This is No Victory for Britain's Women

@GendertheNews

The left are shocked and in mourning, not even the most faithful of Conservative voters could not have predicted the Conservative majority of 331/650 seats at Thursday’s UK general election. As well as a Conservative majority, Scotland revolted against Westminster and Scottish Labour to vote in 56/59 SNP MPs and 3 of the party leaders, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage (who failed to win his seat) and Ed Miliband resigned within an hour. It was a historic and dramatic election that left many wondering how the polls could have been so drastically wrong. When I awoke on Friday morning to the knowledge that the Conservative party, who’s coalition has already done enough damage to this country and its women, were on course for an overall majority the despair and helplessness I felt was as unprecedented as the result. As a young woman, a ‘lefty’, a student and a first time voter it was so easy to spend the entire day staring at my ceiling, subduing waves of misery, wondering why I had even bothered. It was a stark reminder of the danger of political bubbles: bubbles of friends and family all voting to the left, bubbles of social media where I follow people I agree with and bubbles of university lecturers and role models. Nevertheless, it is now time to stop mourning, celebrate silver linings, analyse and most importantly organise.

For liberal feminists and Conservative women alike this election can be heralded as a victory for feminism: 20 of the 23 Conservative swing seats were won by women and overall there is now a third more women in the House of Commons than there was in 2010. Similarly, on Friday David Cameron announced that Theresa May will remain his home secretary, meaning that there will be a woman in his inner circle. She is also tipped for leadership in 2020. At this level, the silver lining is that women are only becoming more represented at Westminster with every election that goes by. Furthermore, personally I don’t believe that the SNP votes were for independence or Scotland would have become independent last year in the referendum, they were protest votes against Westminster but first and foremost they were votes for the incredible anti-austerity, leftist campaign led by the best women politician (with the possible exception of Barbara Castle) this country has ever seen: Nicola Sturgeon. Her loyalty, her dedication and passion alongside her pragmatic policy and enviable orator skills won those seats for the SNP. She has combatted sexism and shown the electorate just how powerful a strong woman can be. The resignation of the 3 leaders has also paved the way for some (perhaps temporary) feminist progress: this morning we’ve awoken to the news that currently 6 of the 7 main party leaders (excluding the ‘newly single’ Prime Minister) are women interims. Harriet Harman for Labour, Nicola Sturgeon for SNP, Leanne Wood for Plaid Cymru, Sal Brinton for the Liberal Democrats and Suzanne Evans for UKIP. Could  we be faced with an all women election in 2020? All of this progress denotes significantly more representation for women in the Westminster that should translate into real policy progress for women.

Nevertheless, this election was no victory for your average British woman. Without being lumbered with the Liberal Democrats widespread if questionable morality the newly absolute Conservative government will progress and augment their brutal austerity plan. As aforementioned by myself and others, said austerity budgets have never undergone mandatory Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) and already from 2010-2015 the burden of austerity was taken by up to 65% by women. Cameron’s austerity targets women. It targets women public sector workers, women immigrants, women part time workers, women on zero hour contracts, women refugees, women feeding their children from food banks or going without food to feed their children, women in the care sector, pregnant or ill women in need of healthcare and many more. Shelter and legal aid to women who have been domestically abused, sexually assaulted or raped will continue to be considered an ‘unaffordable luxury’ whilst tampons will remain taxed VAT for their ‘luxury status.’ Maternity leave will be cut, the Human Rights act replaced with Gove’s British Rights Bill which I highly doubt will be as comprehensive for gender rights and LGBT progress shelved and regressed. Sex education is no longer a mandatory requirement in primary schools. Just in case consent education wasn’t already such a widespread problem. Beyond these policies, the Eton Boys club will continue to make decisions about our bodies and minds, they will continue to educate our children and dominate our universities, they will continue to victim blame, scape goat and exploit those most vulnerable for their own gains. And this is just what we already know, who knows what David Cameron and George Osborne have in store for the women of this country.

Under its progressive ‘add women and stir’ guise, this is a regressive government for women’s rights. Of course I acknowledge the damage this new government will do to all those most vunerable but it is so important to remember just how much of the brunt falls on women’s shoulders as primary caregivers. For these reasons I encourage all readers to block cuts wherever we can, join women’s unions, call out sexual harassment on the streets and sexism in the office, give to food banks, get out on the streets on 20 June to end austerity but most importantly combat this with compassion. Be compassionate to everyone but particularly women. It is now more important than ever that for the next five years we stand together to stand up for the politics of hope that got out-played this time by the politics of fear and hatred.