What does ‘build back gender-neutral’ even mean?

Boris Johnson says he wants to create a ‘more feminine’ world. Speaking at last week’s G7 summit, he said that, post-Covid, countries should be ‘building back greener, building back fairer and building equally, and – how should I put it? – in a more gender-neutral and perhaps a more feminine way’.

Just days later, nightclub and restaurant owners, people who work in theatre, travel, weddings and events, learned they wouldn’t be building back at all – better or otherwise – for the time being. Many businesses simply want to be up and running, and no doubt couldn’t care less whether they are allowed to do so in a feminine, masculine or gender non-binary way.

Hopefully, Boris knows what he means by building back in ‘a more feminine way’, because most of us haven’t got a clue. Regardless, Nimco Ali – best friend of Carrie Johnson and self-appointed ‘chief fanny defender’ – is definitely ‘all for it’. ‘Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to global protection, the impacts of Covid-19 have been exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex’, she writes. Is it churlish to point out that significantly more men than women have died from coronavirus in almost every country on Earth?

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