How Meghan Markle ensures she is ‘seen as a powerful woman’
Meghan Markle’s impassioned speeches following her exit from the British royal family with Prince Harry wreaked havoc on social media.
Looking back at her delivery at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, along with her other TV appearances, a body language expert and psychologist, Bruce Durham has analyzed her speeches.
Addressing her statement against her critics where she insists she is “authentic” and “not controversial”, Durham told Mirror Online: "She doesn't receive it like that, she receives it as a threat. Up until then the interviewer is still heaping praise on Meghan.”
"She does three things to let you know her ego is raging. She brushes her hair, she's reframing herself. She wants to be seen as the powerful woman. Her ego springs into life,” he went on to say.
"Lots of eye blocks, she wants to be the person in the room. Watch her throat, tightening of the throat, it's an animalistic reaction. She does not like hearing she's not the only powerful equation,” he added.
"There's the shrug of the lips, that doesn't indicate positive. The eye blocks kick in. Then a third thingis that she looks down. Down is not a good place, it's negative, afraid,” he said.
"Then she introduces her own critique. She says she's received criticism for being controversial in the past. She's trying to get across that she isn't controversial.”
"Then she goes on to say what she's said that's been labelled as controversial. She says if you look at what I've said - and looks left so is recollecting - but then there's a series of eye blocks and a lip shrug.”
"This means there is not full positivity - she isn't happy at all. The really interesting bit is when she says it's not controversial. She has what's called a 'switch of the head pattern', a shake of the head goes with no,” he said.
"She shakes her head as she's trying to stay positive - it just naturally doesn't go. I want to know what's going on in her head as she says 'it's not controversial',” he added.
"This whole thing is set up to appear relaxed. She's selected some very specific books to be behind her, he sleeves are rolled up but context is key, her button is down, arm up on the sofa - it's a very 'hey, come and talk to me',” he continued.
"There is some authentic stuff but to be fair and balanced we must also raise awareness to some inauthentic stuff going on. It's another repetition. You can understand that she's uncomfortable or keeps something back,” claimed Durham.
"When she talks about the high school graduation speech, which some people loved and others didn't, she's clearly uncomfortable because she flicks her hair, this is one of her behaviours. She talks about going back to Los Angeles and then she specifically mentions the Rodney King beatings and does the hair flick again.”
“This is the third example of re-framing. She was clearly emotional about what she was talking about. When she's uncomfortable, she reframes her hair. It's a self-soothe mechanism,” says Durham.
“If you're positive that something is true, you're energised and you smile. People engage, if it's negative people shut their eyes and look away. Right at the end she's either not telling the truth, or holding something back, or not being authentic.”
"When she says the word 'truth' she has an eyeblock, not an eyes wide open when you rally believe something, but the opposite - as if she's trying to block out the image. At the end she nods as if she's trying to convince herself that she sounded OK. But if she needs to convince herself, and all those eye blocks are there then that tells you that she isn't being truthful or believing in the words she's saying,” he goes on to assert.
"Her narrative isn't matching up with her body language. At some point she is being authentic and telling the truth but we must also acknowledge that she's not being authentic at certain times or telling us the full story,” adds Durham as he concludes.
