Opinion

Surprise! No one wants to be the duchess of Cambridge

She’s a real life princess, married to a modern gentleman, pregnant with her second child and already a mom to a cute little prince, oh and she wears designer clothes all the time and gets to travel the world on behalf of the Queen. Who wouldn’t want to be Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge? Turns out, no one wants to be Kate.

The results of a recent poll commissioned by Newsweek Europe about the image the British had of the Duchess are quite astonishing. You’d think that because the world is fascinated by the new royal and that many women are going to the extremes to look like her that they would want to be her. How false!

The most shocking piece of the poll is that a tiny 1% of women said they would like to exchange their lives to be the duchess of Cambridge. Moreover, 89% of women polled said they wouldn’t want to trade place with her even for only a day!

According to the same survey, Kate isn’t even the most loved royal family member, scoring only the fourth place, behind Prince William (Harry is first, while the Queen is second). Only 32% of people polled said they would like to be friend with her.

And as for men, only 6% of them wished they were married or dating Kate Middleton.

There are many reasons that could explain that, and the first should be fairly simple: stress. The duchess of Cambridge is under such scrutiny from the medias around the world that her every moves are being subject of an article somewhere. Being perfect is very stressful, as if she would do anything just a bit wrong, it would be everywhere a breaking news, it would sit on every front page the next morning. Most women couldn’t cope with all that stress, and it’s understandable.

Also, her very thin figure is always a subject to be debated: she had lost a lot of weight before the wedding in 2011, then we were hardly able to see a baby bump when she was pregnant of Prince George and she was severely criticized when lost all her pregnancy weight in under 2 months. Sadly for her, she is being use as a ‘’thinspiration’’ for young anorexic girls on the Web, which means girls look up to her to keep motivated to lose weight to extreme levels. Being happy with our own body is already challenging enough, it’s worse if you have to please the world too.

Also, while Kate wears designer clothes every fashionista dreams of, she can’t hardly have fun with them because of the royal protocol and dress code. She has to think about every detail: pantyhose, shoes, necklines and the amount of skin showing. She’s been accused of dressing too safely and not dressing her age, but that’s the royal protocol, to prevent fashion faux-pas and scandals.

However, in spite of everything, 43% of the respondents agreed to say that Kate is a good addition to the royal family, representing a step forward for ‘’modern’’ women. 65% approved of the Duchess as a good role model for young girls, probably because of her high education, poise and intelligence. Her good looks is her ‘’best’’ quality, followed by kindness, intelligence and dutifulness.

So while everyone loves and regards the duchess of Cambridge and follow her every moves, no one would want to be in the same spotlight as her. She’s a celebrity of her own kind, of which no one desire to belong.

Is this poll the explanation to why Prince Harry is still single, because he can’t find another Kate, who’s willing to give up her freedom and privacy for love? There are still some out there who wished they could…!

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