Like much of New Labour, noughties feminism is about choice

By Ellie Levenson / @ellielevenson

Despite the jokes some older Labour men might make to the question ‘are you a feminist?’, the answer of course being ‘yes, it helps me pull the birds’, Labour has usually tended to ‘get’ feminism. The labour movement has taken feminist issues as its own, from a minimum wage that largely benefits female workers to better maternity and paternity leave.

So why is it that in recent years Labour has seemed somewhat out of touch with feminism in the noughties? Labour politicians still refer to women as not liking adversarial politics. And women are assumed to have an interest only in the perceived fluffier areas of health, education and communities (not that there is anything fluffy about these of course). And whatever the financial reasoning, having an unpaid Minister for Women even for a short while gave out all the wrong messages.

Just as New Labour is unrecognisable in many ways from the Labour that went before, so is new feminism, or as I have called it in my new book, noughties feminism. And it’s time for the party to recognise this.

Noughties feminism, like much of New Labour, has choice at its core. Whereas in the past feminism was often about a specific set of beliefs and you had to subscribe to all of them to consider yourself a feminist, noughties feminism believes that you can, and should, make up your own mind on what you believe in and how you live your life. This means that you can still be opposed to abortion and be a feminist though I personally am pro-choice. Your daughters can still wear pink if they want to, as can your sons. And whereas some branches of feminism in the past disliked men to the point of viewing any sexual relationship with men as a betrayal, noughties feminists see feminism as much for men as for women. So it follows that you could make many seemingly unfeminist choices in your life – taking your husband’s name on marriage for example, not using the title Ms, doing the bulk of the childcare and having dinner on the table every night when your partner comes home from work, and providing these really are your own choices and not forced on you by society then you can be a feminist just as much as someone who decides not to do these things.

Labour has undermined this in some ways by actually narrowing choices available to women. So, for example, policy has largely been to get mothers back into work using financial incentives. This has not helped women on lower incomes have a real choice over whether to stay at home with their children or not. And despite increases in maternity and paternity leave, the gap between the two is huge, continuing the incentive to employers to employ potential fathers over potential mothers. What’s more, the most high profile person who came out against hiring women who may have babies, Alan Sugar, has been rewarded for saying this with a government job.

Nor do I think all women shortlists are helpful. I do support the case for more women in parliament, though I don’t buy into the idea that only women can represent women and I think arguably the politician who has done most for women was Gordon Brown in his former role as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It makes me cross when very good male candidates cannot stand in their local constituency because of an all woman shortlist. Instead I would like to see every shortlist having a minimum of forty per cent women on it.

Not only this but I’ve lost count of the number of times that Labour men and women have said publicly, sometimes even while campaigning for an internal election, that we need a more ‘feminine’ approach to to politics. It’s as if women are delicate little flowers who cannot cope with adversarial politics and can only make decisions sitting in a circle while whale music plays.

Feminism in the noughties, and hopefully beyond, is about wanting equality and wanting choice. It’s about not being patronised, not having assumptions made about our interests (for though I am interested in health and education I am also interested in the ‘unwomanly’ areas of economics, foreign affairs and, gasp, defence) and not making assumptions about what women want. Come on Labour – feminism has moved on, it’s time for the rest of you to catch up.

The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism by Ellie Levenson is out now. You can also visit Ellie’s website at www.ellielevenson.co.uk.