Alex Gallafent

Alex Gallafent

Alex Gallafent is the New York-based correspondent for The World. His reporting has taken him to Swaziland, Turkey, Chile, and India, among other places.

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Kate, Duchess of Cambridge: Mannequin or Role Model?

February 19, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in Ottawa, Canada, July 2011. (Photo: REUTERS/Chris Wattie)

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in Ottawa, Canada, July 2011. (Photo: REUTERS/Chris Wattie)

Award-winning British author Hilary Mantel has caused a firestorm in Britain with comments she made about Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Mantel compared the Duchess to a ‘shop-window mannequin’.

The World’s Alex Gallafent reports on the context in which Mantel’s words were framed: a critique of hereditary monarchy.




Discussion

3 comments for “Kate, Duchess of Cambridge: Mannequin or Role Model?”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-E-MacIntyre/507292852 Steven E. MacIntyre

    Hilary Mantel’s comments hardly seemed to be about Kate Middleton personally at all, but rather about how she’s objectified by the British press and perhaps the British culture.

  • yrag01

    “Mantel compared the Duchess to a ‘shop-window mannequin’.”

    This is RIDICULOUS. I’m a person who is unequivocal that woman should always be accorded equal rights, opportunities and pay, but this nonsense that Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge is treated in some lesser dimensions than her husband is specious. I challenge anyone to show evidence that Kate’s persona is in anyway demeaned compare to her husband.

    The Royals (at least from Elizibeth II’s example through her son Charles and now Prince William), as far as I can tell, have stove to suppress their personal and private opinions and characters specifically to function as public representatives for their nation, NOT as personal icons. In a very real way, they wisely know their place. In this Kate, is simply following suit, which some parties are now trying isolate as some imposition place on her and her as a female. Her demeanor must be seen as the Royals as a whole. 

  • dubiouswonder

    I can’t believe The World wasted time on this idiotic report. Let the Brits deal with it. Listening to Hilary Mantel’s degrading, personal, air-headed attack on a public person frankly made we want to throttle her. Being unable to do so, I simply turned off my radio. Please — aren’t there enough serious issues in The World that we can be spared hearing this nonsense — and did you seriously have to rebroadcast her unkind comments? WHY??