If you’ve been in Australia in recent weeks you may have noticed that we hosted a Royal visit. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their young son spent 10 days in Australia after a week in New Zealand. Their visit sparked thousands and thousands of photos and almost as many conversations. How do these photogenic Royals impact Republicanism? Can you like the young Windsors and still support Australia becoming a Republic? Are they entitled to any privacy on a public tour?
The question that got me thinking, however, is this. Is Kate Middleton a suitable role model?
Some argue she is the antithesis to the so-called “Kardashian-culture”; she is dignified and demure and seems entirely comfortable being so. Others say she is a dangerous role model who “has revived the idea that women being defined by who they marry is a positive life choice”.
In theory I agree with that argument. The idea of marrying Prince Charming and living happily ever after is a false narrative too many young girls are still fed in fairy tales. It’s a storyline destined to disappoint in real life. Before you even contemplate romantic compatibility, it’s a numbers game – there just aren’t as many Princes to match the number of women vying for one. But even if Royals were in abundance financial independence is the prize we should encourage men and women to aspire to. Boring, I know, but far more realistic (and less likely to disappoint).
I accept that the Duchess of Cambridge stokes the fairy-tale fire. She nabbed an actual Prince, thus disproving the argument that it’s not possible and, notwithstanding the constant media attention, her life looks a lot like her hair. Gorgeous and impossibly glossy. While most of us are astute enough to recognise her life is not without certain struggles, I know I’m not the only parent who was green with envy as I observed the newish-parents on tour. The prospect of travelling with a properly-trained, highly capable nanny to care for your baby while meeting your work commitments on the road? (Without giving the cost a single thought?) Can you even imagine that? Sign me up now.
That envy aside, I wouldn’t advocate young women seeking to emulate the Duchess of Cambridge on the basis of her marital partner alone. But there is quite a bit that seems worth emulating. She seems to be awfully authentic, well-grounded and professional; that she’s been in the public gaze for so long without even a whiff of controversy is surely not by accident.
She may have married a Prince but from what I can glean from the couple, she didn’t marry him because he’s a Prince, which is an important distinction. And their marriage, admittedly in my wholly subjective opinion, certainly appears to be a union of equals. Which is particularly notable when one half of that couple is heir to the British throne.
As much as gender equality is about the big picture – about women being represented equally in society, holding senior leadership positions and earning as much money as their male peers – the small picture is mightily influential. Gender equality, or inequality, literally starts at home. It is evidenced in how sons and daughters are treated and how spouses treat one another.
What goes on in households everywhere informs the big picture. For every wife who assumes complete responsibility for caring for children and running the household, there is a husband who can attend work unencumbered by familial responsibilities. There is a manager, potentially, who can’t really grasp the reality of working and taking care of kids because it’s not his reality. He can’t help but assume the man in his team who asks for paternity leave is less committed to his career than he is.
It’s why the dynamics between married couples are influential and not just inside the home; they seep into every aspect of our lives. And it’s particularly apparent in the workplace. Just recently I heard about a female executive whose male co-worker commented that unlike her his wife could never work because she loves their children too much. The comment is revealing and unfortunately not rare.
As much as equality can be measured in quantitative terms, it is ultimately shaped by qualitative factors. Most importantly, the belief that no man or woman is more important than the other. That belief, and the consequences that flow from it, is what promotes equality.
Whereas once it was the norm for husbands to work and wives to stay at home, the inequality wasn’t simply borne out of those arrangements per se. It was the attitudes that accompanied and entrenched those arrangements from which the true inequality sprung. A cursory glance at the Good Wife’s Guide from 1955 confirms that the husband was the master of the house. It was the husband’s needs that were deemed more important than the wife’s. Variations on that notion continue to abound and explain, at least in part, why the progression of women at work is still limited.
Perhaps it’s too long a bow to draw, but it seems that the young Windsors’ marriage is an equal partnership. Perhaps behind closed doors it’s not. But from the outside it certainly looks like they respect and admire one another as equals. They have rejected antiquated protocols about the “commoner’s” family being rendered inconsequential upon marriage. They spent Christmas with Kate’s family — a break from tradition — and bunkered down at her family’s house for a month after their son was born. These choices seem to indicate that in their household Kate isn’t merely the future King’s wife. She is one half of a marriage and in that regard I’d say they’re a pair of decent role models.