Yes, but which women?

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The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said today that she wants to use her time as the UK’s first female chancellor “to improve life for women”. It’s a worthy aim, and one in which, in principle, I wish her every success. There is much to be done still. I can’t help wondering, though, which women she has in mind, and how general her concern is. It’s clearly not for those over pension age, whose lives she’s already decided to make worse by reducing their disposable income. And it’s not those on low incomes who have more than two children, who she has already decided should remain in poverty, with no relief in sight. And clearly, it’s not the women of tomorrow either, if they happen to be girls growing up in a household impacted by her decisions on benefits.

Given that her remarks were associated with promoting the Investing in Women Code, and that the Treasury has backed up her remarks with statistics suggesting that, despite being a majority of the population, women “…represent only 21% of business owners, with less than 6% of active equity backed companies founded by women”, we can make a reasonable stab at guessing which subset of women she’s actually talking about. It is clearly a travesty that women are so under-represented in that particular sphere, but it’s also the case that the minority of women who are represented will tend to be the more well-off and better-educated overall. What one might call middle class. There is no doubt that this is an issue which needs to be addressed, and not all business founders and leaders become rich, but it does look as though the target group whose lives the chancellor wishes to improve are those whose lives are already better than average anyway. People a bit like the chancellor, perhaps, reflecting once again her detachment from the real problems faced by many, problems she is making worse. The aim is a worthy one, and the initiative deserves to succeed. But if the aim is to improve the lives of women more generally, it isn’t exactly the most obvious starting place, and it’s being undermined by other decisions which she has taken and is threatening more of.