On her first press event as the future Queen of Spain, Letizia Ortiz was with Prince Felipe. They were showing off their engagement gifts. Midway through the event, she interrupted the Prince, asking him to let her finish talking.
"Let me speak," the bride-to-be said. He laughed, and she went on. It was a spontaneous exchange between a couple in love.
But the media didn't interpret it that way, calling her request "embarrassing for the Prince". News reports depicted her as an unpleasant, arrogant woman.
This is not a story about the Spanish monarchy, nor that of a privileged woman on the cover of celebrity magazines. This is about an educated professional who has been consistently judged for her looks and her marital status, rather than her brains and character. The experience of Letizia Ortiz is universal, the story of women suffering as the brunt of sexism in the media, which in turn affects the society that consumes it.
The Spanish Lady Di: a divorced journalist
Ortiz, a divorced young journalist, got engaged in 2003 to the heir to the Spanish Crown, Prince Felipe. The so-called “Spanish Lady Di” became the most controversial princess in Spain’s history. For the first time, a commoner was to be Queen.
Originally from a humble family, Oritz was the daughter of a journalist and a nurse, and the granddaughter of a radio announcer. Media was in her blood, and she went on to study journalism herself.
But the fact that Ortiz was a divorcee was a big deal to the media. At the age of 26, she married a high school literature teacher from her old school, but the marriage ended a year later. National newspapers and tabloids didn't wait to publish all the information they could find about her former husband.
Some of the derogatory things said about her in news articles fueled sexist comments by readers. In a major national newspaper, La Razón, a reader commented: “She is a gold-digger...She found the charming Prince and started her own Snow White fairy tail.”
Drugs, abortion and other scandals
Investigative journalist Isidre Cunill published a book in 2010 called Letizia Ortiz: a Republican at King Juan Carlos I's Court that related all sorts of scandals about the princess. According to the book, the Spanish secret agency (CNI) had a report on the princess' abortion in Mexico. Whether that abortion allegation was true or not, the public will never know, but the attacks on Ortiz were magnified.
Cunill also wrote in the book that Ortiz was a drug user. “When she was in college she started dating her future husband, Alonso Guerrero...and she was arrested for hashish possession,” he wrote. President Barack Obama was also said to have smoked marijuana as a student, but it hardly made a dent in his reputation. In her case, however, she was painted as a wild and irresponsible student.
Bags and heels, not brains
Princess Letizia is a sharp and articulate woman, but the media commented voraciously on her appearance. Columnists objectified Letizia by focusing on her body and face, rather than her words.
One of the harshest critiques was by Época magazine in a special report about what was "wrong" (or right) about her appearance.
“According to sources close to her, she is too bossy,” the magazine observed about the princess. “She is looking increasingly botox-ridden.”
The magazine also analyzed her high heels, saying that she was trying to somehow 'reduce the big distance between herself and the Prince' by wearing high heels that were “too loose, coarse and excessively striking”. It's unclear whether Ortiz would have escaped the magazine's criticism by wearing shorter, duller and less eye-catching heels.
Tabloids were constantly writing stories on the princess' “bad taste”. Her appearance was criticized at times because she was wearing expensive brands, and at other times for wearing clothes that seemed too cheap. Época magazine dubbed her an “old fogey” for wearing "too vulgar and coarse purses in poor quality and grandma style."
Vanitatis, an online newspaper, said Spanish people didn’t accept her because she was an “excessively thin and plebeian woman.” The princess’ thinness was apparently an issue of international concern. In Denmark, some newspapers ridiculed her skinny figure, calling her a “matchstick” (skinny body and big head).
Even the royal family's reporters were critical. Royal family reporter Jaime Peñafiel, well-known for his dislike for Ortiz, said about her: “Letizia is a very smart woman ... She wants to be the best in every aspect of her life: the most educated, the most stylish. All her energy is consumed on that, that’s why she is so thin. She needs to be astute and humble. No one can stand her.”
A new type of royal, undermined by age-old sexism
Ortiz is not an average woman. She represents an archaic monarchy, but she is unlike most other members of the royal family. Before getting engaged to the Prince, Ortiz’ had a highly successful career as a journalist.
She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Master’s Degree in Audiovisual Journalism from the Institute for Studies in Audiovisual Journalism and also started her PhD in Mexico. From a very young age, she worked in diverse forms of media, from ABC and EFE News Agency to Bloomberg TV, an American-owned channel specialising in economy and finance. She has also been a newscaster, an editor and a reporter at CNN+, a Spanish language arm of the US broadcaster.
At the time that she announced her engagement, Ortiz was working at Spanish National Television, where she was part of the editing team of the evening edition of the daily news broadcast. She anchored the morning news broadcast, the special programmes on the Euro offered by TVE’s news programmes, and was a correspondent covering current events in different locations all over the world. As a sign of her competence, she received a Larra Award for the most distinguished young journalist of the year.
Considering her higher education and professional career, Ortiz breaks with the anachronism of royal families in 21st century. Still, she continues to be criticized for her shoes and purses, as did countless women before her. Ortiz may be a new type of princess, but the blatant sexism that Ortiz suffers is centuries old.
Women are changing. When will the media start changing, too?