Rishi Sunak Quotes On Feminism: His Hits And Misses So Far

Indian-origin British politician Rishi Sunak has won the race to become Britain’s next Prime Minister — the third this year. The former Treasury chief will be Britain’s first leader of colour and faces the task of stabilising the party and country at a time of economic and political turbulence.

As the leader of the governing Conservative party, he will take over as Prime Minister from Liz Truss, who quit last week after 45 tumultuous days in office.

Earlier last month, Sunak ran for Britain's top job and lost. Now he has another shot — and the chance to say “I told you so.”

The former UK Treasury chief was runner-up to  Truss in the contest to replace the scandal-plagued Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. But Truss quit after a turbulent 45-day term, and Johnson has abandoned a comeback attempt, leaving Sunak a strong favourite to finally assume the office he missed out on less than two months ago. At 42, he is also the youngest Prime Minister in more than 200 years of the UK's political history.

Sunak has been the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain since 2020 February. Sunak is married to Akshata Murthy, who is the daughter of Narayana Murthy, the founder of tech giant Infosys; her mother Sudha Murthy is an engineer and author. In December 2020, media reports began doing rounds, claiming that Akshata is richer than the Queen of England. She is the director of the venture capital investment company Catamaran Ventures and she has been associated with it since 2013. Sunak and Murthy were classmates at Stanford Business School and then got married in 2009 and are now parents to two kids--Krishna and Anoushka.

Suggested Reading: Scottish Minister Nicola Sturgeon Apologises For Not Wearing Mask: How Women Are Bringing Modesty To Politics

Apart from his potential candidacy as the Prime Minister of Britain, he has been in news for his comments on women. He particularly talks about uplifting women entrepreneurs. He has also talked about making sure that there are strong women and feminist icons that his kids grow up with, and regularly contributing to household chores. Though, Sunak was also criticised for his remarks on mothers handling both work and childcare during the pandemic earlier last year.

The Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has slammed Sunak and wrote on Twitter saying, "Erm @RishiSunak you know mums work too and don't just look after the kids and make meals..." adding, "That's why Labour is demanding flexible furlough for working parents balancing work with childcare and homeschooling. Happy to brief you on the inequality and sexism women face at work."

This was in response to Sunak's comment, "...We owe mum everywhere an enormous debt of thanks for doing the enormously difficult job of juggling childcare and work at this tricky time." His response was to the Conservative MP Joy Morrissey, who said that female business owners have found full-time jobs at home while being responsible for childcare. Morrissey thanked Sunak for alleviating difficulties experienced by women.

Rishi Sunak Quotes On Feminism

- On helping in household chores, Sunak said, "You should get my wife here. I have a very OCD approach to dishwashers, which she'll tell you," he added, "There's a way to optimise how much stuff you can get in a dishwasher. My dad had it, I have it. I take great pride in that. There's a particular way I like beds to be made and things like that."

- Welcoming Amandas Shoes as new Women in Finance Champion, he wrote on Twitter, "Her work will help more women reach senior roles and follow in the footsteps of Alison Rose and Jane Fraser--the first female CEOs of the major UK and US banks."

- On women entrepreneurs, he said, "We definitely have got all this untapped potential of female entrepreneurs in the UK, which...would be worth hundreds of billions of pounds to our economy."

- On providing strong role models to his daughters, he said, "I was rooting for a second girl after we had our first and having two sisters in the house is really special. Look, the one thing we try to do is just (provide) a lot of strong role models for them."

- The required reading for his daughters are books by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, books about the lives and achievements of groundbreaking women like Cleopatra, Frida Kahlo, Marie Curie, Maya Angelou, Ruth Bader. Ginsburg and Michelle Obama.

- "As girls, there's this great book that we read to them incessantly, called Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. And they love it. And it's just got lots of kick-arse women in it and all these stories about them and they, and they really loved it," he said.