The South by Southwest Festival starts on Friday, March 8th, the same day as International Women’s Day. For IWD, guess who’s coming to SXSW? The Duchess of Sussex! Saddle up, because the squad is heading down to Austin, Texas, yeehaw! While Austin is known as a bastion of liberal politics, the rest of Texas, not so much. Texas is currently something of a right-wing laboratory for all things anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ, anti-child, pro-gun, pro-police and pro-Trump dictatorship. So I would assume that Meghan will stay in Austin and go nowhere else when she participates in the IWD keynote panel discussion on Friday:

Meghan Markle has something special planned for International Women’s Day. On Monday, the SXSW Conference announced that the Duchess of Sussex, 42, will participate in the Opening Day Keynote Panel later this week. The 38th conference celebrating the convergence of technology, film, television and music kicks off Friday in Austin, Texas, and runs until March 16.

Meghan is set to join a panel called “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen” alongside Katie Couric, Brooke Shields and Nancy Wang Yuen, an author, sociologist, pop culture expert and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant at Peoplism. The conversation will be moderated by Errin Haines, host of The Amendment podcast and editor-at-large for The 19th News.

“Women’s representation in media and entertainment has come a long way, but there’s still much to be done, especially for women of color and mothers. Social media’s omnipresence has raised the stakes, creating an often dangerous environment which has led to serious mental health issues for teenage girls in particular,” said the release about the keynote.

The group including Meghan, Couric and Shields was described as “visionary female leaders at the forefront of news, media, entertainment, and philanthropy who are breaking barriers, challenging stereotypes, and working toward a healthier society on and off our screens.” The Duchess of Sussex was shouted out as a feminist, champion of human rights and gender equity and co-founder of The Archewell Foundation, among other accolades.

“Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, Katie Couric, Brooke Shields, Nancy Wang Yuen and Errin Haines are the perfect finishing touch to eight days of remarkable Keynote Speakers,” Hugh Forrest, Co-President and Chief Programming Officer of SXSW, said in a statement. “We are so honored to host this distinguished group on International Women’s Day for a significant discussion on the importance of representation in media and entertainment.”

[From People]

I honestly haven’t heard much about Katie Couric in a few years, not since she released her memoir, which turned out to be a tone-deaf exercise in how much Couric hates women and spent much of her broadcast career going out of her way to undermine and destroy other women. What a choice for International Women’s Day, huh? I doubt Couric was Meghan’s call. Anyway, it will be interesting – Meghan is a very good public speaker, and the way this is being described, it will be more of a panel discussion than a series of speeches. Meaning, I bet Couric and Meghan are on stage together. Ten bucks says that Couric tries some mean girl sh-t on Meghan and/or Brooke.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, screencaps courtesy of NYT Dealbook video.