change the androcentric and patriarchal values they sustain.
[i] Hall, S. (2012). Theorizing Crime and Deviance. London: Sage.
[ii] D'Cruze, S. and Jackson, L. A. (2009) Women, crime and justice in England since 1660. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
