A telling but under-reported fact to emerge from the ongoing covid inquiry is that under Boris Johnson’s premiership women spoke for less than fifteen minutes out of a total five hours of discussions during key Downing Street meetings. This disclosure was made three weeks into the first lockdown, in an email from Helen MacNamara, then deputy cabinet secretary and the most senior female civil servant at No 10, to a group of other women. She said the “macho and egotistical” Downing Street culture was “demoralising to work in” and that female officials were routinely not invited to key meetings, not listened to when they were present, and “not being asked for views on something they normally lead on or are knowledgeable about”. The lack of women’s voices in decision-making, she continued, was causing “a substantive problem”. She revealed that in more than five hours of daily meetings the week before, women “spoke for 10-15 mins in total”.
One of the email’s recipients, Alexandra Burns, Johnson’s then private secretary, replied to say that men at No 10 often did not even bother to learn women’s names. She continued: “I’ve inexplicably been called Katie and Rosie since being down here, and sometimes just kind of vaguely gestured at.” Giving evidence at the inquiry, MacNamara reiterated her concerns about the macho environment inside No 10, adding in a parallel written statement that women working in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office “were experiencing very obvious sexist treatment”.
Men at No 10 often did not even bother to learn women’s names
On the frontline of politics it has long been claimed that women must act like men if they want to reach the top. Though when they do achieve high office, many are routinely subjected to sexist and frequently misogynistic comments. Who has not read, in social media postings, overwhelmingly made by men, of “Cruella” Braverman, “Ugly” Patel, or Kimi “Badenough”? Remember the uproar from the press after Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, was accused of deliberately distracting men on the opposing front bench by wearing a short skirt and repeatedly crossing her legs. No such accusations are ever made towards men.
As for trends in popular culture, there’s been one major change in primetime television drama. While producers largely stick to the ratings-topping format of police- and military-based thrillers, it’s now more common to see tough women instead of tough guys in the lead roles. But in reversing one long-term stereotype, another has been reinforced. Because while male TV tough guys, such as Gary Oldman in Slow Horses, can traditionally be quirky, odd, scruffy and paunchy, the new crop of female toughies are almost all glamorous and sexy, including Jodie Comer in Killing Eve. There are notable and deliberate exceptions, of course, but the women leads are typically fit and well-groomed, sporting perfect make up and smoothly coiffed hair, even under pressure. Yet beneath this glossy exterior, the story is usually that experience has somehow taught them to be assertive and aggressive at all times – characteristics typically associated with old-style machismo and manliness.
Since it’s no longer routinely acceptable for our male TV tough guys to be overly macho, what’s the thinking behind casting female toughies from that same outdated mould? Could it be the producers’ skewed take on “equality” – that women still have to be like men to survive in a man’s world? That’s the rub, of course: it’s still unquestionably a man’s world.
Do TV’s glammed-up, role-reversal fantasies actually impact real women anyway? Apparently yes. Many perceive it as a new stereotype that’s damaging to the majority of women still battling to be seen, heard and respected in the workplace, even at the top of the Civil Service.
