The Political Elite Still Embraces A Society Where Degrading Women Feels Inevitable

The kind of language Boris Johnson uses – and has used throughout his career – should never be acceptable. But outrage doesn’t get us anywhere without action, WEP leader Mandu Reid writes.
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Boris Johnson
PA Media

Boris Johnson has a record of treating women badly. This is hardly breaking news and yet today, like on countless other days since he became prime minister, I have been asked to comment on this fact, dissect what it means for the country he leads, and condemn him in the strongest terms I can muster. 

Over the last week, Johnson has dismissed as “humbug” the well-founded fears of female MPs who have received death threats; it has been alleged by journalist Charlotte Edwardes that Johnson groped her thigh and that of another woman at a work event while he was editor of the Spectator; and a book Johnson wrote in 2007 has resurfaced, in which he made racist and sexist comments including a description of a female sat nav voice as “scrotum-tighteningly thoughtful” and a comment about the county of Hampshire “opening her well-bred legs to be ravished.”

Political colleagues and pundits of all stripes have piled on to attack Johnson. His language has been described as “irresponsible”, “incendiary”, “inflammatory” and “dangerous”. Speaker John Bercow has called an emergency meeting in response, aiming to tone down the rhetoric around Brexit.

“The kind of language Boris Johnson uses – and has used throughout his career – should never be acceptable.”

Because, of course, none of the “revelations” this week are at all surprising. At the risk of laying out a laundry list of Johnson’s most offensive greatest hits, we are talking about the MP who called Muslim women “letterboxes” and “bank robbers,” leading to a 375% increase in Islamophobic incidents. The Foreign Secretary who recited a colonial poem in a Burmese temple. The journalist who referred to black people as “flag-waving piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and Ugandan children as “AIDs ridden choristers”. The man who rated the “hot totty” at the Labour party conference and complained of the “fickleness of their sex”. The one who compared gay marriage to bestiality and called gay men “tank-topped bumboys.” 

Johnson is the Tories’ answer to the populism of Nigel Farage, a man who made his political career out of scapegoating immigrants and hid his own establishment credentials behind a pint and a chaotic public persona. With Farage as a backdrop, Johnson has used this same carefully crafted brand of buffoonery, dog-whistle racism and good old fashioned misogyny to appeal to and embolden his increasingly far-right base. 

So yes, he is not only a racist misogynist but also a cynical and calculating one, using this language to deliberate political effect. And yes, we should absolutely remember that and hold him to account for it. But his racism and misogyny has been obvious for years and yet, with a few notable exceptions, it seems that politicians only really care about this when it’s useful to them to do so.

As leader of the Women’s Equality Party, I spend my time trying to get politicians to notice and tackle the multiple inequalities women face in society. This experience has taught me two things: First, that expressing outraged over sexism is an easy way for politicians to gain the moral high ground over an opponent; and second, that taking action to tackle sexism is harder and costs more, so politicians hardly ever take this bigger step.

But outrage doesn’t get us anywhere without action. That’s why it’s taken over two years for the Domestic Abuse Bill to get to a second reading, a delay which means there is now not time to amend and pass it before a general election will force it to be scrapped. That’s why Charlie Elphicke’s suspension from the Conservative Party was lifted for the confidence vote in Theresa May, despite the fact that police were still investigating him for three counts of sexual assault against two different women. That’s why Labour MP Stephen Hepburn has not even been suspended despite currently being under investigation for sexual harassment. Outrage doesn’t get us anywhere without action.

The Women’s Equality Party are standing survivors against five MPs with unresolved allegations of harassment, assault or violence against them at the next election. Because despite outrage in every single party over violence against women and girls, not a single MP has lost their job over these allegations. We want to demonstrate that there are consequences to violence, beyond a temporary media storm. And we want to get these brilliant women elected because they have the vision and determination to ensure that every woman can access justice in the face of violence and abuse.

The kind of language Boris Johnson uses – and has used throughout his career – should never be acceptable. And yet our political establishment does accept it, even embraces it, and in so doing they contribute to a society in which the degradation and abuse of women seems inevitable. WE are trying to create a world in which these things are always unacceptable, no matter who gains or who loses from saying so. 

Mandu Reid is the leader of the Women’s Equality Party