Can Kemi really have it all?

For female experiences to mean something, we need to be part of something bigger.

Sian Brookes

Sian Brookes is studying for a Doctorate at Aberdeen University. Her research focuses on developing a theological understanding of old age. She studied English and Theology at Cambridge University.

A woman works at a laptop on a desk surrounded by picture frame.

Kemi Badenoch campaigning.

Kemibadenoch.org.uk

Apparently Kemi Badenoch is unfit for leadership due to a ‘preoccupation’ with her children. Such comments are hardly a surprise. After all, she is both a mother and a woman vying to be in a position of power. Since the beginning of time women have been mothers, but women haven’t always been in positions of power. So it is not surprising that some people have problems adjusting to the change. But it isn’t just Robert Jenrick who finds this adjustment difficult. In my experience, most women find it hard too. Becoming a mother is a beautiful but body-breaking, exhaustion-inducing and identity-questioning process. And that is just in the first few months. Add to that the expectations of also having successful careers as well, and it is no wonder we find it hard.

Kemi Badenoch’s response, naturally and rightly, was to show how capable she is to lead the Tory party alongside her maternal responsibilities, whilst challenging the view that just because she is a woman she is more responsible for her kids than a man with similar age kids would be. But her lack of acknowledgement of the hardship involved in being a mother and having a successful career does leave an awkward silence around what is an ongoing imbalance in many relationships when it comes to holding the fair share of parental, household and professional responsibilities.

This relentless pursuit of the ability of mothers to do everything else as well as being a mother says something about what we expect from women in our society. We need to prove that it is possible to be a woman and do all the things men have traditionally done. Yet sometimes I do wonder if we make it harder for ourselves. Is it our own expectations which make this thing called being a woman much harder than it needs to be?

Perhaps she is valuable not because of what she does or the choices she makes and what that says about the feminist cause, but because her worth lies elsewhere.

I’ve been blessed with the task of raising three boys, but I think about my friends who are raising little girls and the hopes they have for them. The hopes that they will grow to defy the expectations placed on them because they are female; to counter the oppression put upon them by breaking through the ceilings that may be built over them by others, to become whatever they want to be; engineers, consultant doctors, CEOs, even builders or plumbers if they so desire.

At the same time, (if the girls want them), they are expected to build families and loving safe homes. All of the things our mothers hoped for us and their mothers before them hoped for their own daughters.

Yet now, alongside those hopes for domestic fulfilment, so many other expectations have been added. Of course, the obvious solution to this, as Kemi has argued, is for men and women to share the load on both sides – to build the home and work life in a way that benefits both in the partnership. But the fact remains that relatively speedily in the course of historical development, we have come to a position where we are all expecting to have it all, all the time. And especially for our girls – we want them to be strong, powerful, successful, fruitful and productive all at once.

Now, this is not to say that we should revert to a time when only women ran the household and only men inhabited the professional domain. But sometimes perhaps it’s OK for a woman just to be a mum, if that is what she wants. She doesn’t have to also show the world she can be everything else as well. Some would criticise that decision as selling out on the relentless need to fight for equality with men. But not everything a woman does has to demonstrate some ideological end in fighting for equality, as though that is what gives her value as a woman. Perhaps she is valuable not because of what she does or the choices she makes and what that says about the feminist cause, but because her worth lies elsewhere.

Whatever we do, we do it to witness to a love, a truth which goes beyond whatever we can give to the world.

Many of the friends I spoke of earlier who have those little girls chose to have their daughters baptised as babies. This act of infant baptism puts the stake in the ground for the belief that before they could do anything, before they could prove their worth as a female member of society demonstrating all that power, strength, purpose and ability to right all the wrongs of the past, they were loved and valued beyond measure, without condition.

As a girl, and before they grow to be a woman, maybe a mother, and then potentially the leader of a political party, they are a child of a God who values them not because of what they have done or will do, but because they are His child. At the same time, this doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing – it’s central to the Christian faith to fight injustice and overturn oppressive powers, but this is never achieved by human action alone as though the weight of the world falls on our shoulders, it is done by bearing witness to a God who has a better plan for the world and for society than we could ever dream or imagine. It is only when we realise this that the burden might be lifted from all the women fighting for all the things we are supposed to fight for.

Of my three closest friends in the church, one is (currently) a stay-at-home mum, one a doctor, one a vicar. As for myself, I am studying for a PhD in theology. We also all spend a lot of time looking after children, cooking and doing the dishes (as do our husbands). And yet, when we reflect together, these choices feel less statements of how we might be empowered or not as women, but more the result of a belief that whatever we do, we do it to witness to a love, a truth which goes beyond whatever we can give to the world. And so, we can each celebrate what we “do” because in each offering of ours can be found meaning, purpose and life beyond our own abilities, even our own individual actions. Perhaps, this is better than any kind of feminism you find around these days, because it allows us each to do the small thing in front of us without loading more on ourselves than we can bear alone. Only together, and only in knowing we are part of something bigger than ourselves, can our variety of female experiences mean something. In this way of living, being a woman feels very free indeed.

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Digital

General Election 24

Politics

7 June 2024

4 min read

Are we really our vote?

Elections exacerbates the worst of our digital personality.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Associate Minister at Holy Trinity Clapham, London.

A AI generaed montage shows two politicans back to back surrounded by like, share and angry icons.

The divide

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

All the world’s a stage. Never more so than in a general election. Amidst the usual stunts and gimmicks of political leaders in election season (and much of the drama unintended or badly scripted) we too have become the performers. It doesn’t matter that Rishi and Keir are ‘boring’ - the digital space has created platforms for us also to posture and present our political positions. But in acting for the crowd, I worry that we’re losing a sense of who we are.

If fame is the mask that eats the face of its wearer, then we’re all at risk of losing ourselves. Absurd! You might say, I’m not famous! But we have become mini celebrities to our tens and tens, if not hundreds or thousands of followers. Every post, story, or reel is an opportunity to project who we are and what we’re about, and what we think. Times columnist James Marriott goes so far as to write that ‘the root of our modern problem is the way opinion has become bound up with identity. In the absence of religious or community affiliations our opinions have become crucial to our sense of self.’

A recent study by New York University shows that many people in America are starting with politics as their basis for their identity. They say, "I'm a Democrat or a Republican first and foremost", and then shifting parts of their identity around like ethnicity and religion to suit their political identity. I’ve stopped being surprised when I see someone’s Twitter bio listing their ideology before anything else that might be core to their identity. But are we really our vote, or is there more to us than that?

The platform is a precarious place to position yourself, as is the harsh glare of the smartphone blue light.

If politics is the mask that we are presenting to the world, then we are engaging in a hollowing out of our representative democracy. Who needs an MP if we’re all directly involved? Don't get me wrong – I'm not in favour of apathy, inaction, or even lack of protest. But we elect members of parliament because we can’t all be directly engaged all of the time. Speaking all the time, about all of the things. Strong opinions used to be the possessions of those who had too much time on their hands… now you can be busy watch and pass on a meme in a matter of seconds without proper reflection and engagement. And so we’ve imported the very worst of student politics into our everyday digital lives and identities.

Student politics is the often-formative, immature peacocking of ideologies one way or the other. It also often reduces others to caricatures, and the campus culture has increasingly become one that cancels rather than listens and illuminates. And so, the loudest voices dominate and intimidate others to comply. Someone I barely know recently sent me an invitation to reshare a strong opinion on social media. We’ve never spoken about this topic, and they have no idea if I've in fact developed an opinion on it. Marriott writes, ‘For many, an opinion has achieved the status of a positive moral duty… the implication: to reserve judgement is to sin.’ And without a merciful judge, sin means shame: not just what I do is bad, but who I am is bad too.

The dopamine hit we get from these short bursts of antisocial media use is killing us. Martin Amis said that 'Being inoffensive, and being offended, are now the twin addictions of the culture.' That was 1996. Now engaging in politics in the era of the smartphone, we are addicted to the current age’s offended/being inoffensive dichotomy. Like the drug that it is, wrongly used, it will disfigure us as it propels us to play the roles the crowds want. The platform is a precarious place to position yourself, as is the harsh glare of the smartphone blue light.

Every general election transforms the wooden floorboards of school halls into holy ground.

Countless commentators have offered the wisdom that you are who you are when nobody’s watching. But we’re all watching, all the time. First, we had the Twitter election, then the Facebook election, and now political parties have recently launched accounts on TikTok (all the while wondering if they are going to try to ban it). What we need is a post-social media election. If the world is facing impending doom, then we don’t need doomscrolling to help. Whether it’s activism or slacktivism, our politics need not be our identity. We need a greater light source that reveals our truest selves, and helps us to be fully ourselves. This ‘audience of one’ is a much simpler, if not easier, way to live.

After all, a secret ballot means nobody’s watching, and we don’t have to broadcast our vote, unless we really want to. On the 4th July, the ‘only poll that matters’ is private. We step out of the spotlights of our screens, and we cast a vote for the kind of leaders we want. Every general election transforms the wooden floorboards of school halls into holy ground.

We’d do well to treat the online world as a sacred space too, and each person as a sacred person. Perhaps it’s time not only for a general election, but also a personal election: to step out of the spotlight, and the light of our phones, and quietly cast a vote for who we want to be.