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Lunar | Why expect Liz Truss to tackle sexism and women’s issues especially?
- Expecting women to tackle it better sets up the view that female leaders somehow fail if they don’t advance women’s rights, when men don’t face such pressure
- But isn’t tackling institutional sexism and ensuring women’s safety and access to equal opportunities every leader’s job?
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Liz Truss, Britain’s former foreign secretary, has been chosen to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, beating former chancellor Rishi Sunak in the race for the top job. For the third time in history, a woman will lead the country.
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Very “girlboss”. But does it mean that Britain will become a better place to be a woman? Not necessarily.
In the case of Truss, her policy proposals, admiration for Margaret Thatcher and loyalty towards Johnson do not augur well for the cause of women’s advancement. Her immediate predecessor was long considered to have a “woman problem”, and proposed little during his tenure to help women in the country, especially women of colour and those from the LGBTQ community.
And although Truss does not like being compared to Thatcher – saying “it is quite frustrating that female politicians always get compared to [her]” – like Thatcher, Truss seems to feel little solidarity with women.
According to biographer Allan Mayer, Thatcher saw her gender as irrelevant, accused working mothers of creating a “creche generation”, and did not commit to balancing female representation in politics: during her tenure, she appointed only one woman to her cabinet, Janet Young.
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Liz Truss named Britain’s new Prime Minister and Conservative leader
Liz Truss named Britain’s new Prime Minister and Conservative leader
On gender issues, Truss’s record as a government minister has also been less than impressive. She was appointed the Minister for Women and Equalities in 2019 but has been criticised for doing too little, whether in addressing the culture of sexual harassment in Westminster or public concerns about women’s safety. Last year, even the women and equalities committee, made up of MPs, accused her of treating the role as a “side hustle”.
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