Last night, in the UK, the leaders of the 7 main parties (Miliband for Labour, Cameron for the Conservatives, Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, Bennett for the Greens, Farage for UKIP, Sturgeon for SNP and Wood for Plaid Cymru) congregated live on national television to win the votes of the British public. This election has already made political history in the UK as we’ve watched the so-called party system be destroyed and replaced with a infiltrations into the mainstream by extreme parties such as UKIP, the Greens and SNP. However, it will also make history as a result of the almost gender balance of candidates: last night 3 of the 7 hopefuls standing behind their podiums were women and this is a success that cannot be understated. Nevertheless, sexism in British politics was proved to be alive and well last night. Not only were the three women candidates and the woman host all consistently and aggressively interrupted by the men throughout the debate but this morning we have all arisen to some outrageous sexism in the pages of our national newspapers. Whilst the Metro reported on Leanne Wood’s ‘sexy’ accent, Sturgeon’s ‘new look’ has been reported on and all the papers commented on the women’s shoes as opposed to their views. The Everyday Sexism project tweeted a ‘bingo card’ of their expectations for the debate and they were not wrong:
There were four questions asked by the (gender balanced) audience last night. All of them are inherently gendered in both theory and reality and yet there was not a single mention of women or feminism by any of the women or men.
1. The Economy and Austerity
Whilst Farage made a fool out of himself by continuing his scare-mongering, one-trick-pony rhetoric, the other 3 men stood up to defend austerity. What a surprise the three, white, middle class, able bodied, heterosexual MEN stood up to defend austerity as the solution to economic growth. As I have previously mentioned austerity fundamentally affects women disproportionately to men and this is something that needs to be tackled by any government planning to continue with cuts of public services. Whilst Bennett, Wood and Sturgeon all came out against austerity they did not mention the disproportionate ramifications for women or how they would fight such inequality. While the phrase ‘balance the books’ seemed to be on the lips of particularly Clegg, Cameron and Miliband there was no reference to said books being fundamentally gendered.
2. The National Health Service
Similarly, none of the leaders mentioned the gendered dynamics of the cuts and ‘tide of privatisation’ forced upon the National Health Service. There are two crucial aspects I’d like to pick up on here: the first was Clegg’s continual reference to mental health as a key Lib Dem manifesto promise. Mental health is an absolutely gendered problem in that it effects men more than women and yet men struggle to reach out for help as a result of the socialised enforcement of stoic masculinity. Secondly, there was continual reference to the segregated nature of health and social care. Health and social care staff is absolutely dominated by women in both the formal and informal sense as a result of the care burden associated with femininity. Nigel Farage’s hideous comments about the burden on the NHS due to immigrants and ‘foreign’ HIV victims had were outrageously racist and had underlying homophobic tones. This only goes to show his desire for the bigotry vote.
3. Immigration
Once again here the women served to call out racism, scape goating and fear mongering in the other 4 leaders. Whilst Farage, Milliband, Clegg and Cameron all made vague (or not so vague in Farage’s case) allusions to cutting back on immigration, Wood, Sturgeon and Bennett all made clear assertions of the dangerous discourse surrounding immigration and their desire to subvert said discourse and emphasis the positive contribution of immigration to the UK.
4. Young People & Students
Here, there was zero mention of the challenges young women and men face in their daily lives, young people cannot grouped as a collective. What with the rise in tutition fees, young unemployment and the impossibility for young people to buy their own house there is no doubt that young people have heeded the majority of the burden of the austerity package. Labour seem to be after the young persons vote but the lowest voting category is young women and it is extremely significant that our voices are heard as much as our male counterparts.
What seemed to be the overwhelming outcome from this debate was not who deserved to be the rightful leader of Britain but instead that more women are fundamentally needed in British politics. As an English citizen I cannot vote for either Sturgeon or Wood and yet I was more grateful for their presence than I could ever have predicted. They smashed through the rhetoric that austerity is the only way, they called out racism, sexism and the general lack of compassion in all of the other 5 leaders. As this election continues I wait eagerly for the party who will engage with feminism and combat sexism in Westminster. Labour's pink bus isn't enough for me I'm afraid! For more on this follow the fantastic UK Feminista campaign #VoteFeminist. In the meantime I will continue to deliberate moving to Scotland simply so I can vote for Nicola Sturgeon!
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