Mindy Kaling has reflected on society’s double standard in praising direct and impatient men, but criticising women who have the same qualities.
The Never Have I Ever creator made the comments in the latest episode of the Duchess of Sussex’ Archetypes podcast, released on Tuesday (6 September).
In conversation about her career and ambition, Meghan Markle asked Kaling if her strong ambition had ever “backfired”.
Kaling said she strives to be “direct” and “decisive” in her role as a producer and director because these are qualities that she loves in other people.
“As a leader and employer in my shows, I think of myself as incredibly direct, very decisive and also impatient. Which you need to be, you know the pace of TV, you know how quickly things have to work,” Kaling told Meghan.
“Those are quality that in men, you’re like ‘thank you’ if you’re an actor and you have a director and showrunner who wants to get the shot and move on,” Kaling explained.
Meghan, who played Rachel Zane for seven seasons of US TV show Suits, agreed with Kaling, telling her that she would think: “He’s so good at his job, he kept us on time.”
“We’re not going to have a 14-hour day,” Kaling continued. “But in a woman those qualities are so ugly to certain people.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Meghan criticised people who said she was “so lucky” that the Duke of Sussex “chose her”.
“My own experience of that, when I started dating my husband and we became engaged, everyone was just like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so lucky he chose you!’” Meghan explained.
“And when you have to hear it a million times over you’re sort of like, ‘Well, I chose him too.’ But thankfully I have a partner who was countering that narrative for me and going, ‘They’ve got it all wrong, I’m the lucky one because you chose me.’”
