That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It (until I change my mind...)

Whenever the subject of the British royal family comes up—and let’s be honest, when I’m around, it comes up a fair amount—I’m always asked why I don’t particularly care for their latest duchess. So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain my position once and for all. I mean, according to the world, Kate is so pretty, so well dressed, so nice looking, so pretty, has such shiny hair, and is just so pretty. What’s not to like? 

Kate, BW (Before William)

And, therein lies the problem.

There have been approximately 9,20,482 articles written about the Duchess and approximately 9,20,475 of those have been about how nice she looks, how healthy her hair is, how much she spent on her outfit, and how fashionable she is. Why? Because there’s nothing else to discuss. Her greatest (read: only) accomplishment is wearing nice clothes nicely. Let’s be clear, it’s not that I dislike her, nor that I'm particularly jealous that she (finally) managed to snag herself an allegedly spoiled, balding prince; I just find nothing about her all that remarkable and get tired of hearing how spectacular she is (especially when, pre-wedding, this wasn’t the case). 

And when the media won’t tell you the truth (anymore), ATG will. It’s our plight in life. We are defenders of truth. So buckle up; it’s about to get factual up in here.

Let’s begin with some of the adjectives used to describe Kate recently: dazzling, breath-taking, beautiful, perfect. Perfect? That’s a pretty big claim. I mean, I’m fairly incredible and even I’m not perfect (but let’s just keep that between us). Here’s a comment left on the Daily Mail’s site that gives you just a taste of the Kate mania sweeping the globe: “I’m a 24 year old woman and aspire to her so much. She is elegant, beautiful, caring and everything a young woman should be in this modern world.”

Seriously? She may be elegant and perhaps even beautiful, but a role model to which every woman should aspire?

 I'm just your average girl-next-door who's about to snag herself a prince. 

Let’s get real. Even if the stories about Kate following William to university and scheming her way into his dorm are false—and even if the tale about her joining a rowing team during one of their breakups, only to quit once they got back together, is fabricated—it doesn’t appear that she’s done much with herself, or her outrageously expensive degree, besides stumble out of nightclubs with her undies showing and, more recently, shake a few charitable hands. Why? Because she was constantly on-call for her globe-trotting boyfriend. 

Sure, she lived in London (in an apartment allegedly paid for by her parents), where she worked for a short time as an accessories buyer—working only a couple days a week—but she had to quit that job because she had a much more important and lucrative one in mind: snagging a prince. And she was successful. Can’t hate on her for that.

Kate, AW (After William)

But, the argument that she’s a better role model than, say, Kim Kardashian is questionable. After all, aren’t they both basically known for being pretty clotheshorses who had famous weddings? 

  Sometimes they even dress alike.

 

Listen, I’m sure she’s a perfectly lovely person, but let’s don’t oversell. She’s a fairly ordinary girl who fell into an extraordinary life. She’s not Venus in blue jeans, and to set her up as such is really unfortunate for everyone—including Kate. Defining her as something that she’s not, means that at some point she’ll fail to measure up. Then what?  

 Kate and her equally as overly publicized sister, Pippa. 

So far, she’s smiled and waved herself through a handful of engagements, and, overall, she’s done it well. But does this a role model make? A woman, who from all accounts is quite bright and was given some awesome opportunities, but decided to instead wait around—for almost a decade and through several breakups—for her boyfriend to decide if he wanted to marry her? Obviously she’s not the only woman who’s ever waited for a man, but few women choose, or are able, to make waiting their career.

I’m not saying that someday she won’t make a great role model, she probably will, all I’m saying is that she’s not there yet. And isn’t it better, for everyone involved, to postpone touting all her accomplishments until after she’s actually accomplished something?

After all, surely we want our young women to aspire to more than having lives defined entirely by their boyfriends and being skinny.