Keira Knightley Criticizes the Expectations Set on Kate Middleton After Giving Birth

Keira Knightley is taking society's expectations for women's bodies before, during, and immediately after pregnancy—and that includes some thoughts on the expectations set on Kate Middleton to appear for photographs hours after giving birth.

In a powerful essay that appears in the new collection Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and Other Lies), Knightley contributed a piece titled "The Weaker Sex," which she dedicated to her daughter. In it, the actress recounts her daughter Edie's birth story in intimate detail in an effort to combat the unrealistic expectations set on women to be perfect moments after bringing life into the world.

Refinery29 published excerpts from Knightley's essay, which begins:

"My vagina split. You came out with your eyes open. Arms up in the air. Screaming. They put you on to me, covered in blood, vernix, your head misshapen from the birth canal. Pulsating, gasping, screaming. You latched on to my breast immediately, hungrily, I remember the pain. The mouth clenched tight around my nipple, light sucking on and sucking out. I remember the s—, the vomit, the blood, the stitches. I remember my battleground. Your battleground and life pulsating. Surviving. And I am the weaker sex?"

Knightley then explained that Edie's birth came just one day before Middleton gave birth to her second child, Princess Charlotte. The pictures and videos showing the duchess smiling and holding Charlotte on the hospital steps came in stark contrast to what Knightley herself was experiencing after giving birth.

"We stand and watch the TV screen. She was out of hospital seven hours later with her face made up and high heels on. The face the world wants to see. Hide. Hide our pain, our bodies splitting, our breasts leaking, our hormones raging," she wrote. "Look beautiful, look stylish, don't show your battleground, Kate. Seven hours after your fight with life and death, seven hours after your body breaks open, and bloody, screaming life comes out. Don't show. Don't tell. Stand there with your girl and be shot by a pack of male photographers."

If Kate felt well enough to stand out there for photos after giving birth (and, more important, wanted to), that's absolutely fine. She's done it three times now, and Diana did it too—making it something of a royal tradition. But it's not the reality of what the hours after birth are like for many women, who took to social media after the birth of Prince Louis this year to share photos of themselves exhausted and worn out after labor—a stark contrast to what the cameras pointing at Middleton saw through their lenses.