People always joke about how Viola Davis walks like a truck driver, but I will never make fun of Viola’s gait! Some of us just walk like truck drivers. Some of us struggle to walk in heels. I tend to clomp and stomp around no matter the footwear. All of which to say, I admire women who can look graceful in heels and women who can navigate tricky terrain in heels. That’s not me, at all. All that being said, I feel like the Princess of Wales’s fans are perhaps setting the bar in hell, given that they’ve now been praising Kate for “walking” for more than a week. The root of this is that Princess Kate attended a Buckingham Palace garden party two weeks ago. She wore a very “Kate” look, including beige heels. She didn’t sink into the grass at all. As I said, this is now a week-long story: Kate walked and she didn’t stumble at all, like a big girl!

The Princess of Wales hosted her first garden party of the year this month alongside her husband, Prince William – and one moment in particular impressed royal fans. Kate, 44, wore a stunning Self Portrait dress and a matching black-and-white hat paired with her go-to Ralph Lauren stiletto heels at Buckingham Palace in London.

The royal couple was animated as they chatted with guests, and the Princess effortlessly walked between conversations despite wearing high heels on muddy grass.

To the amazement of royal watchers and attendees at the event, Kate didn’t sink into the grass and appeared to “glide” across the Palace lawn.

In astonishment, one person wrote: “Walking on grass in stilettos is not for the weak… but Princess Catherine makes it look effortless.”

Another noted: “She does make it look like she is gliding. Such a classy woman.” A third said: “It can be done, but takes practice. Catherine is a master of it.”

Rushing to the comments with theories, one person said the royal was “walking on the balls of her feet”, while others suspected she must have transparent “heel stoppers” to stop herself from sinking into the grass.

[From Hello]

It’s not even that I’m opposed to praising women for something like this. As I said, I wouldn’t have been able to walk in heels (period) or walk in heels on grass. It’s fine – just say “wow, she really knows how to walk in heels!” But for Kate in particular, one gets the sense that even her fans struggle to find her positives. That’s why there’s so much infantilization of Kate, who is a 44 year old woman and mother of three, but according to her fans, she’s a big girl who does big, important work by spending years and years saying sh-t like “not enough people know that the early years are important.” Her lack of substance is why there’s this outsized focus on superficial praise for “walking” and “going vroom on a plane.” And as always, the elephant in the room is that Kate’s “fans” would have been the first ones to call Meghan a eco-terrorist war criminal if she dared to walk on grass in heels.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.