One day, a woman gave up a very successful career, her home, her single mother, her dog, and the life she established, to be with a man she loved.
Then, a man decided he would give up his lucrative life, home and family, to protect the ones he loves.
The world was up in arms.
While Meghan Markle was vilified for every single choice she made, the world never lamented all that she gave up.
However, Harry’s decision to leave everything behind – including his royal title – to set up a new life in Canada with his wife, has caused an uproar in the British landscape like never before.
Not even when there are more controversial characters in the family.
The move was unfathomable – how can a young man, sixth in line to the most powerful institution in the country give it all up for a woman, much less a mixed-race black woman?
But women have made the difficult decision to prioritise family over ambition for as long as we’ve had rights – we’ve just done it with much less fanfare.
Of course, the difference is we’re not royals and Harry has given up a problematic ‘birthright’, as opposed to a career he painstakingly built.
But still, female compromises are seen as a natural move – if we don’t put aside our ambitions, who will take care of the children and, in some cases, the men?
It’s always the women who have to forsake the life they aspire to in order to appease society.
We’ve grown up watching this trope in popular television, too. The most famous example – Rachel Green who gets off the plane set to take her to her dream job at Louis Vuitton in Paris – is a reminder that the audiences always cheer for female ambition to be quashed in pursuit of romance.
The Paris Problem is afflicted on many an ambitious character (Lauren Conrad in The Hills gives up Paris to be with Jason, Joey Potter in Dawson’s Creek is offered an opportunity but declines it to stay home, though she does eventually end up going at the end of the show).
But ambitious women are unlikeable both in TV and real-life – studies show that the trait is seen as positive in men yet criticised in women.
Those who make the sin of choosing their careers are often smeared.
Usually, when our female protagonist chooses career (take Devil Wears Prada), a cheating arc is introduced – for lead character Andy, this was in Paris, no less – to shift the viewer’s otherwise favourable stance of her.
But in reality, Andy had made an understandable decision benefitting her role – she shouldn’t be berated for it.
In other cases, these storylines drum up sympathy for a woman’s jilted partner so you naturally hate on the girl who broke his heart (See One Tree Hill, where Hayley cheats on Nathan while pursuing her music career).
It’s obviously a storyline director Greta Gerwig also had to contend with in her movie adaption of Little Women. In the book, rule-breaker Jo eventually goes against all her feminist ideals and gets married, however on screen this scene was dealt with by marring the lines between reality and fiction.
Audiences were left to come up with their own conclusion of whether finding love with Professor Bhaer was actually a fantasy that takes place only in Jo’s novel.
But this conflict between ambition and love is not something we see male characters, nor the players in our lives, torn between.
Because, for men, the options are not mutually exclusive. Nor should they be. We must simply find a way around it.
And that starts with making strides towards our ambitions. Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found that female professionals play down their career aspirations around men if they’re not in serious relationships lest they should seem pushy or unlikeable.
The way to remedy that is for men to not be threatened by aspirational women, to not take credit for women’s work and to support them where possible.
In a home environment, that support might come as a willingness to share childcare.
Our work environments need a better model that lets women who go through maternity leave progress into higher positions, along with longer paternity leave and more opportunities for women to access leadership roles.
And if we’re talking outside the parameters of capitalism then we just need to know that men are willing to put in the compromises that are sometimes required of relationships, like Harry.
It’s refreshing to see, for once, a powerful man give it all up for his partner.
Harry has lost a lot over the course of his life – privacy, a mother, a childhood. But he won’t be giving up his wife for a life that was decided for him. We have to stan him for it.
MORE: As a woman of colour, I applaud Meghan for refusing to keep calm and carry on
MORE: Prince Harry isn’t under Meghan’s thumb – he wants out just as much as she does
MORE: Meghan Markle reveals secret animal charity visit on Instagram after quitting royal life
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/22/women-expected-give-up-for-love-12090137/
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