In Meghan’s glossy, aspirational world, women can have it all |
In 1861, Isabella Beeton wrote in The Book of Household Management: “Among the gifts that nature has bestowed on woman, few rank higher than the capacity for domestic management.” For almost half a century, the Victorian author’s book of housewife how-to tips squatted on the bestseller list, dispensing advice such as how to employ servants, wash dishes and… er… keep pigs.
Beeton, who was a kind of proto-Nigella of her time, would have found a lot to like about the Duchess of Sussex’s new Netflix show With Love, Meghan, billed as a “celebration of food, family, and togetherness”.
The latest trailer features the Duchess entertaining guests and friends via the medium of perfectly arranged charcuterie boards. It’s glossily benign American nonsense, where every high-definition mise en place close-up is undercut with jokes made by klutzy celebrity guests or relatable “just like you” mistakes, like Meghan squirting lemon juice in her eye by accident.
With Love, Meghan is nothing new for Netflix. The multibillion-dollar streamer does a tidy run of similar shows, with the once-inescapable Queer Eye – now limping into its ninth season after the high-profile departure of co-host Bobby Berk – the high watermark for this kind of guff.
Cosily predictable and vaguely aspirational lifestyle ASMR, this is the kind of show you can half-watch with one eye on your phone. Of course, the key difference between the Fab Five’s style makeovers and the Duchess’s new show is that only one of these shows features a former senior royal and tabloid hate figure. Poor Meghan – she just can’t win.
Commentators on both the left and the right have already honed in on the apparent contradiction between her label as a women’s rights advocate and feminist and this latest television reincarnation as a domestic goddess, describing it as a tradwife branding exercise.
You don’t have to look far to see what Meghan herself might say to these comments. “There’s no uniform for feminism,” she told audiences at a keynote speech in 2021. “You are a feminist exactly the way you are.”
Like the trailer for With Love, Meghan, it’s an ambient feel-good line that evaporates on contact with more critical thinking. Surely there is a uniform for feminism, mainly certain core beliefs on gender equality and social justice?
But the idea that domesticity necessarily conflicts with feminism is just misogyny dressed up in a new frock. While some second-generation feminists may have jettisoned their husbands and suburban lives in a blaze of glory upon reading Betty Friedan, many still remained parents. They had to keep their own kids fed and change diapers. They still had to cook and clean the house, even if it was just for themselves. Presumably, some of them still had an interest in making their home look presentable, even – shock! horror! – nice.
None of this is inherently anti-feminist – it’s just life. In fact, we should be thinking more about how to incorporate feminism into the banal everyday – chores, raising children, household bills, buying a lamp that doesn’t make you want to claw your eyes out every time you turn it on.
If women want to (or have to, given how expensive childcare is these days) stay at home, feminism can help them argue that their domestic labour should be valued accordingly, not merely taken as a precondition of their gender.
If one partner gets to clock off after work, when does the spouse who spends all day corralling a baby and wiping down surfaces – effectively doing the job of a nursery teacher and cleaner – get to do the same? What can a feminist vision of homemaking look like in this day and age? Can it be more socially and community-oriented, supported by a wider network of friends and chosen family, if only to give women a break? Can we give women permission to take shortcuts and rely on others, or do we still expect them to put in the work without pay, however you might define compensation?
I’m not sure that tradwife influencers or the Duchess’s high-gloss reality show can help us answer these questions. That’s because their glamorously aspirational image of homemaking is so dependent on the stereotype of women doing it all, whether that’s making breakfast cereal from scratch (à la TikTok creator Nara Smith) or raising eight kids (see: Hannah Neeleman, better known as Ballerina Farm).
But let’s wait to see if With Love, Meghan tackles some of these thornier issues. Who knows? We might see Prince Harry get stuck into the dishes and tell Meghan to take the evening off and order in some Deliveroo. In her own words: “We’re not in the pursuit of perfection. We’re in the pursuit of joy.”
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster