The biographer for Catherine, Princess of Wales (Kate Middleton), claims she is not the robotic subservient wife that her critics have made her out to be.
Robert Jobson is the author of the new book Catherine, the Princess of Wales, and he told Australian morning television that she is a “great role model,” and not a person who “creates problems.” This may be a reference to Meghan Markle, the second-tier American actress who married Prince Harry, the younger of the late Princess Diana’s two sons.
Kate is married to the elder, Prince William, and is seen to embody the dignity and carriage of a royal in the traditional English way as compared to Meghan Markle’s brash American style.
Jobson said Kate was “wrongly dubbed a Stepford Wife” in recent years. The name is a reference to the book The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. It was made into a television movie in 1975 that achieved cult classic status. The plot involves a family who moves to the fictional town of Stepford, Connecticut. Once there, wife Joanna notices that her female friends appear to be changing into different people overnight. Once vivacious and engaged women are suddenly docile and subservient, and apparently brainless.
At the end of the movie, it is revealed that the men of the town, working with retired Disney Imagineers, have been replacing their real wives with sophisticated robots.
Jobson said Kate has a lot on her plate as a working royal with three young children, and she handles herself with an aplomb that may make others jealous.
The “Stepford Wife” insult first surfaced in 2023 when Omid Scobie, who wrote a book about Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle, described Kate Middleton as “Stepford Wife-like” in another book about the state of the modern British monarchy.
Kate Middleton has a difficult time escaping public attention and scrutiny. When she was out of public view for a period while dealing with cancer, people online speculated along with the press about what might “really be going on.”
When she released a photo of herself with her children that she had touched up electronically, many in the public spun wild conspiracy theories, making a mountain out of molehill.
