Abstract
This chapter argues that the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union (EU) and the subsequent Brexit process have been dominated by discourses of toxic masculinity, manifesting in two distinct ways: first through the deployment of language that was associated with deal-making and, second through the deployment of language associated with militarism. Drawing on a combination of critical feminist theory, documentary analysis and elite, semi-structured interviews with individuals close to the process, this chapter demonstrates the extent to which Brexit has been dominated by discourses of militarism, which highlighted Britain’s assumed global role in the world emphasising strength, security and global power, and deal-making discourses which have equated the negotiations to a business transaction, positioning Anglo-European negotiations in conflictual terms. We conclude with four potential (gendered) consequences of this discourse.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Interview conducted by Benjamin Martill and Anton Gromoczki, House of Lords, 20 July 2017.
- 2.
Interview conducted by Oliver Patel and Jose Feio, Brussels, 25 July 2017.
- 3.
Interview conducted by Benjamin Martill, Brussels, 19 July 2017.
- 4.
Interview conducted by Benjamin Martill and Anton Gromoczki, House of Lords, 20 July 2017.
- 5.
It should be noted, perhaps unsurprisingly, that support for the free-market did not feature in the campaigns. From the Labour (‘Labour Leave’) and Green (‘Green Leave’) campaigns, which focused instead upon the EU’s treatment of Greece, its support for ‘tax-dodging multinationals’, and its contribution to insecurity in the East (e.g. Labour Leave 2016; Green Leaves 2016).
Bibliography
Achilleos-Sarll, C. 2017. Where Are the Women at the Big Boys’ Table? UCL Brexit Blog, June 26. Available at: https://ucl-brexit.blog/2017/06/26/where-are-the-women-at-the-big-boys-table/.
Armstrong, K.A. 2017. Brexit Time: Leaving the EU—Why, How and When? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
BBC News. 2018. Brexit: EU ‘Surprised’ at UK No-Deal Planning Concerns, January 9. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42625474.
Better off Out. 2016. Are You British…or European? Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:kop408mix/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Branigan, T. 2017. All White and Just One Woman. Why Is Our Brexit Team like This? The Guardian, June 22. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/22/all-white-one-female-uk-brexit-team-negotiating-eu-diversity.
Bruges Group. 2016. The EU and Your Top Three Concerns. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:lal729hud/read/single#page/4/mode/1up.
Cain, R. 2016. Post-Truth and the ‘Metropolitan Elite’ Feminist: Lessons from Brexit. Feminists@Law Journal 6 (1): 1–8.
Capehart, K.W. 2015. Hyman Minsky’s Interpretation of Donald Trump. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 38 (3): 477–492.
Centre for Research in Communication and Culture. 2016. Gender Balance in EU Referendum Coverage. Loughborough University Centre for Research in Communication and Culture. Available at: https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/gender-balance-eu-referendum-coverage/.
Clarke, H.D., M. Goodwin, and P. Whiteley. 2017. Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cohn, C. 1993. Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War. In Gendering War Talk, ed. M. Cooke and A. Woollacott, 227–246. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Connell, R.W., and J. Wood. 2005. Globalization and Business Masculinities. Men and Masculinities 7 (4): 347–364.
Conservatives for Britain. 2016a. About Our Campaign. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:hol558buv/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Conservatives for Britain. 2016b. Britain Needs a Better Deal from the EU. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:jur367ber/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Doty, R.L. 1996. Imperial Encounters. London: University of Minnesota Press.
Duriesmith, C. 2018. Manly States and Feminist Foreign Policy: Revisiting the Liberal State as an Agent of Change. In Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings of the State in International Relations, ed. S. Parashaw, J.A. Tickner, J. True, and Preface by V. Spike Peterson. New York: Oxford University Press.
De Burca, G. 2018. How British Was the Brexit Vote? In Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe, ed. B. Martill and U. Staiger. London: UCL Press.
Enloe, C. 2004. The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. London: University of California Press.
Enloe, C. 2017. The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
EU Observer. 2018. May on Mission Impossible in Brussels. EU Observer, January 31. Available at: https://euobserver.com/uk-referendum/139551.
Evans, G., and A. Menon. 2017. Brexit and British Politics. Oxford: Wiley.
Farage, N. 2017. Tweet. January 17. Available at: https://twitter.com/nigel_farage/status/821336404257017856?lang=en.
Glencross, A. 2016. Why the UK Voted for Brexit: David Cameron’s Great Miscalculation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Glencross, A. 2018. Cameron’s European Legacy: How Brexit Demonstrates the Flawed Politics of Simple Solutions. In Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe, ed. B. Martill and U. Staiger, 22–27. London: UCL Press.
Goodwin, M., and O. Heath. 2016. Brexit Vote Explained: Poverty, Low Skills and Lack of Opportunities. Report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, August 31. Available at: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-opportunities.
Goodwin, M., and C. Milazzo. 2017. Taking Back Control? Investigating the Role of Immigration in the 2016 Vote for Brexit. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19 (3): 450–464.
Grassroots Out. 2016. We Want to Leave the EU. Do You? Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:tax397guv.
Green Leaves. 2016. I’m with the Previous Corbyn. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:zin692viq.
The Guardian. 2017. Anti-establishment Billionaire Andrej Babiš to be Named Czech PM. The Guardian, 22 October 2017. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/22/anti-establishment-billionaire-andrej-babis-to-be-named-czech-pm.
Guerrina, R., and A. Masselot. 2018. Walking into the Footprint of EU Law: Unpacking the Gendered Consequences of Brexit. Social Policy & Society 17 (2): 319–330.
Guerrina, R., and H. Murphy. 2016. Strategic Silences in the Brexit Debate: Gender, Marginality and Governance. Journal of Contemporary European Research 12 (4): 872–880.
Haastrup, T., K. Wright, and R. Guerrina. (2016). Women in the Brexit Debate: Still Largely Confined to ‘Low’ Politics. LSE Brexit Blog, 17 June 2016. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/06/17/women-in-the-brexit-debate-still-largely-confined-to-low-politics/.
Hooper, C. 2001. Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hozić, A.A., and J. True. 2017. Brexit as a Scandal: Gender and Global Trumpism. Review of International Political Economy 24 (2): 270–287.
The Independent. 2017. Brexit: Second Round of Talks Fails to Produce Breakthrough on Key Disputes, Says EU’s Chief Negotiator, July 20. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-talks-second-round-eu-uk-fails-to-produce-breakthrough-citizens-rights-chief-negotiator-a7850736.html.
Isiksel, T. 2018. Square Peg, Round Hole: Why the EU Can’t Fix Identity Politics. In Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe, ed. B. Martill & U. Staiger. London: UCL Press.
Jackson-Preece, J. 2017. Britain Risks Securitising Its Future Relationship with the EU. LSE Brexit Blog, October 3. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/10/03/brexit-risks-securitising-the-future-relationship-with-the-eu/.
Labour Leave. 2016. It’s Time to Leave the EU and Join the World. https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:feb267kop/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Leave.EU. 2016a. It’s Time to Leave. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:suv872voy/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Leave.EU. 2016b. Know the Facts! Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:yog899meb/read/single#page/1/mode/1up.
Leave Means Leave. 2018. ‘Message from Our Co-chairmen’ Leave Means Leave Website. Available at: http://www.leavemeansleave.eu/. Accessed 31 Jan 2018.
Liberal Party. 1975. Don’t Slam the Door on Europe. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:did995mod.
Lopatka, J. 2017. Billionaire Businessman Babis Is at Heart of Czech Political Crisis. Reuters, May 4. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-czech-government-babis/billionaire-businessman-babis-is-at-heart-of-czech-political-crisis-idUSKBN1800ZH.
Lovenduski, J. 2005. Feminizing Politics. Cambridge: Polity.
Martill, B. 2017a. Britain Has Lost a Role, and Failed to Find an Empire. UCL European Institute Comment, January 17. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/analysis/2016-17/martill-may-speech.
Martill, B. 2017b. Brexit and UK Foreign Policy: ‘Keeping Britain Great’ or ‘Putting the Great Back into Great Britain’? Available at: http://www.dahrendorf-forum.eu/brexit-and-uk-foreign-policy-keeping-britain-great-or-putting-the-great-back-into-great-britain/.
Martill, B., & U. Staiger. 2018. Introduction. In Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe, ed. B. Martill and U. Staiger, 1–18. London: UCL Press.
Martin, T. 2016. I’m Out for Democracy. Wetherspoon News, vol. EU Referendum Special, pp. 2–3.
May, T. 2016. The Good That Government Can Do. Speech Delivered at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, 5 October 2016. Available at: http://press.conservatives.com/post/151378268295/prime-minister-the-good-that-government-can-do.
May, T. 2017. Theresa May’s Brexit Speech in Full. The Daily Telegraph, January 17. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/theresa-mays-brexit-speech-full/.
Mellstrom, U. 2016. In the Time of Masculinist Political Revival. International Journal for Masculinity Studies 11 (3): 135–138.
National Referendum Campaign. 1975. We Must Get Out. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:zuk322nuk?id=lse%3Azuk322nuk#page/1/mode/2up.
O’Brien, C. 2017. There’s Only One Women on the UK Brexit Negotiating Team—Here’s Why It Matters. The Conversation, July 25. Available at: https://theconversation.com/theres-only-one-woman-on-the-uk-brexit-negotiating-team-heres-why-that-matters-81506.
Oliver, T. 2018. Understanding Brexit: A Concise Introduction. Bristol: Policy Press.
Outhwaite, W. 2017. Brexit: Sociological Responses. London: Anthem Press.
Payne, D. 2017. Britain and Europe.LSE Archives Division Website. Available at: http://www.lse.ac.uk/Library/Collections/Collection-highlights/Britain-and-Europe.
Pearson, A. 2017. For Brexit to Work, We Need Dunkirk Spirit Not ‘Naysaying Nellies’. Daily Telegraph, August 1. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/brexit-work-need-dunkirk-spirit-not-naysaying-nellies/.
Peterson, S. 1992. Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender and International Relations. Millennium 21 (2): 183–206.
Politico. 2015. The Czech Donald Trump. Politico website, 29 October 2015. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/babis-czech-sobotka-politics-trump-berlusconi/.
Politico. 2017. Jacob Rees-Mogg Calls Juncker a ‘Pound Shop Bismarck’, August 30. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/jacob-rees-mogg-calls-juncker-a-pound-shop-bismarck/.
Sandhu, K., and Stephenson, M. 2015. Layers of Inequality—A Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessment of the Public Spending Cuts on Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Women in Coventry. Feminist Review 109: 169–179.
Scharpf, F.W. 1999. Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schimmelfennig, F. 2018. Brexit: Differentiated Disintegration in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy [online first].
Shepherd, L. J. 2017. Gender, UN Peacebuilding and the Politics of Space: Locating Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shutes, I. 2017. When Unpaid Childcare Isn’t ‘Work’: EU Residency Rights Have Gendered Consequences.LSE Brexit Blog. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/07/20/when-unpaid-childcare-isnt-work-eu-residency-rights-have-gendered-consequences/.
Simpson, E. 2017. Brexit’s Dunkirk Fantasyland. Foreign Policy Voice, August 7. Available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/07/brexits-dunkirk-fantasyland/.
Sjoberg, L., and S. Via. 2010. Introduction. In Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives, ed. L. Sjoberg and S. Via. Oxford: Praeger.
Soubry, A. 2016. Interview with Anna Soubry MP, 25 June 2016. Channel 4 News. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERHfuzyic8M&feature=youtu.be&t=2m1s.
Stavrianakis, A., and M. Ster. 2018. Militarism and Security: Dialogue, Possibilities, and Limits. Introduction: Special Issue on Militarism and Security: Dialogue, Possibilities, and Limits 49 (1–2): 3–18.
Sternberg, C.S. 2013. The Struggle for EU Legitimacy: Public Contestation, 1950–2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Vote Leave. 2016a. Five Positive Reasons to Vote Leave and Take Back Control. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:sav235yoh/read/single#page/5/mode/1up.
Vote Leave. 2016b. The UK and the European Union: The Facts. Available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:pen598xoz/read/single#page/2/mode/1up.
Williams, J. 2017. Why Britain Just (Briefly) Threatened to Go to War with Spain. Vox, April 3. Available at: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/3/15161114/britain-threatens-war-spain-gibraltar-brexit.
Wilson, G.K. 2017. Brexit, Trump and the Special Relationship. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19 (3): 543–557.
Zalewski, M. 2010. I Don’t Even Know What Gender Is: A Discussion of the Connections Between Gender, Gender Mainstreaming and Feminist Theory. Review of International Studies 36 (1): 3–27.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Moira Dustin for detailed comments on the manuscript and Daniel Payne at the LSE Archives for his assistance in tracking down material from the referendum campaign(s). We would also like to thank participants of the Feminist and Queer Perspectives on Brexit Workshop at Sussex University for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Achilleos-Sarll, C., Martill, B. (2019). Toxic Masculinity: Militarism, Deal-Making and the Performance of Brexit. In: Dustin, M., Ferreira, N., Millns, S. (eds) Gender and Queer Perspectives on Brexit. Gender and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03122-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03122-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03121-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03122-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)