Anonymous asked:

Hey, I love your blog. I know you think Elizabeth Alton is hella problematic so I'm curious what you think of her HuffPo thing.

Hey anon! Yes, I do think Alton's more than a little problematic, and actually I wasn't the biggest fan of her HuffPo opinion piece (anyone who hasn't read it and wants to – I'm mobile and can't link it for you, but if you Google her and HuffPo UK you should find it). Totally objectively I don't think it's a "bad" thing, she's clearly very intelligent and made a good point, but my biggest problem with her is how little she speaks up. Maybe my UK readers will feel differently, but I don't think being "private" in the vein of the royals is a particuarly good look for her, I know it's probably cultural but she's stayed silent on a lot of things under the guise of "preferring privacy" and then (as we all know) been very defensive when she's accused of either being anti-feminist (which she might be) or a posterchild for white feminism (which she definitely is). She cherrypicks her times to speak up, and I think the HuffPo bit made clear that she cares far more about her country looking bad than she does about vocally supporting women's rights. I give her props for calling out Trump as a sexual predator, but it's too little too late (never forget she's worked for Woody Allen), and she needs to say this more if she wants my respect.

Worth noting; I'm actually a fan of her work, and thus have been paying attention to the press she's doing in New York at the moment. Not a single reporter has asked her about the op-ed; that seems a bit overly managed. They've just left her to go on and on about how playing yet another supportive wife to a powerful man is an important story to tell and they're all eating it up because it's an interracial story. She clearly buys her own bullshit, and her people are pushing the narrative of her being "woke" but not too woke. She's incredibly talented but totally unaware, which is a shame because she's not an idiot and could probably use her smarts and her platform for a lot of good.