The woker sex are turning Britain Left-wing

Yahoo

27-05-2025

Let me begin by saying I'm a firm believer in gender equality. It's why I no longer consider myself a 'feminist', at least not in the modish, man-bashing, 21st century definition of the word. But we should not pretend that, for its countless benefits, female emancipation and the feminisation of our workforce have not come with costs, trade-offs and unintended consequences.
Perhaps the most pertinent of these, to Nigel Farage at least, is our declining fertility rate. In 1970, the average woman was having 2.57 children; now it's 1.44, far short of the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. Farage wants marriage tax breaks to incentivise family formation – good policy, though it'll cost a few bob, that will do next to nothing to alleviate our demographic woes. The pro-natalist Right hope women can be bribed into having more children; evidence from Hungary, South Korea and Japan tell a different, bleaker story.
We handed women choice, and they opted to hang up the apron and shove the hoover in the cupboard. Where did they go? First, to higher education, where they make up 57 per cent of all students. And from there, into teaching, nursing, the creative arts, retail, hospitality, social work and local government – all sectors where women outnumber men. Every time their representation exceeds 50 per cent, we cheer. Where men still dominate, it's evidence of the 'patriarchy'.
In few areas is the female presence, or influence, more pronounced than Human Resources, where around 75 per cent of professionals and a seriously bonkers 91 per cent of administrators are women. And the turkeys are voting for veganism: consciously or otherwise women are advancing policies which cater to their own needs, irrespective of the impact on the bottom line. It suits women to work flexibly – surveys show most want a hybrid model of two to three days from home – one of the practices most ardently advanced by HR teams. Just ask the estate agent who won a payout of more than £180,000 after her boss refused to let her leave work early to collect her daughter from nursery. It also suits women to advance such causes as 'equal pay for equal work', a quasi-Marxist concept which dictates that female cleaners, for instance, ought to receive the same remuneration as male warehouse workers.
Yet none of these measures appears to be improving output – productivity in the public sector is no higher than it was in 1996, before the internet took off – nor are they making us happier.
Britain has one of the largest HR sectors in the world and has just been crowned the work from home capital of Europe, yet we're suffering from a worklessness crisis driven by mental health problems. They are also allowing us to overlook the plight of men, who are more likely to struggle in education and work.
When studies consistently show that women are more likely than men to align with progressive ideologies, support identity politics and advocate for censorship, their dominance in HR takes on greater significance. They are, indeed, the woker sex, and their ideology is shaping institutions and businesses across the country. Firms have become excessively politicised, with corporate policies no longer focused solely on profitability or efficiency but virtue signalling and adherence to the creed of 'diversity, equity and inclusion'. Consider, for instance, when Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc told MPs that there was no senior 'non-diverse' (white male) hire made at the company without her approval. Or when Alison Rose made climate change a 'central pillar' of her leadership at NatWest.
It should come as no great shock that women are increasingly voting Left – especially given they are over-represented in the public sector and perhaps therefore predisposed to big statism. The real surprise is that this gender gap has taken so long to emerge. Three out of five Reform voters were male at the most recent general election. Since 2017, women have been more likely than men to vote Labour.
In response, alarm has been mounting in the Conservative tent – which is presumably why Jeremy Hunt expanded 'free' childcare at a cost of £4 billion to the taxpayer. The party now has its fourth female leader, was able to define 'woman' long before Keir Starmer, and former Tory MP Bim Afolami was the first father in British parliamentary history to vote by proxy while on paternity leave. But none of it is sticking. Perhaps Farage will reverse the trend. But for now, Britain is becoming a Left-wing country, one woman at a time.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.