Calling Jeremy Corbyn the ‘absolute boy’ isn’t funny, it’s a reminder of how little he understands women’s issues

Of the seemingly endless Jeremy Corbyn-based memes setting social media ablaze in the run-up to the general election, one of the most pervasive was him being referred to as the “absolute boy”.

The tongue-in-cheek nickname was used widely among young Corbyn-supporters on the internet, including commentator Aaron Bastani whose YouTube video entitled “Corbyn is the absolute boy” has had more than 25,000 views. When American feminist actor and writer Lena Dunham Instagrammed a picture of a badge urging us to get on board with the “absolute boy”, it received more than 45,000 likes.

The meme has resurfaced recently after Corbyn upped his cool-factor even further by giving an impassioned speech at Glastonbury festival to a cheering mob of hedonistic young socialist millennials.

The “absolute boy” label is surely meant ironically: Corbyn’s kindly image as a harmless middle-aged man who’s vegetarian, barely drinks, makes his own jam and cycles around London is at odds with the laddish culture the term seems to reference. But it doesn’t take much scratching beneath the surface to realise Corbyn’s feminist credentials are sorely lacking, and suddenly referring to him by a term steeped in a deeply ingrained patriarchal mentality of female objectification and sexism feels a lot less funny.

It might have been endearing if the term “absolute boy” had been used to describe Justin Trudeau, who made half of his cabinet female, or Barack Obama, who passed equal pay legislation, or even Tony Blair, who for his (oh so many) sins did double maternity pay and introduce paid paternity leave during his time as Prime Minister. But Corbyn has proven over and over again that gender inequality in Britain is nowhere near a priority in his mind.

During his first leadership race, Corbyn suggested that women-only train carriages would be a reasonable measure in tackling sexual harassment on public transport. Granted, he was put on the spot during a live interview and quickly followed up by saying he’d “consult with women” on this, but the fact that his immediate response wasn’t to dismiss the idea of women having to change their behaviour and travel in segregation in order to be safe from crime shows how little he understands the societal problems that have got us to this point.

Barely a year later, during a second leadership battle which he never should have been forced to fight, he recognised that women are often discriminated against in the workplace, but claimed the way to tackle this would be to end an after-work drinking and socialising culture which he reckons “benefits men who don’t feel the need to be at home looking after their children and it discriminates against women who will want to, obviously, look after the children that they have got”. While it’s true that women are saddled with a disproportionate percentage of emotional labour and childcare, Corbyn’s argument accepts this as an inevitable fact, rather than questioning the reasons why women are more likely than men to have to “look after the children”.

During the general election campaign last month, Corbyn was interviewed on Facebook Live by Uni Lad a publication known for making jokes about rape. The Labour party under Corbyn’s leadership also refused a copy of the Women's Equality party manifesto, which all other parties accepted.

While Labour's manifesto included some important policies, such as tackling domestic violence, extending free childcare provision, and making it easier for women to access tribunals in case of workplace discrimination, Jeremy Corbyn himself has proven over and over again that while perhaps well-intentioned, he hasn’t taken the time to fully explore and understand the systemic issues which underpin political and social norms that lead to gender inequality in the Western world.

I’ve voted for Corbyn three times in the past two years, and would do so again, but Labour supporters need to recognise that in our desperate desire to embrace the first real socialist leader we’ve had for generations, we’ve closed our eyes to this shortcomings, and convinced ourselves that good intentions are enough.

Now we’re going one step further, and using the language of “lad culture” to refer to Corbyn, implying that it’s so far from the truth that it’s funny, and burying our head even further in the sand when it comes to Corbyn’s problematic attitude towards equality for women.

Calling Corbyn an “absolute boy” isn’t funny or ironic, it’s simply an exaggeration of the truth: that he doesn’t see women’s issues as a priority. This isn’t a joke, it isn’t OK and it mustn’t be ignored, no matter how much we agree with the rest of his ideologies.