The gender politics of the ‘white working class’
A feminist history of Brexit Britain
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216388 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Laura Schwartz (0000-0003-3550-7912, University of Warwick) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 345-374 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary British History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1361-9462 • E-ISSN: 1743-7997 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13619462.2026.2666106 |
| OpenAlex | W7155474007 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 72 |
This article historicises a short period of contemporary British history—roughly 2016–2020—when the spectre of ‘the working class’ returned to mainstream politics. While scholars have critiqued this new class politics for privileging identity and culture over material conditions (especially its racial and racist coding), its gender politics have yet to be explored. I argue that the gendering of the British working class as male as well as white was central to its political mobilisation in Brexit Britain. Drawing upon an analysis of broadsheets, tabloids and the social media of political parties and organisations, the first section of the article demonstrates how ‘working-class’ has often become a synonym for a certain form of white masculinity. The second section of the article takes a longer view of these gendered languages of class, situating them in the context of deindustrialisation in the late 20th century and how they came to be narrated within Brexit nostalgia. Moving backwards in time once more, the final section considers these contemporary developments from the perspective of a long history of the gendering of class in Britain whereby ‘the working class’ has been narrowly defined as comprising only ‘productive’ workers in general and manual industrial work in particular. This reverse chronological structure allows for a genealogy of right-wing populist and nationalist class politics in Brexit Britain, which highlights the degree to which they also drew upon certain cultural narratives and political concepts that originated with the left.
Brexit · class politics · Deindustrialization · gender politics · history of feminism · manual labor · Nationalism · Political mobilization · right-wing populism · white working class · working-class masculinity · Gender and Feminist Studies · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Populism, Right-Wing Movements
Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England, 1968-2000
Inventing the Working Parent
The Image of Man
Classes and Cultures
Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider
The National Federation of Women Workers, 1906–1921
Empire's Endgame
The New Demagogues
Redundant Masculinities
Formations of Class and Gender
Prostitution and Victorian Society
In the Name of Womens Rights
Can there be a Progressive Nostalgia? Layering Time in Pride’s Retro-Heritage
Gender, ownership and engagement during the European Union referendum
The ‘chav’ phenomenon
Walking into the Footprint of EU Law
Theresa’s tears
Heroic workers and angry young men
Flat-capping it’
Deindustrialisation and ‘Thatcherism’
Beyond the end of history
National Women Against Pit Closures
Black women’s work in late twentieth-century Britain
Women, equality and the UK's EU referendum
Rootless cosmopolitans
Brexit as a scandal
Child-centred Matriarch or Mother Among Other Things? Race and the Construction of Working-class Motherhood in Late Twentieth-century Britain
Annie Kenney and the Politics of Class in the Women’s Social and Political Union
From ‘Immoral’ Users to ‘Sunbed Addicts’
To Tell It as We Know It”
Brexit and Empire
Accusers of capitalism
Patriarchy stabilized
Who the Hell Are Ordinary People?’ Ordinariness as a Category of Historical Analysis
Myths and Realities of “Left Behind” and “Levelling Up”
British trade unionism in the 1980s reassessed. are recurring assumptions about union membership and strikes flawed
The Gender Backlash in the Vote for Brexit
Contesting Brexit Masculinities
Political masculinities and Brexit
Telling Stories about Post-war Britain
Inventing the 'Traditional Working Class
Chav Mum Chav Scum
Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s
Brexit, Trump, and 'methodological whiteness
Striking Narratives
White riot-Brexit, Trump, and post-factual politics
Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography
We Were the Ones Really Doing Something About It
Hegemonic Masculinity
Media and Class-making
The Making of Class and Gender through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation
Working-Class Identities in the 1960s
Redeeming the 'ordinary working class
Racism, Crisis, Brexit
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |