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On Friday, International Women’s Day, the Duchess of Sussex was part of a panel discussion at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The panel was “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen,” and Meghan was joined by Katie Couric, Brooke Shields and author Nancy Wang Yuen. Prince Harry sat in the audience with Meghan’s good friend Marcus Anderson. Meghan’s skirt and blouse are from Giuliva Heritage – I’m kind of meh on this look? The shirt would have looked better with a black or grey pencil skirt. There are a lot of quotes from the panel discussion and I’m not going to cover everything, but here are some assorted quotes:
On the social media & media toxicity directed at her: “Yes, social media is an environment that I think has a lot of that. You know I think, it’s really interesting as I can reflect on it, I keep my distance from it right now just for my own well-being, but the bulk of the bullying and abuse that I was experiencing on social media and online was when I was pregnant with Archie and Lili, and with a newborn with each of them. You just think about that, and to really wrap your head around why people would be so hateful. It’s not catty, it’s cruel. And why you would do that, certainly, when you’re pregnant, with a newborn, we all know as moms, it’s such a tender and sacred time. I think you know, you could either succumb to it, nearly succumb to how painful that it is, and maybe in some regards, because I was pregnant, that mammalian instinct just kicked in, you do everything you can to protect your child, and as a result, protect yourself too.”
On how much hate is coming from women online: Meghan said there’s a lot of work to be done to keep people safe online, but she finds it “disturbing” how “much of the hate is women completely spewing it to other women. I cannot make sense of that, because I understand that there are certain platforms, today is a really good example, this is being streamed on one of those platforms, and it’s also fantastic because people are going to have access to hear all of this brilliance and all of this insight, and at the same time, it’s a platform that has quite a bit of hate and rhetoric and incentives people to create pages where they can churn out very, very inciting comments and conspiracy theories that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental health, on their physical safety.”
Harry is a huge support: “I’m fortunate in that, among the privileges I have in my life, I have an incredible partner. My husband is such a hands-on dad and such a supporter of me and my family. That I don’t take for granted. That is a real blessing. But a lot of people don’t have that same level of support. So I think for us, it’s about putting safeguards in so women and moms especially cannot feel like they’re even more vulnerable when they go online.”
She’s right, it was especially upsetting to realize, in real time, that Meghan was being targeted with so much hatred and cruelty specifically because she was pregnant. The attacks on her ramped up around her pregnancies and it was completely insane to watch.
After the panel discussion, Meghan and Harry visited la Barbecue, a famous BBQ joint in Austin. Meghan’s people let the restaurant know ahead of time, and so the Sussexes got a tour of the pit and then they had the best BBQ of their lives. They chatted with everyone, including kitchen staff, and took lots of photos. Meghan also told people their kids love the new Disney movie, Wish. After their time in Austin, they traveled to Uvalde to meet some of the families of #UvaldeStrong.
MEGHAN MARKLE AND PRINCE HARRY CAME TO MY HOUSE !?!?!?! they’re such a beautiful couple and i’m so blessed, so glad they came to check up on the family #UvaldeStrong #MeghanMarkle #PrinceHarry pic.twitter.com/QdeZByhrCq
— JohnMtz ☀️ (@fuhknjo) March 9, 2024
Photos courtesy of Getty.
