'Girly Swots' and the most diverse parliament ever: Women's representation, voters and issues in the 2019 election campaign

The 2019 election had felt inevitable for months once Theresa May had been replaced as Conservative leader and Prime Minister by Boris Johnson. The UK was back at the polls just two-and-a-half years after May's miscalculation that a snap election would produce a parliamentary majority large enough to pass the European Union (EU) withdrawal agreement. May's leadership had been dogged with the difficulties caused by her slim majority and subsequent confidence and supply arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party. Once parliament asserted its right to approve the withdrawal agreement, her premiership became defined by her frustrated attempts to secure an agreement with the EU which her own Eurosceptic backbenchers, the more moderate members of her party and opposition parties would vote to approve. She fought on but her failure to pass a withdrawal agreement ultimately led to her resignation and Johnson's victory in the leadership election. As well as the Conservative Party dispensing with its female leader after only three years, the run-up to the campaign was marred by a number of high-profile women MPs taking the decision to stand down, citing threats and abuse they had received as partially responsible (Ross, 2019). Our analysis assesses the importance placed on women during the campaign by firstly discussing how women were portrayed. We then go on to discuss the parties' attempts to appeal to women voters through an analysis of their manifesto offerings, before discussing how women voted. Finally, we analyse the extent to which the representation of women in parliament was altered as a result of the election.