To think seeing an older lady curtesy to KM is sad to see

[Julia2016]

Just saw a photo of an older lady curtesying to Kate Middleton, I felt so sad to see it. Sad as to why anyone would feel the need to bow down to another human being.

Every day I shake my head with who people admire in this world and how the general public swallow all these pr machines. 😒

And if her bloody skirt blows up in the wind again I shall scream.

Amazing how the queen has been doing the apparently arduous job of wearing clothes and smiling for photographs for decades, and has never "accidentally" flashed so much as a knee. If madam wanted to stay out of the press, she could. It's pretty clear she doesn't.

I'm not a fan of the whole Royalty thing but the vitriol for Kate is a bit much. She seems to do stuff. She's technically just finished maternity leave. She does private stuff as well, to do with certain charities where the publicity wouldn't be good for those she visits. And William flies the air ambulance and donates his salary to charity. I never thought I'd be on this side of such a debate...!

He works part time and do you really think he could take a salary? Think about it......!

Michelle Obama didn't curtsey to the Queen apparently. Good for her I say - Michelle that is...

All I can think about when I rtwf is the channel 4 programme "the windsors". Seems it's spot on.

Um, I assume he could take a salary. Andrew's daughter did. Charles has cash from his Duchy emporia. I have thought abt it. But that's all off the topic of the OP, and I agree I wouldn't curtsy to another human being.

I don't like her fakeness. She gets all her PR people to say that she can't do duties (like giving out the shamrocks) because she wants to spend time with her children. She also goes on about children't mental health. However, this is the woman who left her FIVE MONTH OLD child with a nanny to sun herself in the Maldives. She has a full-time, live in nanny despite only working for a few days a month. No doubt she will pack her kids off to boarding school as soon as she can too. Prince Charles has publicly complained about his cold childhood, and I bet George and Charlotte will do the same when they are older.

I don't think I'd curtsey to the royal family - way too awkward. But definitely a curtsey for Kylie then I'd ask if we could do the locomotion also

Republican and dyed-in-the-wool leftie here. Am baffled by the hatred for KM to be honest. Why do any of you even care that much? Either we have no monarchy at all and do away with the whole lot (would be massively unpopular going by endless polls), or we put up with this nonsense and accept that quite a lot of some people love bending, scraping and forelock-tugging. You don't have to like it, but Britain's a weird country like that.

Also, finding hard to hate someone for the crime of 'not having done very much in their 20s' or 'daring to have their skirt blown up in the wind' or 'just settling down and having a couple of kids'. Seriously, there's quite a lot of the population that fit into that Venn diagram - but I'm guessing that as they didn't marry a Prince, they get a pass?

Queen works very hard:
You mean like that dinner lady or cleaner or nurse who work so hard to put food on the table for their children?! This is the woman I would curtesy to.

Amazing how the queen has been doing the apparently arduous job of wearing clothes and smiling for photographs for decades, and has never "accidentally" flashed so much as a knee.

That's bollocks. Sorry, but it is. I can remember being in Australia and in the States as a kid - 70s or 80s - and their being photos of windy airport days revealing her slip etc. And it happens to all the others. It just wasn't reported upon until this young woman - which should tell you a lot.

If you want to be manipulated by the media, who clearly have an agenda on this situation, largely because William is blatantly determined to rein them in, then that's certainly your prerogative. But the idea none of the rest of the royal women have the issue is just untrue.

I think the monarchy is a crazy idea for a modern head of state. I'd love a referendum and my vote would be out in a heartbeat. But the vicious, misogynist attacks on a woman who just doesn't have a very good work ethic and has married into the system as it currently exists is pretty unpleasant to witness, frankly. She's hardly peed in anyone's cornflakes.

Snufflet she can do the hell she likes as long as she does not expect to be funded by the taxpayer/curtsied to/fawned over/not criticized.

I happen to think that she has wasted a very good, very expensive education. It depresses me that young women (or at least this young woman!) can have all the privilege and equality of opportunity that modern society can offer and still decide to waste their life waiting around for a man to marry them because of some medieval belief system.

Sleep the queen apparently weights her hems. KM has been advised to do the same but has declined. Go figure.

I personally don't think it's sad. I don't like the royal family but if an older woman wants to curtsy to them then I respect her opinion and traditions. It was probably a very happy moment for her.

Sleep the queen apparently weights her hems. KM has been advised to do the same but has declined. Go figure.

Told you this, did she? Or did you read it somewhere online?

say the Queen never had that problem? Read that in the same place, did you?

That took a minute on Google. It brought up images of every single contemporary royal woman with the wind blowing her skirt up. I think the fact those images are marketable should be the real concern, frankly.

Again: I think the monarchy is indefensible and I'd gladly get shot of them tomorrow. But I find personalised venom aimed at total strangers who happen to be famous as weirdly unsettling as worship. And in this woman's case, she's just so dull. I can't fathom what there is there to hate.

Well I agree with that. The fact that someone so vanilla can be (supposedly) so revered is baffling to me, as is the whole hereditary monarchy nonsense generally. It's as though the most admirable thing a woman can do is be bland, non-threatening, smiley and thin. I find that depressing as well. Hilary Mantel put it much better than I am about a year or so ago - also available on Google...

To be fair there is a genius solution to the problem of skirts blowing.

It is called 'trousers'.

Mantel didn't attack her at all. She attacked the media's commodification of her. Which I agree with, too.

It's a fundamentally unhealthy system. People are born into a human soap opera, never know what a normal life is like, and the deal with the devil is that they sacrifice all privacy in exchange for untold privilege. William is trying to force that genie back into the bottle, but it's too late and the media are shredding him and his wife.

I personally hope that when the Queen dies there's a reasonable debate, referendum removing them as public figures, and they are allowed to fade into obscurity as ex-Royals. They have a lot of personal funds with which to do so, after all. I don't know how likely that is, but it's my preferred option.

I just don't want to brutally attack another woman for the terrible sins of not being career-minded, and having legs even on windy days.

Sleepone You seem to be forgetting that Her Grace, The Duchess actively wanted the role she has now.....so you can hardly play the "how would you like the life they lead?" card with regard to her.

I have immense sympathy with those born into the role...it's one of the reasons I'm a republican. It disgusts me that we allow anyone to be born "to be" anything.

But Miss Kate hung around like a bad smell, avoiding working for a living, so that she could have people bowing and curtseying to her as a future queen. And no, I don't believe she simply "fell in love" like some Mills and Boon heroine - she actively wanted what she has.

When someone shows up to be photographed with the sole intention of getting into the newspapers, poses for magazines and issues pictures of her kids dressed in 1940s clothing then tough shit if we humble subjects feel like criticising. What the hell else is she there for if not to be commented on? Bit fucking stupid to demand "nice remarks only, please".

And please don't claim misogyny just because it's a woman we're talking about. This kind of misuse takes the sting away when there is REAL hatred of women for no better reason than their chromosomes and genitals

By the way, it's not being a SAHM that makes anyone a lazy arse (to whoever said that) - it's doing so when you have a fleet of staff and a nanny or two. As far as I'm aware the important part of being an at home parent is the "parenting" bit.

I don't "attack" her for that - I criticize her for buying into a system that is medieval, misogynistic and belongs in the past, despite every opportunity - financial and educational - being available to her. And for coveting publicity when it suits her and pleading her children when it doesn't (eg those bloody shamrocks and the incessant thigh flashing). It's all rather too 18th century for me. It's very easy to establish from looking at the number of official engagements that she does very little compared to the nonagenarian queen. I know she's just been on "maternity leave" from something but given the number of staff they employ at public expense I think she could do a damn sight more. As a PP said, plenty of people with 2 children and no help hold down FT jobs - they have no choice.

If the media shredding is too unpalatable then give up the title? It's not as though they aren't independently wealthy. He won't do that, of course, because he wants to take over the family business. And I reserve my right to point out that it's a tad hypocritical.

Leaving aside any personal comments, can anyone really, in this day and age justify spending a whole decade doing nothing worthwhile.

My eldest DD (8) and I have recently had a talk about female role models. Even she can see that hanging around doing virtually nothing for 10 years whilst waiting for your boyfriend to propose, despite having a good degree and more opportunities than many young women, is not something to aim for in life.

I know that people will say that Kate never asked to be a role model, but the simp,e truth is that by being in the public eye she is influential to young girls. FWIW I also do not think that the likes of the Kardashians are also good role models. However, the simple truth is that all of us are, in some way influential to the young people in our lives.

All my DD sees is a woman who dresses in expensive clothes, smiles and waves and that woman is different, and that confuses her because the women in her life (she has male role models too btw) are all bright, opinionated and independent. Some of us work, others are SAHM. Some of us are wealthy, some have to budget on a tight income. These women are the ones I want my daughters to aspire to being like. I don't care if they go to University or not, whether they SAH or whether they work 70hrs a week. I just want them to be able to hold their heads high and show the world that they have substance, they did something, they did not just rely on a man.

At the moment DD1 wants to be a Doctor or ballerina.

DD2 however, wants to marry Prince George and wear nice clothes.

I happen to think that she has wasted a very good, very expensive education. It depresses me that young women (or at least this young woman!) can have all the privilege and equality of opportunity that modern society can offer and still decide to waste their life waiting around for a man to marry them because of some medieval belief system.

Surely it's true equality and freedom that gives her the opportunity to do that, though?

She wasn't born into this. She saw the opportunity offered by the system and took it, an opportunity that any women could have taken.

Object to the system, not those who use it to their advantage - because in our own way, we all do.

I know that people will say that Kate never asked to be a role model, but the simp,e truth is that by being in the public eye she is influential to young girls
If she was my daughter I would be proud of her.

I object to both and I think the analogy of tax avoidance and Starbucks used earlier was a good one. The system may not exist if there were not young women willing to accept it. That is not empowering, nor is it a palatable model for young girls.

To be fair there is a genius solution to the problem of skirts blowing.

It is called 'trousers'

Well, yes, and another is the burqa.

I really don't get why it needs a solution - Woman Has Legs And Momentarily Shows Them Horror - I mean, seriously? It'd be a split second, anyway. It's just that the camera has caught it. I would say who cares, but it's apparent that they do, so I suppose the question is, why care? Why are this woman's legs of such rapt fascination? You see more in the womenswear sections of Marks and Sparks or John Lewis; life appears to carry on.

And I'm sorry, YoungGirl, but you can't plausibly decry misogyny while simultaneously attacking another woman for "incessant thigh-flashing". It's objectifying, slut-shaming and sexist. You can't insist her existence offends your feminist sensibilities while simultaneously tearing into her over her choices about her own body and calling her a "brood mare" for having kids. That's Daily Mail politics. Your statements are, frankly, abhorrently and inherently sexist. I didn't even get to read the first comment you left in full because by the time I got here, MNHQ had deleted it - if that doesn't tell you anything then I think we're done here.

Sleepone You seem to be forgetting that Her Grace, The Duchess actively wanted the role she has now.....so you can hardly play the "how would you like the life they lead?" card with regard to her.

I wasn't playing it in regard to her, actually - I was referring to children, who have no choices, and are forced into the Truman Show at birth. I'm not that interested in her: she seems incredibly boring. Maybe I'm wrong and she's a scintillating conversationalist, I have no idea - I can't say it's something I consider. But I don't appreciate seeing women who regard themselves as feminists attack a woman on the sorts of grounds they do her. I remember seeing it on Mumsnet a few years ago when photos of her in a private situation, topless, were taken and people tried to justify it, basically because they hated her. Either voyeurism is wrong, or it isn't. Whether it's Jennifer Lawrence or Kate Middleton shouldn't be the defining factor. And nor do I appreciate the inherent snobbery in the spite aimed at her for the gall of wanting to be royal, too. I don't notice William being willing to marry someone state-educated either, but somehow that's seen as normal and okay because his family have been rich for millennia.

And I can't believe I've typed this much about someone and a situation I really don't care about. But it makes me feel a bit sad that the Aunt Sally for the republican movement is that uppity woman who didn't know her place and who's no better than she oughta be. Because the snobbish misogyny that just drips out of attacks on this woman depresses me - she wouldn't be getting most of it if she were herself aristocratic. And snobbery and misogyny are a large part of why I dislike monarchy as a system, so seeing it in my own allies makes me disheartened.