who's afraid of ambitious women?

certainly not their husbands...but the public just might be

disclaimer: this essay contains strong language and is intended for readers comfortable with explicit language.

sovereign or succubus?

anyone who knows me will tell you that the people i admire most are women who get what they want. given this broad mandate, i often find myself drawn to women who have done a wonderful job of getting a lot of people to hate them. after all, it’s their world and we’re all just living in it.

it takes a lot of guts to let people hate you. i’m using hate as the operative word here because the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.¹ there’s real power in letting people die in your head. in forgetting they even existed. in only being reminded of them when someone degrades up the past. that’s the opposite of love. pure, unadulterated indifference. an aristocratic unbotheredness that only comes with having better things to do and better people to think of. that’s the opposite of love.

when i examine the world, in search of women to admire and aspire to, i find myself circling back to two women in particular. one because they’ve cemented their status among a certain echelon of women. not from a fiscal perspective, but a philosophically one. the late ayesha faines, a woman incredibly ahead of her time, built her scholarship on studying these women in-depthly. she even has a gallery dedicated to them on her website if you’re interested in learning more:

the “greatest seductresses of all time” ayesha called these women.

if you’ll allow me, i want to take a detour here to break down the word “seductress” from an etymological stance. i feel this deconstruction will pay off in the latter parts of this essay.

seductress, from a grammatical perspective, is the feminine conjugation of the word “seducer.” a seducer is someone who seduces. to “seduce,” according to the late 15th century latin origin, means to “persuade someone to abandon their duty.” or better put, “to lead astray.” those who read my last diouana woman psa know where i’m going with this. for those who just got here, hang on, it’s about to get juicy.

when ayesha compiled her list of the greatest seductresses of all time, she had this etymology in mind. she understood that not only were these women viewed as seductresses due to their proximity to powerful men, but were, in many ways, seen this way because of these women’s power over the decision-making of these all-powerful men.

if we are all feminists, like nigerian author chimamanda ngozi adichie told us to be, we would refer to these women as sovereigns. because that’s what they are: women who are supreme rulers of their lives.

instead, history remembers them as seductresses. witches, by any other name. for they have “bewitched” their husbands, lovers, and partners into doing things their way instead of his way.

now, back to those two mystery women. the second reason i continuously circle back to them is because in choosing to be happy for themselves and put themselves first, they’ve pissed off entire citizenries. this is partly due to the positions these women occupy. one was a senior working royal. a public figure that had a quasi-civic duty to her (adopted) nation’s people. and the other is a first lady, both current and former, whose preference to say very little led her stepdaughter to nickname her, “the portrait.”²

portraiture has a long arc in art historical canon, but i’m far less interested in how these women look and more so in the vitriol they inspire by simply existing.

the lengths these two went to place themselves first, even at the damnation of their own public reputations, is spectacular. and based off my reading of compiled research by scholars and authors much more educated than me on the subject, the one thing i believe that these two women both have in common that sets them apart from the many seductresses, witchy women, and femme fatales that came before them is that they both take their husbands very, very seriously.³

which is both fun and unexpected. perhaps that’s the secret to getting what you want as a woman…

stay out of (other) women’s business and keep in yours

if you’re close to me, you know that i have a fondness for the real housewives. ever since nene leaks⁴ told kim zolciak to “close your legs to married men” during part one of the first-ever reunion for the real housewives of atlanta⁵, i’ve been hooked. i owe a great debt to bravo for the entertainment of my early adolescence.

because i’ve been watching the real housewives long before america elected it’s first biracial president⁶, i have passively tracked the arc of certain standout women from the franchise. notably, sonja morgan of the real housewives of new york.

i love sonja because sonja is lovable. she’s funny, occasionally witty, and has a lack of self-importance that is refreshing in environments built on a house of cards where each card is marked with pretentiousness, elitism, and a rigid moral code.

in this way, sonja is a breath of fresh air. she doesn’t take any of 'it' seriously. but like many strengths, when left unchecked, they can also become our weaknesses. our achilles’ heel.

in listening to the smalls bits of gossip shared by the other housewives in confessionals or, as often was the case, shouted directly at sonja in a furious rage⁷, sonja didn’t even take her own husband seriously. as someone who admires women who do what they want, i find that iconic. as someone who was raised by a deeply traditional west african woman, i found that puzzling.

not necessarily because you should take your husband seriously as a matter of fact, but because it’s perplexing to bind yourself, in all ways, to someone for all eternity that you do not take seriously. what kind of life is that?

this idea of taking your husband seriously is important for us to understand. as my argument is that this ideological stance, as i see it, is what separates our two mystery women from the average woman termed “seductress.” or any woman who has been accused of either being the downfall of her male partner or the force behind their relationship (which, one would think is a good thing, but in patriarchal society, ambition is never appreciated in a woman).

now what does it mean to take your husband seriously? better put, how did sonja not take her husband seriously?

the answer, like many things, lies in a european holiday. the story goes, from analysis done on a compilation of many a reddit thread, lipstick alley side bars, and dorinda violently yelling at sonja, that sonja was gallivanting around in the south of france when she was informed, either by her husband or a close party, that he had suffered an accident and requested her by his side. of course, the mediterranean sea waits for no one, and sonja made the choice to stay where she was. or at very least, did not hasten her return to be by her husband’s side.

do you know who was at the ready, willing and able, to take care of mr. morgan in his time of need? a friend of sonja’s, who is now mr. morgan’s 5th wife. readers should note that sonja was his 4th.

this is a tragic incident on multiple fronts: mr. morgan suffered an accident, sonja lost her husband (and by the real housewives’ accounts, her social standing), and her daughter saw her parents divorce. it’s not a fun situation at all. it’s certainly not widowhood, as dorinda was fond of forcefully reminding sonja during their tenure on the real housewives of new york. but what is certain, is that sonja looks back on this marriage with fondness and the destruction of it remains painful for her. and you’re able to see this depth of emotion during the seasons of the show when sonja talked about it most. and certainly when the other housewives would spill bits of gossip here and there. and of course dorinda yelling at sonja, “you were fucking around in the south of france!!!!!!”

and the narrative thread about sonja’s situation that fascinates me most, is that perhaps the only thing that sonja did take seriously in all of this was the lifestyle. an interesting analysis by a reddit user⁸ presents this case as such:

“sonja has made me realize that there are people who love money the way some of us love humans/animals. but apparently she was too in love with the lifestyle because from what i've heard, her husband was sick and she didn't fly home from whatever country she was partying in and that's what led to the divorce.

but, also, part of me has to wonder if his family was like ‘he's hitting his 80's... let's make sure we don't have to share our inheritance with her’ and used it as a convenient excuse. it wouldn't surprise me just because of how shell-shocked sonja was by the divorce. it makes me wonder if he'd been sick before and she hadn't flown home and it wasn't an issue, because she really did seem so blind-sided and confused by it all.

whenever i listen to taylor swift's ‘last great american dynasty’ i picture sonja.

the reference to taylor swift’s last great american dynasty is apt because it speaks of a nostalgia of a bygone era. it tells the story of the rise and (supposed) fall of a socialite due, in part, to her not taking any of it seriously.

being hesitant to kiss the ring, so to speak, i believe to be a good thing because it keeps you an independent thinker. which i value. however, being situational unaware is a bad thing because you don’t take the time to realize who the players are on the board. nor do you ever come to the conclusion that you’re actually a player in the game. per this reddit user’s analysis, sonja got played her her in-laws. they took her propensity to focus on literally anything else but her husband to find an opening and take her out the game. and in came wife number five.

the game is the game. play or get played as omar would say.

we’ve established that sonja didn’t take her husband seriously, and people took advantage of that. friends and foe alike.

taking your husband seriously doesn’t just mean rushing by his side at a moment’s notice. if it’s a medical emergency, one would hope to not be a minute too late. but there’s more to this ideological view that just being available 24/7. rather the opposite.

in my thesis, the defining trait of this ideological stance, that is taking your husband seriously, is believing in his vision wholeheartedly. honoring and magnifying how he views himself and his relation to his world. and not faltering from this ideal. and understanding that it really is about what can be, unburdened by what has been.⁹

and a woman that does this well, and i believe doesn’t actually get the credit for it, is lauren sanchez. there’s so many layers with her, which is really fun. and she deserves her own essay. also the world. which i’m so glad jeff is giving to her. and a 30-carat ring.¹⁰

similar to how lauren saw an opening and, likely, waiting methodically¹¹ to release her arrow, women who take their husbands seriously ensure there are no openings. the way no weapons raised shall prosper, no arrows will penetrate.

i grew up on nollywood films, and those women never allowed another woman in their playroom. and i believe to do this successfully, not just from a oh-i’m-going-to-prevent-him-from-cheating-on-me perspective (because cheaters will cheat) but from a we’re-a-team-with-a-common-goal scenario, one has to create an us-versus-them dynamic and a common goal both parties have a vested interest in.

and this takes us to our two mystery women who have excelled at one thing, inclusive of all other things, and that is taking their husbands very, very seriously.

faith as ambition and ambition as faith

i consider myself a radical feminist. perhaps not in the same vain as andrea dworkin or germaine greer, but a radical feminist nonetheless. if you ask me whose side i’m on, i’ll tell you that i stand for women.

which is why i’m always in admiration of a woman doing what she feels is just; what she believes to be right; and what she believes to be in her best interest.

and ensuring your bottom line, so to speak, is the foundation of any relationship. because as one commentator in the financial times said, “there are no friends, only aligned interests.”

and i believe we can analyze marriage through the same prism. insofar that couples who unanimously say “yes” when asked if their interests are aligned tend to go the distance.

now, i’m no marriage counselor. i’ve never been married. legally speaking, i’m single. so take everything i say on marriage and partnership with that in mind.

if i have a treatise on heteronormative relationships, which i have many, my foundational one is as follows:

in order for the relationship to progress with equilibrium, insofar as there’s very little emotional friction between the two parties, the way you want to exist needs to be the inverse of the way he needs you to exist.¹²

this is a foundational framework. and an excellent way to get what you want as a function of time. regardless or not you follow this framework, the rules of the game don’t change: you need to take him very, very seriously.

there’s an essay to be written about not only finding someone to take seriously, but also how to ensure (read: vet) he is someone you should even consider taking seriously. but this essay isn’t a how-to, it’s an exploration into two fascinating women who have taken the world by storm.

let’s begin with the former royal. because out of the two, she had the most potential.

what’s amusing, if not human, about her is that she needs the attention. she wants it. she thrives off of it. the thing about wanting that much attention, especially at the scale that it commands you to be world-famous, is that that’s a particular kind of ambition. it takes work to pull that off. just ask kim kardashian.

and in this pursuit, the one thing that this woman had over kim, was institutional, undeniable legitimacy. which she promptly threw away. obviously, there’s more to the story; but i’m trying to get to my point.

she threw this legitimacy away because she felt it was best for her health: her mental health, her financial health, and her creative health. she wanted to be free, and that is something i admire and respect.

but the thing about her is that what she wants more than freedom is to be famous and respected. which she had in her former life, but precious freedom. as is the life of a senior working royal within the institution known as “the firm,” aka the british royal family.

her husband likely spent his entire life, both childhood and adult, feeling the weight of this lack of freedom but the responsibility to remain visible in discreet ways, many of which not to his own choosing. and when they met, and fell in love as two people do, he likely told her of his vision: one where he gets to be free to make his own decisions, have his own impact, and lead his own way. and her, being a woman, who, if nothing else, takes her husband very, very seriously, bought into his vision hook, line, and sinker. and thus, when they announced their union to the world, two had already become one. their vision is their bond: one of freedom, impact, and respect.

trouble is, freedom costs. impact requires funding, and respect is earned. herein lies the trouble these two consistently face¹³:

“‘i think he probably wants to be left alone and be able to go kiss babies every once in a while but not have to worry about money. i don’t think he wants to be famous the way meghan wants to be famous.’

…harry has explicitly drawn parallels between his wife and his late mother. ‘my deepest fear is history repeating itself,’ harry wrote in a 2019 statement about meghan’s treatment by the press. ‘i’ve seen what happens when someone i love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. i lost my mother and now i watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.’

while harry is vigilant about meghan’s safety, the person who worked closely with them says meghan’s role in their dynamic is caregiver and facilitator; she’s the one who makes things happen…’i can picture him meeting meghan and being just a deep breath of, like, ‘i’ve been so exhausted, and you make everything so easy.’... i don’t want to be like, oh, it’s an oedipus thing or whatever, but it kind of feels like she’s reparenting him in a way.’

it’s easy to imagine a folie à deux emerging from the singular blend of circumstances: a need to believe in each other and the primacy of their relationship in the face of shared trauma and the real obstacles they encountered as they idealistically endeavored to break the wheel, while occasionally breaking the spirits of those tasked with executing their shared vision. ‘you don’t’ tell them no, the person who worked in the couple’s media projects said.

…this intracouple permission to stray from other people’s realities may have led to some of the points of contention that people bring up when questioning meghan’s fidelity to emotional truth above literal truth…

it’s a charming (if freudian) dynamic—a husband and wife who organize each other’s lives and well-being, who flirt and hold hands and want the world to be a better place, even to the exclusion of evidence that suggests their well-meaning way of disrupting institutions is not always the best approach. that instinct to do things as harry and meghan believed they should be done, rather than how they are typically accomplished, was exacerbated during their time as senior working royals. it led to conflict with harry’s family and palace staff, the reporter says, because harry ‘doesn’t understand himself. he doesn’t understand a monarchy. his family didn’t do a very good job of inculcating him into the family legend partially because he didn’t care; partially because he was just kind of abandoned at the age of eight.’

…a royals reporter believes that meghan assumed her husband’s vision rather than researching the job of being a royal, and the reporter has a more positive view of the folie. ‘oh, that’s such a good idea for a successful marriage,’ the reporter says. ‘it’s a terrible idea for a job, but...if you’re joining this big network of people, you’ve got to see this through your husband’s eyes, be your husband’s advocate in it. and it’s no wonder this relationship works, even if the family business part of it fell apart.’

…i think there’s one thing that no one could take away from meghan is how hard she works, how much effort goes into everything that she does. ultimately that’s all she needs.

…‘i think that they don’t know what ‘change the world’ means,’ says the person who worked in media projects. ‘they want to be people who are looked at as people who want to change the world.’ maybe that’s why meghan has continued—on nick news, in the tig, on panels, on archetypes, in colombia in august—to bring up the story of writing a letter to procter & gamble about a sexist soap ad, taking credit for them changing the spot so that it no longer suggested women should be the ones doing dishes. procter & gamble declined many requests from vf to confirm that meghan was the impetus for the switch, and in 2021 the company partnered with archewell with the goal of ‘elevat[ing] the voices of adolescent girls to ensure their point of view and lived experience is heard at the tables where decisions are made.’ whether or not meghan’s letter is what prompted the change, the fact that more than 30 years later she continues to speak up about having spoken up suggests it’s the kind of mission she aspires to. marie, who has worked with many celebrities, says of the sussexes’ aspirations, ‘i think it’s actually better than where most people start out.’

…to point out the modesty of that world-bettering feels like contributing to the essential problem of harry and meghan: no matter what they do, they just can’t win. (if, i guess, you don’t count the overwhelming portion of their beautiful lives that exists outside of daily mail headlines and blog comment sections.)

if harry’s burden is the soft oppression of no expectations, meghan’s might be the opposite: the betrayal of not living up to an unachievable ideal. ‘i think the whole world was waiting for her to be that person, and then she never jumped,’ the source who worked in media says. ‘diana walked amongst land mines. meghan couldn’t even say the word slut.’”

i love the ending of this article from vanity fair because it touches on meghan outside of the sphere of harry, or the title their marriage bestowed upon her: “diana walked amongst land mines. meghan couldn’t even say the word slut.”

when you have big goals, big dreams, the burning desire to be world-famous, you cannot be afraid. not of your own shadow. and certainly not of your in-laws.

and it seems like, upon reading the vanity fair article, that the shadow of the institution still lingers over these two montecito monarchs. not solely as something they’re now both running away from, but the one thing, outside of being a beautiful couple in love, that keeps both of them interesting. the vanity fair article touches upon this is great detail, and i implore you to read it full.

if meghan and harry have no juice outside of the firm, and have neither the operational discipline nor the deep pockets to fully realize their “world-bettering” dreams, what keeps them going?

their vision. their us-vs-the world dynamic. their love. their emphasis on emotional truth over literal truth, at least in meghan’s case per the vanity fair article. and it also helps that he, with her subliminal nudging¹⁴, views her as the reincarnation of princess diana. opedius complex indeed.

but i think more than anything, what really keeps them going is take she takes him very, very seriously. and as a result, he’s pledged fealty to her. he’s her knight. even if he is a prince in exile.

and another exiled man who understood the importance of being taken seriously was napoleon himself. we’ve discussed his wife, joséphine, previously in my essay, the wisdom of whores, whom napoleon made empress of the french republic when he declared himself emperor of the republic on december 2, 1804. theirs was a love story, at least on napoleon’s part. joséphine did not take napoleon seriously until it was too late. and he divorced her and married a woman who wouldn’t make the same mistake.

but to be fair to joséphine, because the archive often is not, the ambition to ascend over all those who had snubbed her and rule, not only the demi-monde, but all of parisian high society as it’s rightful supreme hostess, kept her focused less on her husband and much more on her own affairs. a true girl boss. but she flew too close to the sun, and by the end, even her tears couldn’t save her from napoleon’s realization that she was neither a goddess come to earth nor a faithful wife.

one should remember that napoleon used to love joséphine’s emotional, and physical, distance. it made him yearn for her:"

“he complained that in ‘countries with any morals,’ women were home at ten and ‘write to their husbands, think of them, live for them.’ he could have easily found such a biddable woman. he chose joséphine—independent, difficult, and cool—because he adored a challenge. and he was her sexual slave: ‘a kiss to the heart, then lower, much, much lower.’”

napoleon’s letters to joséphine, as revealed in her biography.

this tension, of questioning whether or not you fully have what you already have, kept napoleon intrigued and, for the most part, in check. all joséphine had to do was play her position. and did she do that? no.

she may not have been gallivanting throughout the south of france, to be fair, saint tropez wasn’t the glamorous playground in the 19th century that it was when sonja morgan declined to book a trip back home, but joséphine wasn’t waiting at home for napoleon. but that’s not the point.

the point is not to be a blindly submissive pliable wife. in the archetype of hera. but to, at bare minimum, be a faithful wife. faithful to the martial contract. faithful to whatever verbal contracts exist. and most importantly. faithful to the vision. commitment to the vision is the only thing that matters. meghan understands this.

and another woman who understands supreme commitment to the vision is our second mystery woman: a first lady, both former and current.

this woman’s preference to say nothing at all will go down in the history books because it’s so different than the first ladies who came before her as they embodied the role in a much more externally forward facing way. and it’s not that this woman blends into the background. quite the opposite: she uses fashion to make a point. especially this time around.

but her willingness to say everything but saying nothing at all has, understandably, led to people projecting their opinions onto her. much like i’m doing now.

and the difference between those essayists and me is that i don’t see this woman as a victim. if everything, i think melania’s in on it. i don’t believe she’s stuck in a loveless marriage. if anything, i believe he likes her more than she likes him; and it’s also my belief that they both like it that way. i think it works for them. and the reason they work is because she admires him. she respects what he’s built for himself and his family. she takes him very, very seriously. at least, that’s what she said in her book.

and the thing about taking your husband seriously, more than just its being a hedge against the downfall of your marriage through self-destructive means (what freud would call a death drive), is that it’s extraordinary to take your husband seriously when literally no one else does. and there’s quite literally no evidence that you should.

this is what meghan did. as did melania.

and it’s a little known fact that not only does melania take ‘the donald’ very, very seriously, but that he values her opinions immensely. he seeks it out in fact¹⁵:

“'melania was involved in trump’s political career from the start: in 1999, when he announced his run on larry king live, he said he would marry melania to make up for the absence of a first lady. melania played along, saying she was ready to marry trump and become a ‘very traditional first lady, like betty ford or jackie kennedy’. at the time, few in politics realised how seriously trump was taking his candidacy. now, melania reflects: ‘we knew it wasn’t the time. but i did know that if and when he ran, he would win.’

…trump and melania married in palm beach in 2005, surrounded by 10,000 flowers. it was trump’s third wedding. bill and hillary clinton were guests, as was benjamin netanyahu. almost nobody from melania’s life before trump was there – it was as though she didn’t have a past. she was determined to convince trump, already a father of four, to have a baby. barron was born in 2006, around the time trump allegedly had affairs with the pornographic actress stormy daniels and playboy model karen mcdougal: both would come back to haunt him.

in the early 2010s, trump began to take off on twitter, seething about barack obama and imagining he could translate his successful apprentice ratings into a presidency, but few took him seriously. to those assessing the trumps’ political chances – and there weren’t many – melania was irrelevant: a mannequin, just another of trump tower’s expensive collectibles. those on the inside track, such as the political adviser sam nunberg, thought very differently. ‘the president is answerable to melania,’ says nunberg. ‘i think donald depends on her. he takes her seriously. i don’t believe that melania is scared of him, as opposed to others around him who are controlled by him. she’s not worried about his mood. i think it’s the opposite, actually. i think he’s worried about hers.’

…among the family, nunberg says, they were clearly talking very seriously about trump running for office. and two years later, it was finally happening: trump was vying for president. ‘i have a joke,’ says nunberg. ‘there are only two people who really thought donald trump would get elected president: him and melania.’

the moment that insight really hit him, he was sitting in a meeting with fellow campaign adviser roger stone and michael cohen, trump’s lawyer at the time. ‘we were going over the general flow of the campaign and recent polling and i said, ‘you’ll be number two initially and then you’ll be number one by the end of the month.’ donald said, ‘no, i’ll be number one initially.’ i asked him who said that. ‘melania,’ said trump. ‘she said i’m gonna be number one the whole time.’ roger stone butted in, ‘the melania trump school of politics.’’ and they all burst out laughing.

still, nunberg was convinced melania took trump’s run for president more seriously than he did. why? ‘she believes in his celebrity,’ he says. and there you have it: a former model from slovenia understood the us election better than 1,000 political operators in washington. and when i asked melania, ‘did you always know donald trump would win the presidential race?’ she simply replied, ‘yes.’ melania was right. celebrity in america meant power.

had donald trump won the election as the sort of candidate he promised to be in 2000, or even as a less toxic kind of republican, it is easy to imagine what delight the washington press corps would have taken in reports of amalija and viktor knavs, the couple from sevnica, staying for months in the white house, with the president’s son being brought up bilingual. (so much so that one source has speculated that english is not barron’s first language.) it could have been an aspirational tale to warm liberal hearts.

instead, that story would be buried under reports of trump’s racism, immigrant baiting and assault on the rule of law. opinions of melania have become as polarised as washington. to trump’s most avid supporters, she is the image of the perfect wife. ‘melania truly is the embodiment of grace,’ says seb gorka, former deputy assistant for strategy to president trump. ‘it is hard to imagine a more perfect exemplar of what a first lady should be.’ meanwhile, to liberals, she is a figure of pity whose tenure is ‘most notable for its absence’.

while michelle obama’s time as first lady was characterised by her charisma, melania’s has mostly been marked by her vacancy. #freemelania – the hashtag that continues to circulate on twitter – has been joined by #fakemelania, a comment on the first lady’s often-wooden demeanour beside her husband. sometimes she’s pictured wearing oversized sunglasses that obscure a good deal of her face, feeding the conspiracy theory that melania has a body double. critics pore over her expensive wardrobe, gasping at one £40,000 dolce & gabbana floral jacket she wore in 2017, and speculating about her true feelings towards trump. but in doing so, they overlook the deal she has made with, and for, herself.

it has been 24 years since melania first arrived in new york, on the cusp of what has been one of the most astonishing american success stories ever told: the slovenian model and the gossip-pages-obsessed mogul who ended up in the white house. and it’s easy to forget that from melania’s perspective, she is the real winner here. how many people have come from somewhere so small and yet made it so big? how many other people have risen so far so fast? very few. because, whether you like it or not, melania’s journey from sevnica to washington dc is the embodiment of the american dream."

the narrative thread in this article, which is partly what inspired this essay in the first place, is that no one took seriously that melania took trump very, very seriously. those men laughed when trump spoke of the faith his wife had in his polling potential.

and what stands out to me in this article, which i’ve come to appreciate as the years go on, is that it’s often from the outside looking in that you can see a thing for what it is. melania, as an immigrant, understood american popular culture, to be widely based off of a love of celebrity and big personality. that’s why i love nene leaks. that’s why tiffany “new york” pollard was able to take a one season appearance on flavor of love and turn it into a 20+ year reality tv show career.

america rewards celebrity. for better or worse.

this is meghan’s calculus. she knew the score.

whereas melania’s husband was able to be successful utilizing his celebrity, meghan has not been able to propel hers or her husband’s celebrity forward, or at least past the point of their in-fighting with his family across the pond, because the american popular culture also values authenticity. even if you’re an honest liar. as trump often is.

to say you want privacy. publicly. in a televised interview with oprah. and then to spend every year since launching something commercially-oriented that is very public does not garner goodwill from the same public you told you wanted to remain private.

to say you’re going to do something you believe needs to happen. and to create a national movement doing just that. and then actually begin to deliver on the things you said you were going to do, for better of worse, is both on-brand and what the public (who has bought into the vision) wants.

that’s the husbands. now back to the wives.

my analysis is that meghan and melania are both calculating. and this is a trait i admire in them, and any woman who is determined to get what she wants.

but the weight of meghan’s ambition is crushing her because she actually wants people, the public, to like her. she wants to be the people’s princess. just like princess diana.

melania, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what we think. from reading her book, i believe the only opinion of her that she would remotely value, let alone give credence to, is from her father, her mother, her sister, and her son. she cares for trump, yes. she believes in his vision. she has since 1999. whether or not he happens to like her at any given day, i don’t believe is a concern that crosses her mind enough to be relevant to her mental framework.

the tatler article spells it out clearly, “the president is answerable to melania…i think donald depends on her. he takes her seriously. i don’t believe that melania is scared of him, as opposed to others around him who are controlled by him. she’s not worried about his mood. i think it’s the opposite, actually. i think he’s worried about hers.”

and more than not just caring about the moods of her husband, the tatler article explicitly states what i believe everyone keeps missing in their reading of melania: “it’s easy to forget that from melania’s perspective, she is the real winner here. how many people have come from somewhere so small and yet made it so big? how many other people have risen so far so fast? very few.”

and in their rapid ascent, meghan and melania are similar. but their reaction, or lack thereof, to their ascension couldn't have been more different.

it posits the question of, “are you actually ready for the things you say you want?”

in some ways, meghan is still afraid of her own shadow. that’s what got vice president harris the first time, and arguably the second time, around. you cannot be a woman who gets what you want and live in fear of who you could be if you simply allowed yourself to be.

i’m dealing with this myself. and to combat it, every day, i remind myself that it’s in my best interest to live fully, deeply, and richly. to not abandon myself to fear. or to give up on myself for lack of trying. so here i am, trying.

my mantra continues to be, “i am worth my best efforts.”

in this game of life, we must push forward with our best efforts. because you never know what will come: one moment you’re in your early twenties, modeling as a side hustle while studying architecture, spending all your time in the apartment your parents bought for your sister that you now inhabit; and the next you find yourself the first lady of a country that doesn’t understand why you choose silence when there’s nothing to say, let alone why you flout convention.

but seriously, take from the first lady the opposite of love as discussed at the beginning of this essay: pure, unadulterated indifference. an aristocratic unbotheredness that only comes with having better things to do and better people to think of. if she can withstanding that amount of vitriol, justified and otherwise, whilst still remaining faithful, not only to her needs, but to the vision her husband spelled out 24 years ago which continued to hold stock in where everyone was called it worthless, you can remain faithful to yourself, your needs, and your vision.

like i said. i’m no marriage counselor. i’m not married. and legally speaking, i’m single. so, i’m not here to sell you on the idea of having a husband or taking him very, very seriously if you do (although i do think it’s a great relationship dynamic).

i’m simply here to remind you that people can hate you and that’s ok. people can judge you and that’s ok. you just can’t hate nor judge yourself. that’s not worth your time. what is worth your time is remembering that this is your world, and we’re all just living in it.

sweet dreams,
a diouana woman

p.s. truth or dare

you know how in your diary, you write something down then rip it out and place it in the tiny makeup bag you keep in your purse as a manifestation method? yeah, these p.s. truth or dares are the digital versions of my little ripped off notes.

truth: listening to old school meghan. tina montana was always my favorite from her tina snow era (her best album to date unfortunately…)

dare: being flippant with those we say we care about. human beings have an ingratitude complex. don’t fall victim to it.

1. as noted by elie wiesel.

2. ivanka is so funny for this.

3. this is my original thesis contribution to to this body of research!

4. i borrowed the subtitle to this section from nene. it’s from when she told peter to, “stop trying to be a damn bitch” and stay out of women’s business. ahead-of-her-time iconic. and what really speaks to the impact of nene and this moment is that there was a moment where senator ted cruz was tweeting about his support for pro-life / anti-abortion legislation and people responded to that tweet with, “stay out of women’s business” in direct reference to nene leaks and this moment. people speak of luann de lesseps or bethenny frankel as the most impactful housewives on the franchise, in terms of popularity and cultural impact, and i disagree. nene impacted the broader culture. people reference her in their protests against sitting united states senators on twitter (the platform now known as x). the other girls just don’t compare when it comes to that level of tangible influence. and she was right: stay out of women’s business.

5. all real housewives historians know that this was the moment, and franchise, that put housewives on the map. people will swear it was new york. no. nene leakes, through her quick wittedness, cemented herself as the greatest housewives of all time. her downfall is a tragedy and is a cautionary tale for us all.

6. part one of the two-part reunion for the real housewives of atlanta aired on april 5, 2008. president obama was elected to the highest office in the land on november 4, 2008.

7. looking at you dorinda.

8. reddit user: glitchinthemeowtrix.

9. i actually really love this quote by vice president harris because she’s right. i first heard her say it during a documentary on the divine nine.

10. eartha kitt would be so proud.

11. i stay likely because their relationship timeline is unclear.

12. this is another original thesis of mine!

13. the source of these quotes are from a vanity fair article on meghan and harry: inside prince harry and meghan markle’s big business ambitions, 5 years after their royal exit.

14. i think this is a really good moment to bring up that meghan wore the perfume princess diana was known to wear during her first date with harry (source).

15. the source of these quotes are from a tatler article on melania: ‘gold digger’, ‘bimbo’, ‘trapped in a loveless marriage’…, have we got melania trump all wrong? it doesn’t escape me that it would be the british who would be much more sympathetic to melania’s arc than the americans.