Scrolling through Instagram this morning and a post from @Barbie dropped into my feed. It was announcing a one-of-a-kind doll in recognition of The Queen Consort’s leadership of @wowglobal. Women of the World is a global movement of festivals celebrating women, girls & non-binary people. Their aim is to change the way society sees girls and offers opportunities for their future. And Camilla has been the president of WOW since 2015.

Now. I’m not particularly a royalist, nor a major fan of Camilla, but it was the comments section that got me thinking. Here’s a little taster of the first handful:

“Yes let’s teach our daughters about infidelity and scandal”

“A mistress barbie. Didn’t know this is a thing that inspires.”

“You can be ANYTHING! Including a married man’s mistress!”

Are you seeing a pattern here?

What does the word ‘mistress’ mean?

I googled the word ‘mistress’: 1. a woman in a position of authority or control.”she is always mistress of the situation, coolly self-possessed” 2. a woman (other than the man’s wife) having a sexual relationship with a married man.”Elsie knew her husband had a mistress tucked away somewhere.”

Then I googled, is there a male equivalent of the word ‘mistress’, and there isn’t.

Some websites offered the word ‘paramour’ but it’s a gender neutral word and it doesn’t carry the same historical and societal connotations as mistress; it’s not seen as pejorative.

Labelling Camilla as a mistress, puts the blame squarely on her shoulders. It’s what the word does, it blames the woman for the actions of a man. And frankly, I’m getting rather tired of women being held responsible for the way men act.

Will boys be boys?

For far too long the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ has excused the poor behaviour of boys; bullying, teasing, fighting… It’s often met with shrug and a wry smile, but it allows boys to grow into men who believe they have no control over their actions. That behaving badly is just how they behave. In the playground it’s used when a boy pulls a girl’s ponytail, in the locker room is used for much worse….

It’s part of the reason why I’m writing my next children’s book and putting the message of consent front and centre. I hadn’t thought about including the term ‘boys will be boys’ but I’m obviously thinking that I should be… I’m still writing book 4, but if you want to read something to your boys (to all children!) about not hiding their feelings and not ‘manning up’ I’d definitely recommend my last book, How Frank Helped Hank.

Should Barbie have made a doll of Camilla? I don’t know, I don’t really care! But should we still be labelling ‘the other woman’, ‘the home wrecker’, or ‘the mistress’ while casually dismissing the actions of men..? No. No we shouldn’t. I’d love to know what you think.