I cannot stop thinking about this image. For me, it is one of the most significant political pictures I’ve ever seen.
The UK’s last Prime Minister standing outside 10 Downing Street, delivering his resignation speech, having just lost the 2024 General Election. His wife, Akshata Murty, stands behind him, slightly to one side, holding an umbrella.
For a bit of context, when the Prime Minister called this election on the 22nd of May, he did so in the pouring rain. It started as a light drizzle and then turned into a deluge, and by the time he was finished, he was soaked, bedraggled, and looked truly pathetic. That’s because unless you’re Ryan Gosling screaming your love at Rachel McAdams, you do not look good wet. The pouring rain makes us all look like wrung-out dishcloths and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was no exception.
The next day, every newspaper had a soaking-wet Prime Minister on the front page. The columnists had a field day with the puns; ‘Washed out Prime Minister,’ ‘Rained on Rishi.’ The jokes write themselves. The broadcasters, including myself, couldn’t help but mention the rain every time we reported on the election. In fact, the very next day I went on air and asked why there wasn’t a single political aide on hand with an umbrella. Why did no one think to put up an awning? Why didn’t they do it indoors after seeing the weather forecast? It didn’t matter where your political allegiance lay, even if you weren’t politically motivated, the country agreed that the Prime Minister looked ridiculous.
So to then see his wife standing behind him, six weeks later, umbrella in hand, just in case it did rain, speaks volumes as to the role women play, and the damning truth that it is always women behind men, that keep the wheels turning.
I don’t know this woman, and I very much doubt we are politically aligned, however, watching her on television, standing resolutely still, in a dress I imagine she spent a lot of time worrying about, I immediately felt empathy for her. I wondered why she was holding the umbrella, instead of one of the many members of staff in Downing Street. I wondered if she too was frustrated at her husband, like the rest of the country. I thought about the conversations with her girlfriends and what she might say about him in confidence. And how, even though this is a family with billions of pounds, she probably still manages most of the mental load of their lives. As wife to the Prime Minister, she holds immense power and influence, and yet, there she is, holding the umbrella just in case the heavens open up and her husband once again becomes the laughingstock of the country.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s the woman behind the prime minister or the woman behind the janitor, women unfailingly prop up men. Rich women and poor women, right wing-women and left-liberal women, the one thing they all have in common is that a man is greater, better, more organised, on-time, and well put together, because of them.
As I say this, I know you will immediately have examples of when you have propped up the men in your life. When you have kept the train on the tracks. Dealt with their insecurities and eccentricities. Put them first. Done things that kept your lives beautiful and calm at the expense of your sanity. When you have martyred yourself for their comfort or ease or pleasure. When you have said, ‘It’s no bother,’ when in fact we both know it has been an immense bother. We all have those examples. I do not doubt that right now you are making a man better. Either for yourself, or the woman who comes after you, but one way or another you’re raising men. To the basic requirements of adulthood or the political heights of power.
Michelle Obama famously said that had she married someone else, a man who ended up running a restaurant, it would have been him who became president of the United States, not Barak. She’s right. She makes the man. You make the man. The women make the men.
This isn’t something we should ever be proud of, rather it’s a depressing reminder of the system we live in that trains you to be this way. That requires you to play this role. I’m just here to remind you that all the genius, all the brilliance, comes from you. That you should never be afraid to leave a man because you’re always, always, out of his league. Just by proxy of your gender. When you are worried and full of doubt, when you tremble with your own uncertainty, remember that you turn everything to gold, most especially the men that you touch.
The best is yet to come. It always is. The best is yet to come. Say it with me, the best is yet to come.
I never took much notice of that picture but wow. Just wow. This is why I’m a paid subscriber.
Hi, I enjoyed the article (I always like how you word things!) and it did make me think: 'darn right we make the men! We put our magic in things and hold all the power' but then I also thought the opposite: "Akshata didn't ask to be first lady nor to be standing there holding an umbrella, she surely has stuff to do. Why do we have to hold the umbrella and turn men into presidents? Zero glory for allegedly all the work? not just work for being social human beings, but for being the woman in someone else's life? urgh".