Why Do these women Inspire Such Rage? Nothing riles the internet up more than Meghan Markle and Blake Lively.

Meghan Markle’s new Netflix lifestyle series, would be considered a moderate success. It debuted in Netflix’s global top ten earlier this month and has already been renewed for a second season. Some of the items featured on the show, like a Le Creuset pan and a belted shirtdress from Sézane, have already sold out online. The day the show premiered, Markle also previewed her long-awaited lifestyle brand, As Ever, a line of jams, teas, and her trademark edible-flower sprinkles developed in partnership with Netflix.

But for many of Markle’s biggest haters, the show was a prime opportunity to revisit their rancor. On social media, Markle’s “the biggest phony on the planet,” “a narcissistic sociopath,” and “the human equivalent of a knockoff handbag — shiny until you spot the loose stitching.” Conservative influencers like Brett Cooper blasted her for being “fake, contrived, and inauthentic,” while Megyn Kelly said she was “the most insecure person I have seen in the public eye in a long time.” To judge from these reactions, you’d think Markle was guilty of a far greater crime than simply making a mediocre TV show.

Markle’s feud with the British royal family — whom she accused of colluding with the British media to smear her in the press and of turning a blind eye to her mental-health issues — cemented her as a liar and a narcissist in the eyes of her haters. “Meghan’s entire persona is built on exaggerations and self-victimization,” one detractor wrote on X earlier this month. In a Brett Cooper Show episode about Markle, Cooper said, “We’ve genuinely had enough with your constant victimhood while simultaneously contributing to your own problems and your own plight as you parade around in front of us with a product this fake, contrived, and inauthentic.”

Now people are comparing her to Blake Lively, who last year filed a civil suit against It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni, alleging that he sexually harassed her and fostered a “hostile work environment” on set and subsequently spearheaded an online harassment campaign against her. Like Markle’s allegations against the royal family and the British media, there is nothing terribly outlandish or unbelievable about Lively’s claims, yet people have responded to them as if they are obvious lies. More than that: They’ve responded with outrage.

There is now an entire cottage industry of TikTokers and gossip vloggers attempting to publicly discredit Lively. Tellingly, most of her detractors are women; many, like the notorious conspiracy theorist and antisemite Candace Owens and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, are explicitly right-wing. In one episode of her podcast, Kelly uses a rather anodyne clip of Lively talking about her desire to transition from acting to writing and directing as evidence of her nature as a “serial fraudster,” accusing her of signing onto the film under false pretenses to wrest creative control from Baldoni. On the internet, it seems, being female and slightly annoying is now a far greater offense than being accused of sexual misconduct.

“Meghan Markle & Blake Lively have skated through life without facing any real consequences, which is why they feel entitled to bully and manipulate others,” reads one tweet. “Both of them have allowed unchecked egos and a complete lack of accountability to harm those around them.” Another wrote of Markle and Lively, “They’re trying age-old techniques to win people over, but they forgot that people have access to social media now and can see the truth. They don’t get influenced by social media facades.”

Tellingly, plenty of people have also started (unfavorably) comparing Markle and Lively with Amber Heard, who accused her ex-partner Johnny Depp of sexual assault and physical abuse, leading Depp to sue her for defamation. When Depp sued a U.K. tabloid for libel in 2020, the court ruled against him, finding that 12 of Heard’s 14 allegations against him were “proved to the civil standard.” But this isn’t what happened in the 2022 defamation trial in the U.S. Heard was cast as an opportunist, a slut, a psycho, and a liar, resulting in an outpouring of support for Depp online. (Much of the groundswell of pro-Depp sentiment on social media was later found to be inorganic; it is perhaps worth noting that Depp’s crisis PR team during the trial is now working for Baldoni.)

As is the case with the backlash against Lively and Markle, it was mostly women who fueled the campaign against Heard. It was mostly women who were on Etsy selling #JusticeForJohnny decals and coffee mugs; women who spearheaded conspiracy theories about the trial; women making TikToks in blonde wigs, lip-syncing to Heard’s harrowing account of Depp allegedly raping her with a beer bottle. And when the jury declared Heard guilty of defamation, effectively branding her a liar and ruining her Hollywood career, it was women who came out in droves outside the Virginia courthouse, kissing Depp and congratulating him on his victory. Many onlookers, particularly feminists, struggled to wrap their heads around this and wondered if it was a harbinger of more to come. Now we seem to know the answer.

Why are so many convinced that these women are dishonest — and why are they so angry about it? Is it because they simply find them irritating, or are they just that susceptible to social-media smear campaigns? Is it really so hard to believe that misogyny is so deeply ingrained in our culture that even beautiful, wealthy women can suffer from its effects? Maybe they see something in Markle and Lively’s stories that they don’t want to see. Maybe it’s easier to just not look.