{"id":12298,"date":"2026-08-24T19:05:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/politics\/?p=12298"},"modified":"2026-08-24T19:05:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:05:49","slug":"the-hidden-barrier-why-has-labour-never-elected-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/politics\/2026\/08\/24\/the-hidden-barrier-why-has-labour-never-elected-a-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Barrier: Why Has Labour Never Elected a Woman?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Kamala Aghazada, a PhD student in Politics and International Relations, explores why Labour has never elected a woman as its permanent leader and whether the barriers lie not in women\u2019s qualifications, but in how leadership is imagined and judged.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour has spent decades arguing that women should have greater political representation. Its record inside Parliament is, in many respects, impressive. After the 2024 general election, 190 of Labour\u2019s 411 MPs were women – around 46% of the parliamentary party.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet one position has remained resistant to change: the leadership of the party itself. Labour has never elected a woman as its permanent leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contrast with the Conservatives is difficult to ignore. Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch have all led the Conservative Party. Labour, meanwhile, has had women in almost every other senior position. Harriet Harman twice served as acting leader, in 2010 and 2015, but never stood for the permanent leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women are there. So why not the top job?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour\u2019s problem is clearly not a lack of qualified talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women have held some of the most senior and demanding positions in British politics. Rachel Reeves became the first woman to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shabana Mahmood has held the Home Secretary\u2019s office. Angela Rayner served as Deputy Prime Minister. Yvette Cooper has held several major Cabinet and shadow Cabinet positions, including Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women can be trusted to run the Treasury, Home Office, foreign policy and other major departments. They can become deputy leader. They can lead the party temporarily. But becoming the person who leads Labour permanently appears to involve a different threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the question is not whether women are qualified to lead. It is who is imagined as \u2018leader material\u2019 <\/strong>in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harriet Harman\u2019s experience is an interesting case here. She became acting leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010 and again after Ed Miliband\u2019s resignation in 2015. Yet she did not stand in either subsequent leadership election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, Harman admitted that she regretted not standing in 2010. She said that when she became acting leader, she \u2018suddenly realised I could do it\u2019. She then reflected that \u2018the world is full of men who aren\u2019t up to the job pushing themselves forward, and loads of women who are up to the job who don\u2019t\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is more than a story about one missed leadership contest. It raises a question about political ambition itself. If women who are already performing senior political roles do not necessarily see themselves as potential leaders, then the barrier may begin before a leadership election even takes place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harman later put the point even more directly. Despite having already served as acting leader twice, she said there had been \u2018no sense anywhere\u2019 that she was \u2018leadership material\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who actually gets to compete?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also important to look at how Labour actually chooses its leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Labour leadership election is not simply a case of every party member choosing whoever they want. Before members get to vote, candidates have to pass through a nomination process. Under the current rules, candidates must first secure sufficient support from Labour MPs and then meet further nomination requirements involving constituency Labour parties and affiliated organisations<\/a>. Only candidates who clear these thresholds reach the final ballot, where eligible members and affiliated supporters vote using a preferential system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first question is not simply: Who do Labour members want as leader? <\/em>It is also: Who can persuade enough people inside the party that they are credible enough to stand?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s revisit the leadership contests of 2015 and 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, three of the four candidates were women: Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Mary Creagh. Yet the contest quickly became entangled in Labour\u2019s ideological divisions. Cooper was associated with the party\u2019s centre, Kendall with the Blairite right, while Jeremy Corbyn represented a very different challenge to the party establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same pattern appeared in 2020. Rebecca Long-Bailey was widely identified with the Corbynite left, while Lisa Nandy became associated with the soft left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Factional politics is not unique to female candidates. But it can mean that candidates are judged not only on what they offer as individual politicians, but also on what supporting them represents within Labour\u2019s internal struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there is the question of how women are judged: The media test<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2015 contest provides an uncomfortable example. It raised another issue: how female candidates were judged once they were in the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yvette Cooper complained that the campaign was becoming \u2018startlingly retro\u2019, arguing that women were being treated as if they were incapable of doing the top jobs.<\/a> She pointed to the questions being directed at her and Liz Kendall: Kendall was asked about her weight; Cooper was asked whether she could do the job because of her husband; and her status as a working mother was also used in the campaign debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coverage became even more striking when a Times<\/em> headline asked whether \u2018women are not tough enough to lead Labour\u2019.<\/a> Liz Kendall accused the senior Labour figure behind the comments of dismissing the contribution of women. The headline was later acknowledged as misleading by Charles Falconer, who said he had not made the claim that women were not tough enough.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The criticism was not confined to the female candidates. Barry Sheerman, an MP supporting Liz Kendall, described Andy Burnham\u2019s 2015 campaign as \u2018a very macho campaign, a very male campaign\u2019. He questioned Burnham\u2019<\/a>s claim to be the \u2018change candidate\u2019 while criticising the way his campaign was being run.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not prove that media coverage caused the female candidates to lose. It does, however, show how discussions of women seeking leadership can move beyond their political competence and expose them to a different standard of scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Male candidates are generally expected to demonstrate that they can lead. Female candidates can find themselves having to demonstrate both<\/em> that they can lead <\/em>and that they fit the image of someone who should lead.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This creates a classic \u2018double bind\u2019 for women in leadership. They are expected to demonstrate the toughness and authority associated with leadership, while risking being judged negatively if that toughness is perceived as \u2018aggression\u2019. Being too soft can make a female leader appear weak; being too forceful can make her appear unlikeable or difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representation has changed. Has the idea of leadership changed with it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour has clearly changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women now make up almost half of its parliamentary party. They occupy senior Cabinet positions and have held some of the most powerful offices in government. The old argument that there simply are not enough women with the experience to lead is becoming harder to defend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But numerical representation does not automatically change political expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps this is why Labour\u2019s record is more complicated than simply having a \u2018glass ceiling\u2019. The barriers may be less visible: who is encouraged to stand, who is considered \u2018leadership material\u2019, which candidates are treated as serious contenders, how factional identities shape their campaigns, and how the media and political opponents judge their authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour has succeeded in bringing women into the room. The more difficult question is what happens when one of them reaches the door of the leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the real test of Labour\u2019s progress is not how many women it can bring into politics, but whether it is equally ready to recognise one of them as its leader.<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamala Aghazada is a second-year PhD student at Canterbury Christ Church University, researching right-wing populism in the UK. Her current work focuses on populist radical right parties and their impact on social policy, with a particular interest in welfare chauvinism and how these ideas are mainstreamed and institutionalised.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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