From dissecting the term ‘bimbo’ with Paris Hilton, to the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype with actor Issa Rae, Meghan Markle’s latest look at the way women are depicted in society has turned to the idea of ‘the good wife and mother’.
In the latest episode of her podcast Archetypes, titled Good Wife/Bad Wife, Good Mom/Bad Mom, Meghan speaks to her long-time friend and First Lady of Canada, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, wife of prime minister Justin Trudeau, along with Pamela Adlon and Sam Jay, and there’s even a brief FaceTime cameo from Meghan’s mother Doria.
Introducing the episode the duchess says: ‘In this episode, we are digging into the roles that women play of wives, mums, caretakers, and really thinking about how do we break out the limiting versions that society has carved out for us and settle into the layered, complex and fullest versions of our own truths.'
Warming to this theme, after speaking with her mother, Meghan says: ‘It got me thinking about all the ways my mom supported me, how she took care of me and the house and herself and how she just juggled so much. The amount that women carry, that they navigate - it's immense, and it's often the most thankless unpaid labor there is.
'There's no union, there's no lunch break. There's nothing like that. At home, women just work really, really hard. A lot of that work is born out of necessity, but so much of it is also born out of expectations.’
Along with offering a glimpse into her life with her life in America with Prince Harry (he helps out on Prince Archie’s pre-school run, 1-year-old Lilibet is walking, Meghan likes to make breakfast for the three of them), Meghan and her guests talk about letting go of the idea of the perfect mother with ‘quaffed hair and pearls’, with Sophie adding: ‘I think we’ve learned to self-impose it [feelings of guilt]. A little girl is not born feeling guilty for being a girl, we learn it, and that’s completely unacceptable. The guilt we feel as mothers is self-imposed. We learn it.’
Of the mental load, Meghan describes motherhood as a ‘full plate’ and says that women ‘across this planet’ are still the nucleus of the family. ‘They still carry most of the load of housework, contributing to the family’s wellbeing and most decisions concerning the kids. And this is in countries where they have those rights.’
Speaking about the time she wrote to US politicians last year, ‘as a mom’ and asked them to consider paid paternity leave becoming a national right, Meghan said: ‘So much of the work I’ve been doing is to be able to have support for family, leave, paid leave, Can you imagine having a baby and then having to make a choice of “Oh, I can stay home with my child but if I do then I won’t have a job anymore?”'
The podcast also features Dr Shefali Tsabary, author of A Radical Awakening: Turn Pain Into Power, Embrace Your Truth, Live Free, who says: ‘We’ve fallen into this trap that we as a modern women can do anything. Now that sounds like a liberating message, but it’s not so liberating – I would go so far and boldly to say it’s toxic. We are falling into these misguided beliefs about who we should be – these personas of perfectionism and grandiose delusions that we can do it all.’