The coronation of King Charles is technically about the rise to power of one man, but just like weddings where the brides and their dresses are the true stars, many eyes will be on the women rising to power on coronation day, too.
The ascendance of Camilla Parker-Bowles and Kate Middleton could not have happened decades ago. The relaxing of rigid class standards when it comes to romance is something to be celebrated. But their rise—in the wake of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s high-profile exit from royal duties—raises a number of questions.
With more Black women admitting to feeling isolated in traditional workplaces, perhaps the biggest question is this: Are the world’s most high-profile standard-bearers for white womanhood going to use their new platforms to emerge as allies to women of color? Or will they maintain one of the world’s oldest status quos: allowing powerful men to divide the rest of us?
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Let me say this from the outset: I have empathy for both Camilla Parker-Bowles and Kate Middleton. But it has its limits.
I have empathy for them because, as one monarchy-obsessed colleague of mine pointed out (while she was criticizing Meghan Markle), both Kate and Camilla were subjected to bullying by the tabloids throughout their years in the public eye. According to press reports (and gossip among friends who belong to upper-class circles of which I am not a part), it was widely believed that Prince William would never marry “someone like Kate Middleton,” who was meanly nicknamed “Waity Katie” by the press. By “someone like her” they meant someone who was not born into the right class background. (Her parents were actually self-made and not simply heirs to wealth they did not earn. The horror!)
More people know Camilla’s backstory. She was apparently Charles’s first love, but not deemed good enough for the heir to the throne to marry, so she watched him marry someone else. She became the other woman in his marriage to the late Princess Diana and was villainized by the press.
My colleague asked why—if Camilla and Kate could endure decades of bullying—couldn’t Meghan Markle endure a couple of years? I responded with a couple of questions of my own.
If we all agree that Kate and Camilla were treated badly, then shouldn’t we all celebrate that the newest woman in the royal family was willing to stand up and say, “No more”? Shouldn’t we be even more thrilled that her husband was willing to stand up and say, “no more” to the press and to palace staff that apparently enabled such behavior?
My colleague seemed genuinely confused by the question—like it never crossed her mind. Therein lies the problem.
Those of us from underrepresented groups—people of color, women, the financially underprivileged—are often conditioned to be so grateful for a seat at the table that many will do anything to keep it, even if that means sitting on the floor or kicking the chair out from under someone else.
Among the most damaging revelations from Harry’s bestselling memoir, Spare, are allegations that Camilla’s office leaked damaging stories on both Kate and Meghan as a tradeoff to rehabilitate her own image. Then there were allegations of testy exchanges regarding flower girl dresses between Meghan and Kate.
But the narrative that took hold in the press was that “mean Meghan Markle” made Kate Middleton cry, which wasn’t true. What seems to be true is that the two ladies didn’t click. It happens.
Here’s the moment where my empathy for the other women in the royal family comes to an end.
One of the most damaging stereotypes for Black women is that we are angry, aggressive, and dangerous. While royal staff allegedly dismissed requests from Harry and Meghan to set the record straight that she wasn’t running around making the white princess cry, the story and request was dismissed as unimportant.
That means one of two possibilities are true:
- Either Kate Middleton isn’t intelligent enough or worldly enough to be aware of the concept of damaging racial stereotypes.
- Or Kate Middleton is so scared of losing her place of power that when she saw another woman being thrown to the wolves (like she previously was), she didn’t feel empowered enough to do anything about it.
Either possibility is troubling, and yet not surprising.
I’ve crossed paths with more than a few Kate Middletons in my own career, as have most Black women I know. In one instance, a white male boss behaved badly and I called him on it. While some of the white women I worked with told me privately I was right and they were happy I said something, they did not say that to him. They were afraid of him—even though they arguably had more power than I did. I later learned that when another woman of color backed me up to him, he then told others she was difficult, thus damaging her career prospects.
But here’s a crazy thought: what if all of us had banded together and told him as a group he was difficult? Or told his bosses he was difficult?
And yet from the beginning of time, those at the top have relied on keeping those of us underneath them squabbling and afraid so they can continue their reigns of dysfunction, if not outright terror.
Thinking back to 2013’s Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, I found the slaveowner’s wife, depicted brilliantly and chillingly by Sarah Paulson, to be the most disturbing character in the film. That character captures the unspoken, enduring conflict between some white women and Black women that has haunted the suffrage movement, the feminist movements, and continues to haunt us today. In the film, Paulson portrays a white woman of privilege who resents a Black woman (suffering far more than she is), because her husband demeans them both.
Now a century later—as Black women and white women find ourselves not only competing for political power and professional opportunities, but for the first time in history competing for spouses of various races and class status—the sisterhood is on shaky ground.
I can’t help but think of all of the white women who boosted Donald Trump politically and the harm that has come to women of color accordingly. As noted by the exhausting anti-Markle, pro-monarchy coverage even in American conservative news outlets, a lot of women for Trump will be cheering on coronation day. Why shouldn’t they? At its core, the coronation celebrates an idea of traditional womanhood, featuring white women whose primary responsibilities are to be dutiful, well-dressed wives and mothers who don’t challenge their men or the power structure.
The question is this: are those the women Kate and Camilla want to ally themselves with around the world, or do they actually want to bring people together? Because the late Princess Diana was clear in her goal of uniting people of different races and classes. Furthermore, Harry and Meghan’s recollections of the queen paint a portrait of someone willing to learn and evolve on race, class and the monarchy, late in life, because that’s what real leaders and role models do.
Camilla Parker-Bowles and Kate Middleton have some awfully big shoes to fill.
