Why Meghan Markle felt a ‘negative connotation’ to the word ‘ambitious’ while dating Prince Harry

Meghan Markle, who has always been vocal about social issues and causes — especially those pertaining to women — recently made a striking revelation on the debut episode of her Spotify podcast ‘Archetypes‘.
The Duchess of Sussex, who married the UK royal family’s Prince Harry in 2018, said that ever since the couple got together, the idea of ‘ambition’ that she, as a woman, had in her head, assumed a negative form.
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In conversation with her first guest and friend, Serena Williams — an ace tennis player — Meghan talked about how society views women, versus what it expects of men. The duchess looked back on her education and said how the nuns of Immaculate Heart, an all-girls Catholic school in Los Angeles that she attended always “empowered” its students.

“This femin ideology trickled down into nearly every aspect of my education; it is probably safe to say into every aspect of my life,” she was quoted as saying. “This message to me and my classmates was clear: our futures as young women were limitless. Ambition? That was the whole point!” the mother-of-two added.

She then went on to say that she does not “remember ever personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ‘ambitious’”. “…until I started dating my now-husband.”

Meghan, a former actor, reflected on the sudden craze and interest around her life that came under the spotlight more after her relationship with the Duke of Sussex — who is the son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and the younger brother of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge — became public.
She purportedly said about the negative press that she had received back then: “And apparently, ‘ambition’ is a terrible, terrible thing, for a woman that is — according to some. So, since I’ve felt the negativity behind it, it is really hard to un-feel it. I can’t unsee it, either, in the millions of girls and women who make themselves smaller, so much smaller, on a regular basis.”

The duchess also pointed out during the podcast episode that if “little girls in a school room” are ambitious or raise their hands more, they are likely to be called “bossy”, but the same does not apply to boys and men.
She also highlighted the difference in treatment of men and women after children are born, telling her other guest Dr Laura Kray of the University of California, Berkeley that the “double standard between how men and women are treated after having kids is so, so real”.

“I’ve felt it,” said Meghan, who is mother to three-year-old Archie and one-year-old Lilibet, whom she shares with Prince Harry.

She also talked about the unfairness of how ambitious women are treated, stating that people often have this “misconception” that an ambitious woman has an “agenda”, is “calculating”, or “selfish or aggressive”, and that if one is “that fierce or strong or brave, then [they] somehow deserve whatever gets thrown at [them]”.
Meghan and Harry stepped down as senior members of the British royal family more than two years ago, and continue to discharge their duties to the crown from the US, where they now live. It was believed that their decision stemmed from the treatment meted out to the duchess, who openly stated in interviews later that the ‘toxic’ tabloid culture in the UK, the lack of privacy impacted her mental health.
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