Amid the deluge of toxic tabloid coverage surrounding Meghan Markle, something about Jeremy Clarkson’s latest tirade hit a nerve.
Maybe it was the disturbing clarity with which he described his hatred, or mentioning the Duchess in the same sentence as a serial killer, but his column has pushed us into a moment of collective consciousness and unifying outrage.
Pundits have expressed shock at the sheer depravity of his words, and the fact they found a home in one of the nation’s most widely circulated papers, The Sun. But the seasoned among us will know that when it comes to hatred, consistency is key.
There’s something so disingenuous about criticising a state of affairs so vehemently, without interrogating the practices that landed us here in the first place. Clarkson’s abuse is entirely in line with the trajectory of coverage surrounding Meghan Markle and Prince Harry that we’ve seen to date. The couple, but more intensively Markle, have been systematically dehumanised in the media.
Years before Clarkson said he hated the Duchess on a ‘cellular’ level, it was suggested that she would ‘thicken’ the royal family’s blue blood with her ‘exotic DNA’. With each headline, you could feel the boundaries being pushed and Markle dropping further and further in the public’s estimation until almost anything printed about her, even falsehoods, were beyond reproach.
By now, we know that the drip feeding of casual racism and misogyny as it pertains to Markle has been taking place within the British tabloids since she and Harry went public with their relationship. Research from social listening tool Brandwatch found that as far back as 2019, 21,000 negative online tabloid or broadsheet items were published about the Duchess of Sussex in comparison with just 4,300 about Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.
It was a campaign so insidious that to this day, scores of people in this country will tell you that they ‘can’t quite put a finger on’ why they don’t like Markle, failing to credit the barrage of negative commentary saturating her portrayal. It’s this effect that Sun editor Victoria Newton seemed to be banking on when she published Clarkson’s column over the weekend. She made a, not entirely misguided, calculation that Markle had been dehumanised to the point that she was now considered 'fair game’ and as such, people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at the suggestion of her public flagellation in a national newspaper. She was wrong - this time.
The coverage of Markle didn’t initially start with grown men going into graphic details about faeces being thrown at her - that would be too extreme. Instead, it started with suggesting she hailed from a gang riddled neighbourhood in Compton or trying to link her charitable endeavours to ISIS, all tactics designed to present her as someone undeserving of respect.
When it comes to misogyny, a person’s first offence is rarely their worst. Clarkson himself has a murky history of misogynistic ‘jokes’, some that have even been broadcast on the BBC. Notably, he once joked with a lorry driver about ‘murdering prostitutes’ on Top Gear, comments which were later deemed justified in their context by Ofcom. In September, another of his columns described in detail what he expects to happen when Markle dies, illustrating a clear and concerning pattern to his behaviour.
Zara Aleena - a young budding lawyer - was brutally murdered earlier this year just yards from her home. That same evening, her killer had been ejected from a pub after making unwanted advances towards female bar staff. Even years before this brutal attack, Aleena's murderer had a detailed history of violence towards women, culminating in his stalking of three separate women on the evening of June 24 and ultimately Aleena's killing. The Centre for Women’s Justice said Aleena's murder 'might have been avoided but for a …..general failure to address endemic misogyny and racism in our culture'.
2022 has been a torrid year for women, and while we have rightly rallied against the killings of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa (just two of far too many), more subtle and pernicious acts of misogyny have remained unpunished. But here’s the thing, in a world like ours, there can be no 'small' instances of misogyny. Every time a woman is discredited, ridiculed or harmed it lays the foundations for violence, especially when it happens on a global stage. Each joke that makes women’s safety the punchline, each abusive relationship dynamic glorified on screen contributes to a world in which women are seen as subhuman and worthy of abuse. The actions of misogynists only ever get worse so why are we always forced to wait until a point of indefensible aggression for anything to be done?
Clarkson’s latest column wasn’t even the first time he’s made misogynistic comments about Markle this year. We should never have let him get to this point. While Markle may, thankfully, be safely ensconced in her Montecito mansion, innocent women going about their daily lives remain vulnerable. Vulnerable to the whims of men who have learnt through society’s consistent acceptance of misogyny that women are outlets for their rage. We owe it to them all to kill the roots of such hatred before they sprout into criminal acts.
