It was February when the battle began
A battle royal in fact, between supporters of the Duchess of Cambridge and award -winning novelist Hilary Mantel.
Or between a fat,barren,jealous,bullying ,plain woman(all insults subsequently thrown at her) and the beautiful,slim, pregnant royal bride about whom we know so little
The writer's speech,delivered in the British Museum, concerning the history of the female body in the British Monarchy was later printed in the London Review of Books and ran to 5,600 words.
The tabloids were quick to attack Mantel,seemingly without actually reading the whole thing, and the Daily Mail's préçis ran to 600 well chosen words. The words they printed parodied and misrepresented Mantel,giving the impression that Mantel was indulging in unjustified criticism of the Duchess of Cambridge.Or just being mean.
Yet,she was on the side of the Duchess of Cambridge, although you would never have known it
It was a hatchet job, which turned Mantel's sympathetic understanding of the difficulties faced by a modern princess into a mean diatribe against an innocent woman
Unfair to Mantel both as a woman and and as a writer
Other spokesmen known for their intellectual vigour and support for traditional British fairplay stepped in and included
"Painfully vile" Piers Morgan.
"Completely misguided and completely wrong" David Cameron
Mantel's speech was a beautifully expressed analysis of the manner in which the media or public, forces royal women into roles which suit us and not them,from Marie-Antoinette "a woman eaten alive by her frocks....stigmatized by her fashion choices" and "a woman in whom Politics were made personal", through to Anne Boleyn,and back to Diana
The Duke of Edinburgh approved of Diana as a royal bride because she would "breed in some height"
Kate is defined by her fashion sense,her breasts and baby-bump which are endlessly photographed and commented upon.
The furore over the paparazzi snaps of her little breasts, worries in the Daily Mail about whether she should be taking a swipe at a hockey ball when 2 weeks pregnant while wearing high heels,or the relentless smile with close ups of the before and after whitened teeth fed the greedy masses with irrelevant and boring details about an ordinary young woman
Would there be nipples?.How much did the teeth cost?
"Kate has entered a marriage that requires her to be a silent clothes horse and biological vessel" said Mantel.
Like all princess brides
"I saw Kate becoming a shop-window mannequin,with no personality of her own,entirely defined by what she wore.These days she is a mother-to-be,and draped in another set of threadbare attributions" and " she appeared to have been designed by committee and built by craftsmen with a perfect plastic smile"
The coda to all this is Mantel's comment about Kate
"I am not asking for smarmy reverence.I am asking us to back off and not be brutes"
You too Daily Mail
The whole point is that most people did not read Mantel's article, but were happy to accept the tabloid travesty
There were Tweets from women saying "Ugly women should never criticize pretty ones"
Snow White and the Ugly Stepmother territory
I have a theory that the countless women who cried bitterly outside Kensington Palace while leaving shrink-wrapped bouquets are the same ones who tweeted the vitriolic comments
Hilary Mantel IS fat and writes elegantly and interestingly about the reasons for that and how it has changed her life
Anything nasty she has already said about herself and much more eloquently
Forcing all women to play nice and get along turns us all into jointed dolls
Nevertheless we must all try to be kind
A battle royal in fact, between supporters of the Duchess of Cambridge and award -winning novelist Hilary Mantel.
Or between a fat,barren,jealous,bullying ,plain woman(all insults subsequently thrown at her) and the beautiful,slim, pregnant royal bride about whom we know so little
The writer's speech,delivered in the British Museum, concerning the history of the female body in the British Monarchy was later printed in the London Review of Books and ran to 5,600 words.
The tabloids were quick to attack Mantel,seemingly without actually reading the whole thing, and the Daily Mail's préçis ran to 600 well chosen words. The words they printed parodied and misrepresented Mantel,giving the impression that Mantel was indulging in unjustified criticism of the Duchess of Cambridge.Or just being mean.
Yet,she was on the side of the Duchess of Cambridge, although you would never have known it
It was a hatchet job, which turned Mantel's sympathetic understanding of the difficulties faced by a modern princess into a mean diatribe against an innocent woman
Unfair to Mantel both as a woman and and as a writer
Other spokesmen known for their intellectual vigour and support for traditional British fairplay stepped in and included
"Painfully vile" Piers Morgan.
"Completely misguided and completely wrong" David Cameron
Mantel's speech was a beautifully expressed analysis of the manner in which the media or public, forces royal women into roles which suit us and not them,from Marie-Antoinette "a woman eaten alive by her frocks....stigmatized by her fashion choices" and "a woman in whom Politics were made personal", through to Anne Boleyn,and back to Diana
The Duke of Edinburgh approved of Diana as a royal bride because she would "breed in some height"
Kate is defined by her fashion sense,her breasts and baby-bump which are endlessly photographed and commented upon.
The furore over the paparazzi snaps of her little breasts, worries in the Daily Mail about whether she should be taking a swipe at a hockey ball when 2 weeks pregnant while wearing high heels,or the relentless smile with close ups of the before and after whitened teeth fed the greedy masses with irrelevant and boring details about an ordinary young woman
Would there be nipples?.How much did the teeth cost?
"Kate has entered a marriage that requires her to be a silent clothes horse and biological vessel" said Mantel.
Like all princess brides
"I saw Kate becoming a shop-window mannequin,with no personality of her own,entirely defined by what she wore.These days she is a mother-to-be,and draped in another set of threadbare attributions" and " she appeared to have been designed by committee and built by craftsmen with a perfect plastic smile"
The coda to all this is Mantel's comment about Kate
"I am not asking for smarmy reverence.I am asking us to back off and not be brutes"
You too Daily Mail
The whole point is that most people did not read Mantel's article, but were happy to accept the tabloid travesty
There were Tweets from women saying "Ugly women should never criticize pretty ones"
Snow White and the Ugly Stepmother territory
I have a theory that the countless women who cried bitterly outside Kensington Palace while leaving shrink-wrapped bouquets are the same ones who tweeted the vitriolic comments
Hilary Mantel IS fat and writes elegantly and interestingly about the reasons for that and how it has changed her life
Anything nasty she has already said about herself and much more eloquently
Forcing all women to play nice and get along turns us all into jointed dolls
Nevertheless we must all try to be kind