The Great Regression: Trump's Presidency Has Real Consequences For UK Women
Whatever your views on the British monarchy, the late Queen undoubtedly had a way with words. When she met Donald Trump, one biographer claimed, she found him 'very rude'. One thing she particularly disliked, an experience familiar to many women, was the way he looked over her shoulder while talking to her 'in search of others more interesting'. If he didn’t find Her Majesty sufficiently high status, how would he have made the rest of us feel?
The data offers some insights. One poll found that 65% of British women are unhappy at Trump’s election victory. So are a majority of British men, albeit in smaller numbers.
This partly reflects the growing gender divide now so constant in British politics. But it’s not just ideology. A Trump presidency has very real consequences for women in the UK.
Perhaps the most blatant example is the direct interference of Elon Musk – in amplifying the messages and resources of Britain’s Far Right. Musk, Trump’s close ally and head of the Department for Government Efficiency – has expressed his interest in funding the political party Reform, and voiced support for jailed extremist Tommy Robinson. With social media platform X at its disposal, Musk has been agitating about the traumatic abuse of British girls at the hands of male grooming gangs of Asian descent, promoting misinformation and racial hatred towards British Muslims, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with these crimes.
Far-right politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have shown that while willing to cash in on serious crimes against women to rally political support, they are deeply disinterested in actual measures that would protect us. The Reform Party, after days of inflammatory comments about the risk to British girls from grooming gangs, failed to send a single MP to the official parliamentary hearing on the subject. The party even ran a candidate other parliamentarians described as a 'convicted criminal already in our midst', because of his failure to declare a conviction for assaulting a woman.
Perhaps the party’s bullishness comes from having an ally in an incoming US President who stands accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct from at least 26 women. Those accusers include E. Jean Carroll, a former ELLE columnist, for whose rape a civil court found Trump found liable, and adult film star Stormy Daniels, to whom Trump’s lawyer paid $130,000 to stop her from discussing an affair. Trump denies all allegations against him. One thing he can’t deny is the fact that he has bragged about assaulting women, not least in his infamous 2005 leaked recording 'you can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.' The idea that displaying a casual attitude to violence against women is a plausible characteristic for a world leader is dismaying for women everywhere.
The general boost Trump has given to the far-right is best illustrated by the news that Reform leader Nigel Farage, and not Prime Minister Keir Starmer, will be present in person at Trump’s inauguration. This boost has far-wider consequences that will disproportionately affect women. Hostility towards trans and nonbinary people – with Trump promising to remove the ban on discrimination and end access to gender-affirming medical care - already seems to have emboldened British anti-trans figures. One media outlet revealed that NHS gender clinicians had spoken at the conference of an anti-trans group funded by American pro-Trump outfits.
And while Britain has experienced polarised opinions on trans rights, there is far more consensus on abortion rights, which Trump’s inauguration also threatens to disrupt. After his last presidency, the US Supreme Court overturned the key Roe vs Wade precedent, leading to 21 states having dramatically restricted or banned abortion since.
In the UK, reproductive rights advocates warn of the ‘Americanisation of the anti-abortion movement’ with a rise in clinics targeted by protests by activists who have close ties with their US counterparts. Protests of this nature have led to the recent creation of safe access buffer zones around abortion clinics. Yet Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who enthusiastically welcomed Trump’s election victory, has opposed the new buffer zones. Globally, the impact of Trump’s policy of refusing to fund global organisations which promote family planning and access to abortion is estimated as having contributed to 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections since 2017.
The idea that women’s reproductive freedoms are open for debate sits darkly alongside the emphasis on ‘traditional’ values, which are often coded language for an ideology that advocates the return of women to the home. ‘Project 2025’ a wish list of ultraconservative policies for the Trump presidency, which the President has distanced himself from, is replete with ideas of a woman’s role as a heterosexual mother and wife. Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, has been less subtle about his advocacy of these ideas, advocating deeply regressive views on women and family structure.
These are new cultural norms that, while emanating across the Atlantic, are as globalising as everything else we consume. Consider Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, which has seen him describe undocumented migrants as 'criminals from the dungeons of the third world,' and people from 'insane asylums and mental institutions'. By legitimising this kind of language, Trump makes it easier for the British right to pick up the mantle. And right on cue the shadow justice secretary Robert Kenrick recently described Britons of Pakistani heritage as 'people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women'.
British women of colour will feel the effects of this demonisation most of all. Even more instantly globalised than Trump administration culture, is the immediate change in ‘DEI’ – policies that support diversity, equity and inclusion. While the Biden administration expanded initiatives to promote merit regardless of background, Trump has made no secret of his view that diversity initiatives discriminate against white people. Even the recent, devastating wildfires in California have been blamed on DEI, for prioritizing diversity 'over saving lives and homes'. Companies that hire tens of thousands of British women, like Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram, and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, have rushed to show their allegiance to the incoming president by shutting down their own programs in the weeks before the inauguration. Zuckerberg claims his companies’ focus will be on 'accessibility and engagement' instead.
Are there any positives for British women in a Trump presidency? The markets have surged, the dollar has risen against the pound, and there is speculation that businesses will find it easier to attract talent now that America is becoming more hostile to foreign workers. If this was a time for weighing up pros and cons, maybe those of us with bitcoin could celebrate the rise in the value of our investments, alongside the threat to our civil rights. But that is what is so extraordinary about this period. The bad represents regression once so unthinkable, the whole idea of a balance sheet falls apart.
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