Liz Truss: the woman that launched a thousand viral videos. In just 50 days, Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister has stamped her mark on this country. After losing £300 billion from the UK economy in one month, Truss was quickly and unceremoniously kicked out of office. Yet a few weeks previously, Truss was hailed as Britain’s third female Prime Minister. She was proof that women had a place in politics. She was progress.
Sure, having a woman as head of a government is progress. As of September 19 2022, only 28 countries had a woman as Head of State and/or Government. At this rate, gender equality will only take 130 years. While this statistic may be depressing, academics have found that with each new senior female politician, women’s engagement in politics increased. When women participated, they created a diverse range of opinions and solutions. A study at UCL analysing women’s speeches in the Commons from 1997 to 2016 found that women took a more concrete approach and focused on the effects of policies on specific groups and individuals, such as single mothers, rural families or people with disabilities. Not only that, but during the pandemic, countries run by women had fewer cases of Covid and/or deaths. Not only are women effective in government, but they save lives.
So if having a woman in power is progress, why is no one defending Truss? As Hilary Clinton said following Italy’s first female (and far-right) Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni, “[a] woman, like a man, has to be judged on what she stands for, on what she does.”
Truss never stood up for women while Prime Minister. Despite campaigning as a woman during the leadership race, she named Nadhim Zahawi as Minister for Equalities, previously titled Minister for Women and Equalities. None of the four senior jobs in her cabinet was held by a woman and Truss was noted for her lack of support of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin after she was criticised for being videoed partying with friends. Even before being Prime Minister, Truss was denounced for treating her role on the Women and Equalities Committee as a ‘side hustle’ and for not speaking up against the US’s reversal of Roe v Wade.
Perhaps the problem lies in Truss’ view on feminism. In a rare interview where she addressed the issue, Truss described herself as ‘a Destiny’s Child feminist’. She believed that women should be treated as ‘independent’, not ‘victims’ and that women should be ‘empowered’ by the state to achieve their full potential. Here’s what Truss is missing: the state was built by men. It was designed to navigate male problems from a male perspective. If you’re one of the half a million women waiting to see a gynecologist or one of the 53% of female universal credit claimants or one of the few women to report one of the massive amounts of rape cases (that have also seen the lowest conviction rate), the system will not help you. It wasn’t designed to help you, and Liz Truss doesn’t see why it should change.
Even though she wasn’t a typical 21st Century feminist, surely her sudden removal from No.10 shows she was a casualty of the rampant sexism in British politics? In this instance, no. Truss wasn’t just bad. She was catastrophic: she tanked the economy, she crashed the pound, she blindly made U-turn after U-turn and she failed to emit any empathy or talk coherently about the situation she created. Her only credit was leading the nation in mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, and she didn’t do much there. The errors were historic and so was the action required to fix them.
Truss may have been an appalling Prime Minister but she does have a use. She is the cautionary tale that proves progress is not constant. As we are seeing worldwide, progress can fall as well as rise. While Truss is proof that women can hold high office, she is also proof that it is their actions that make them role models, not their gender. After all of this, we still find ourselves asking when we will have a female Prime Minister that creates real change for gender equality.