In the days following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle publicly confirming their engagement, people have been scrambling to find out more about the woman who will be marrying into the royal family.
It turns out the actress was creating waves from a very, very young age.
When she was just 11 years old, Markle was asked to assess the messages of various adverts for a class project.
The advert for Ivory dishwasher soap caught her eye because of its gender-specific language. The voiceover said “women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans”.
The young activist-to-be found offence with use of the word ‘women’, and with encouragement from her dad - who told her to write letters - she reached out to some people.
Markle wrote letters to the soap’s manufacturer Procter & Gamble, as well as civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred, Hillary Clinton (who was the First Lady at the time) and Nick News anchor Linda Ellerbee.
Ellerbee responded to the letter by sending a camera crew to interview her.
The young Markle said:
"I don’t think it’s right for children to grow up thinking these things, that mum does everything."
As a result of her letter, the ad's wording was changed, replacing “women” with “people”.
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