Yesterday, the 31 leaders of NATO joined the Queen and the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace. To mark the 70 year anniversary of the alliance a photo was taken. So far, so inoffensive. But, it seems to have sparked some strong opinions on social media, namely for its lack of diversity and the massive man-spreading come from Boris Johnson who is squashing the actual Queen.
People have picked up on the evident lack of gender and racial diversity in the photograph. Only a handful of women are placed among a sea of men, and even more noticeably, everyone is white (or at least white passing...) One tweet read, 'It's just like looking at pictures of the EU Commission - suited, white, predominantly male.'
Excluding the Queen, the six women slotted between the men in suits are: Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway, Zuzana Čaputová, President of Slovakia, Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark, Angela Merkel, President of Germany, Katrin Jakobsdottir, Prime Minister of Iceland and Sophie Wilmès, Prime Minister of Belgium. A special shout out to Zuzana Čaputová, who's barely in shot, peaking round the man blocking her.
For those of you who aren't maths whizz, of the 31 NATO visitors, only six are women, meaning that the gathering is 61% male. How's that for progress?
The photo's saving grace is Mr sassy-crossed-legs, bottom right. Otherwise known as the president of the Czech Republic and he's clearly had enough. Obviously we don't know what he is thinking, but we're guessing it might be, 'when is the free palace food coming out?'
Honestly mate, we've all been there. At least your boring work day involves a trip to Buckingham Palace and meeting the Queen. Ours just has soup we brought from home and a really long afternoon meeting.
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