Meghan Markle under fire for 'hypocritical' comment on 'rank'
Meghan Markle has had a recent comment made in a chat with feminist activist Gloria Steinem come under fire after onlookers couldn’t help but point out a stark inconsistency.
The Duchess of Sussex, as she is still known, sat down with the famous campaigner for an intimate and exclusive conversation for Verizon Media’s MAKERS.
While discussing everything from the importance of voting to her happiness being back home in the US, the pair also touched upon one of Gloria’s favourite phrases to sum up her approach to campaigning for equal rights across the board.
The phrase ‘we are linked not ranked’ is a famous one of Gloria’s and even appears on a bracelet the 86-year-old gifted Meghan that she was wearing during the chat.
The same bracelets were designed and sold by Gloria to raise funds for feminist.com.
“Well, you know actually, ‘we are linked not ranked’ is the shortest way I’ve ever found to say what our goal is,” Gloria said to the Duchess.
“It means everything to me on every level; we are linked not ranked,” Meghan responded.
“And I thank you for understanding that rank is less important than being linked,” Gloria responded. “That’s a big thing.”
Onlookers argue ‘linked not ranked’ hypocritical from Duchess of Sussex
Some couldn’t help but point out however, that the Duchess doesn’t seem to apply the same dismissal of ‘rank’ in her personal life, her title proving the case in point.
“‘Duchess‘ is a rank,” one person wrote on Twitter. “Why not go by Meghan Markle or Mountbatten-Windsor? Or even just Meghan?”
“The title goes against all left-wing principles as a symbol of aristocracy and against being ‘linked not ranked’. I don’t get it.”
Others couldn’t help but agree, pointing out the very jarring distance between Meghan’s bracelet and Meghan’s title.
“In that case why is Meghan using her rank?” one wondered. “Seems hypocritical.”
“Meghan takes hypocrisy to a whole new and totally different level like never seen before by anyone I am sure,” one commentator wrote.
“‘Linked not ranked’ is the complete opposite of what she believes in given she continues to use her title to promote herself.”
Meghan and Harry lost the right to use ‘His/ Her Royal Highness’ in their titles, or the word ‘royal’ in their brand after their sensational exit from the royal family earlier this year, but retained the use of Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Meghan highlights ‘feminist’ Harry in rest of chat
Others however, chose to focus on the rest of the interview between the pair in which they spoke about the importance of giving women a voice through voting.
“If you don’t vote you don’t exist,” Gloria told the Duchess, to which she replied: “I’ve been really concerned about voter suppression.”
She also took a moment to honour her husband Prince Harry, who she celebrated as a feminist.
She revealed that when he met Gloria he told the celebrated feminist: “‘You know that I’m a feminist too, right Gloria?! It’s really important to me that you know that.’”
She went on to share how happy that made her as a mother to baby Archie.
“But you need that,” she said. “And I look at our son and what a beautiful example that he gets to grow up with a father who is so comfortable owning that as part of his own self-identification.”
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