Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have supported a report calling for an end to gender stereotyping.
The Sussexes sent their backing to a new research paper, which also called for adverts to ‘break the gender binary’. It gave examples of what could be done as showing women mowing the lawn and fixing the sink or men doing the cooking.
The biennial State of the World’s Fathers report also urges a better representation of ‘diverse family formations, including LGBTQIA+ parents and non-nuclear families.
It also recommends more openness about ‘male vulnerability’ and shows men ‘showing emotions and giving affection’.
The report was created by US charity Equimundo from research across 17 countries and surveys of thousands of men and women.
Part of the report bears an uncanny resemblance to an issue the Duchess took up when she was a child.
Aged 11, Meghan wrote to Procter & Gamble to object to sexism in a dish soap advert which included the line: ‘Mothers around America are fighting greasy pots and pans.’
She asked them to change the advert to ‘people all over America’ and the company subsequently amended the language.
She appeared in an interview in 1993, saying she was ‘furious’ at the advert for P&G’s Ivory Clear.
She added: ‘When they heard this, the boys in my class started saying, ”Yeah, that’s where women belong – in the kitchen”.
Recalling the letter in 2018, she said: ‘Truth be told, at 11 I don’t think I even knew what sexism meant.’
She continued: ‘I just knew that something struck me internally that was telling me it was wrong.
‘And using that as my moral compass and moving through from the age of 11, at that age I was able to change this commercial.’
She added: ‘It really set up the trajectory for me to say, if there was a wrong, if there is a lack of justice, and there is an inequality, then someone needs to do something. And why not me?’
A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess’s charitable organisation Archewell said of Equimundo’s new report: ‘The 2023 data shows that men are increasingly involved in caregiving and would like to increase their care work at home, although deeply ingrained social norms and a lack of supportive policies and power structures discourage them from doing so.
‘The report recognizes care work as the bedrock of society and calls for continued advancements towards gender equality. It also emphasizes the need for media representation that normalizes men’s caregiving roles.
‘The Archewell Foundation is proud to have supported this report, as well as Equimundo’s continued work to promote gender equality around the globe.’
