Theresa’s tears: gendering mediations of populist leadership failures in Brexit Britain

ABSTRACT When former British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned in May 2019, in the first few days much mainstream and social media coverage focused on the tears she cried. Newspapers highlighted her tears as an extraordinary act for a politician. Her unexpected display of emotions was met with sympathy, sometimes even considered a feminist political moment, and often contextualised the framing of May’s political legacy. Analysing UK mainstream tabloid and broadsheet coverage following May’s resignation, this paper explores the media reactions in more detail. A dominant theme in the assessment of May’s legacy was her perceived inability to “get Brexit done.” Any deployment of feminist celebrations of public female tears was quickly overtaken by coverage that constructs May as politically and personally fragile, rooted in a known range of sexist tropes that associate femininity in politics with weakness. This “feminine weakness” is the opposite of what is needed to fulfil the Brexit project, which is often described in masculinist terms. Thus, Brexit is constructed as inherently masculine, and women are considered a threat to this project, highlighting the ways in which Brexit is mediated as a gendered political process. This article argues for greater attention to the role media play in the gendering of populist discourse.


Introduction
Former British Prime Minister, Theresa May, after failing to pass her Brexit deal in parliament and a previous ousting attempt in December 2018, finally resigned in May 2019.Especially in the first few days much mainstream and social media coverage focused on the tears she cried as she resigned outside Number 10 Downing Street.Indicative of the sexism female politicians are subjected to, newspapers highlighted her tears as an extraordinary act for a politician, but also as proof that the seemingly cold May did possess some feminine emotions.This unexpected display of emotions was met with sympathy across the political spectrum.However, this moment also revealed a range of tensions throughout the British media landscape along political and gendered lines.
2022; Dorit Geva 2020), the role of performances of female leadership in populist media culture remains underexplored, however.As one of the few highly visible women politicians tasked with cleaning up the mess that was left behind by the referendum result, the evaluation of May's political performance and legacy requires further attention.This article will begin with an overview of previous mediations of Theresa May, followed by a short exploration of the relationship between populism and gender.After some methodological considerations, the article will analyse the media coverage of her resignation, with particular focus on the ways in which feminism, the female body, and Brexit as political failure are mobilised to construct May as a failed populist leader.

Mediations of Theresa May's politics and political persona
The media coverage of May's first few weeks as prime minister was marked by a deeply gendered reception that emphasised her gender disproportionally (Blair Williams 2021).Her role as the "headmistress" tasked with cleaning up the mess left behind by the men leading the Brexit campaign was constructed as an asset for her future in the role.May's success in taking over the leadership of the Conservative party and becoming prime minister in a moment of national crisis may also be another example of the glass cliff mechanism, by which women are hired for jobs that are expected to end in failure.As this article will demonstrate, May's failure in delivering Brexit led to her being pushed off this glass cliff, and the media coverage of her resignation revels in the sexism of that trope.
Judi Atkins and John Gaffney argue that at the beginning of her premiership, May was performing two narratives: one as "dutiful, middle-class vicar's daughter" (2020,296), fully dedicated to her work as MP and later Home Secretary and Prime Minister, and the other that of unifier in times of Brexit division.May was considered an effective Home Secretary (Patrick Wintour 2013) and a moderniser in relation to her work to increase the number of female MPs and her reform of stop-and-search powers (Tim Shipman 2016).After the Brexit vote, she was considered a "safe pair of hands" (Nicholas Allen 2018, 108), an ordinary woman understanding the struggles of ordinary people (Judi Atkins and John Gaffney 2020, 299).
Her aloof and awkward manner soon enshrined her nickname as "the Maybot" in the national and international press (Atkins and Gaffney 2020).As her premiership progressed, she was seen as increasingly "wooden" and lacking eloquence (Atkins and Gaffney 2020).May constructed her political persona as "healer" of a divided nation in stark contrast to the "tricksters" in her own party and the opposition (Atkins and Gaffney 2020).As Atkins and Gaffney argue, the tension between the competent persona narrative and the actual, often wooden and ineloquent performance led to an increased questioning of her ability and success as a politician.These critiques foreshadow the negative evaluation of her legacy just after her resignation.May's dry political persona has often been considered the antithesis of populist politicians such as Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, or Boris Johnson, and this may have played into the perception of her as a safe pair of hands.As Anatol Stefanowitsch argues, "she lacks the messianic aura associated with populist politicians," but nevertheless "was in charge of a populist project" (2019,232).
What makes Brexit populist is the political insistence that the referendum "is the only legitimate basis for any policy decision" (Anatol Stefanowitsch 2019, 235), and other democratic institutions should not interfere with "the will of the people."May's relationship with this project was of course complicated: while committed to the delivery of "the will of the people," and the assurance that "Brexit means Brexit," she also tried to consider the impact of any Brexit deal on the peace process in Northern Ireland.So while the solutions she proposed to the problems posed by the referendum result may have sought some sort of political compromise, the language she used was decidedly populist in her focus on Brexit as expression of the will of the people who are "constructed, in her discourse, almost entirely along national lines -'the people,' in her statements, are almost always the British people" (Stefanowitsch 2019, 260).Her Conservatives conference speech in October 2016 referencing "citizens of nowhere" (May 2016) further tapped into a resurgent nationalism that centred a return to imperial status and an exclusionary notion of "belonging."Many of May's policies at the Home Office must also be seen in this context: May did not "become" a nationalist in the pursuit of Brexit, but rather was able to build on her previous actions with conviction and authenticity because of her long-held ideological positions.
For example, Tom Selwyn argues that three events have shaped and continue to shape the UK in recent years: the Brexit referendum and its fallout in 2016, the Grenfell fire in 2017, and the Windrush scandal in 2018.May as Home Secretary and Prime Minister played a central role in all three events.These three events are united, Selwyn argues, by "contempt for the working class and migrants" deployed by "the British ruling class and its political bag carriers" (Selwyn 2019, 125).As Home Secretary, May's political track record includes the infamous "Go Home" vans, which are quite explicit about their notion of home and who gets to call the UK home (Selwyn 2019), and her "hostile environment" policy laid the groundwork for the Windrush scandal.As Prime Minister, her response to Grenfell has been deemed largely insufficient, both in her inability to emote and, much more practically, in the inability to take care of Grenfell victims who are still in need of permanent housing or an inquiry that holds those responsible accountable.The exaggeration of this rhetorical performance may also be an attempt to channel the traditional populist strongman's political performance.

Brexit, gender, and populism
I consider populism both an ideology that constructs society as divided into the "corrupt elites" and the "pure people" (Mudde 2007) and a political style (Benjamin Moffitt and Simon Tormey 2014).Populism is broadly not considered a gendered ideology or discourse.Some attention has been paid to male leadership, especially in relation to the populist strongman.The strongman tends to be portrayed as a masculine, often virile (Moffit 2016) and potentially violent figure (Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Mudde 2017).Nonetheless, Mudde and Kaltwasser argue that "populism has no specific relationship to gender, in fact, gender differences within 'the people' are considered secondary, if not irrelevant, to populist politics" (2015,16).Overall, populism's relationship with gender more broadly "remains largely understudied" (Sahar Abi-Hassan 2017, 1) and most research has "overlooked the ways in which populist discourse frames female populist leadership" (Abi-Hassan 2017, 1).
However, the language around populist leadership is always already heavily gendered, with an emphasis on charisma and strength and an implicit assumption that this leader is male.Benjamin Moffitt begins to discuss this gendering more explicitly by drawing attention to the populists (mostly male) body and its strength.Male populists are seen to be "keen to prove their virility and masculinity" (Moffit 2016, 65) in often disturbing ways in performances that would not be tolerated from a female politician.Thus, I agree with Dorit Geva who argues that "contemporary populism is deeply gendered" and that "gender hegemony needs to be understood as deeply structuring of populism" (2020, 2).In her analysis of Marine Le Pen, Geva explores the ways in which le Pen draws on performances of both hegemonic masculinity and femininity to construct herself as the "mother of the future of the nation," but combines this hegemonically feminine performance with equally strong performances of hegemonic masculinity.These performances are admired by her followers, who admire that she does politics "like a man."Geva concludes that political power is so intertwined with hegemonic masculinity that any woman running for populist office must perform it in order to be successful (2020).I join Geva's call for paying closer attention to the ways in which populism and its performances are gendered, and this article contributes to this emerging awareness by exploring the ways in which failed populist leadership is gendered.
The gendered nature of Brexit, however, has received more scholarly attention.Unlike in other populist projects, there was no significant gender difference in voting patterns for or against Brexit (Jane Green and Rosalind Shorrocks 2023), but the campaign was led predominantly by men-women were then tasked with the "clean up" of the aftermath (Aida A. Hozic and Jacqui True 2017).Many of the conversations around the vote and its aftermath were framed in highly emotional terms and reinforced the notion that the Brexit vote was an expression of anger.This anger is often directly related to perceived gendered injustices: in addition to being a general expression of resentment of the status quo, Green and Shorrocks (2023) suggest that the Brexit vote was also a catalyst for anger over the perceived unfair advances of women in society over men amongst men voting to leave the European Union.Its tone and discourse were largely militaristic and masculinist (Columba Achilleos-Sarll and Benjamin Martil 2019).
Media played a key role in the transmission of those discourses.Particularly in the current populist moment, media are integral to understanding contemporary populism (Moffit 2016).Media play a significant role in populist communication: they platform populist leaders, but there are also populist tendencies within the media industries themselves (Krämer 2014).Mainstream media play an important role in the creation and communication of Brexit.It goes beyond the scope of this paper to present a systematic analysis of the populist nature of much of the UK press landscape.It is however noteworthy that, particularly in relation to Brexit, arguably UK media laid the ideological foundations of current populist moods (James Stanyer, Christina Archetti, and Lone Sorensen 2016), both with regards to anti-immigration sentiment and broader Euroscepticism (Oliver Daddow 2013;Nicholas Startin 2015).

Methodology
News and journalism play (or are considered to play) an integral role in the construction of community and the nation (Benedict Anderson 1983) and collective memory (Jill Edy 1999), and as such deserve continued attention even as they are considered to lose significance in the context of social media.Newspapers continue to be a cultural force that shape and expose cultural norms and gendered stereotypes (Linda Trimble et al. 2013).
This project researched articles published in a selection of UK broadsheets and tabloid newspapers, based on their circulation.Based on the 2020 circulation numbers before a range of newspaper stopped reporting theirs, the four most-read broadsheets (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, the i/Independent, and the Guardian) and the four most-read tabloids (The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express, and the Mirror) and their Sunday editions (The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer, The Sun on Sunday, The Mail on Sunday, and the Sunday Mirror) were included.Articles that were published between 24 May (the day of May's resignation) and 26 May (to account for Sunday editions) were collected using the NexisUK database, using the key words "Theresa May tears."Focusing on "tears" rather than general descriptions of her emotional response meant I was able to focus specifically on articles that centred on the act of crying in their reporting.This produced 876 results.As this article specifically focuses on May's political persona as constructed in the news media, the selected articles were required to focus substantially on Theresa May and her resignation.Thus, the following articles were eliminated from analysis: duplications, letters to the editor, live blogs, videos, articles discussing her possible successor, speech transcripts, and collections of social media reactions.This resulted in 115 articles for analysis.
The objective of this research was to explore the ways in which the coverage of Theresa May's emotional resignation was gendered, and what this may tell us about the gendering of populism in media coverage.To achieve this, a thematic analysis (Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006) was conducted.The press data was coded resulting in 14 codes emerging around the gendered mediations of May's resignation, including focus on feminism, her body, style, political legacy, and Brexit.These codes were then collated into three main themes: feminism, the weakness of her body, and Brexit as failure.They were then further analysed to explore in more depth how those themes were constructed and how they shape mediations of May's political performance during her resignation.

Constructions of feminism and female political leadership
Considering the conservative and regressive politics underlying the news coverage of May's resignation, the most unexpected take perhaps was the one where Theresa May's tears were seen as some sort of sign of empowerment or a feminist moment.Many female writers expressed a sense of solidarity and awareness of supposedly feminist messaging evident in May's public emotional moment, particularly in relation to the role women are expected to play in the workplace.Jan Moir in the Daily Mail suggests that "Sometimes big girls do cry, and it is not always a weakness" (Jan Moir 2019).May's tears are here seen as a sign of female strength and signals to women "the sacrifices she has made in becoming only the second female Prime Minister in an arena still dominated by machismo" (Jane Moore 2019).Further, the Guardian suggests May lost to "the hard men, with their daft militaristic talk" (Suzanne Moore 2019).May's tears become a sign of emotional competence in contrast to "the pompous, reputation burnishing orations that men seem to go in for when they exit the political stage" (Moir 2019).May's emotional response is positioned directly in contrast to the expectations of a more combative political culture that is not limited to or only emerged during Brexit, but which increased in visibility in that confrontational political moment that was shaped by macho military talk (Achilleos-Sarll and Martil 2019).
The embrace of feminist language in defence of May however should not be mistaken for feminist politics and instead can be understood as part of feminism's current increased visibility in media and popular culture.This visibility should not be understood as a sudden feminist turn in UK journalism.Instead, we should ask "which kinds of feminist achieve visibility in the news media" (Ros Gill and Katie Toms 2019, 100, original emphasis).In the reporting of May's resignation, this would turn out to be a very White feminism which is emblematic of the lack of intersectional politics in popular feminist discourse.While many of the writers would probably not identify as feminist and work for institutions that can be described as anti-feminist, they effectively use the language of mainstream White feminism.This focus on women's tears in mainstream feminism serves to entrench a "political whiteness" that centres on notions of victimhood and excludes the "unnatural" or "unrespectable" woman (Alison Phipps 2021, 88).Bar one article (Moore 2019) then, none of those that evoked feminist discourses highlighted May's overall problematic legacy when it comes to, for example, the rights of immigrant women or women of colour.This is not surprising considering May's work at the Home Office, her role in Yarl's Wood, and her failure to care for Grenfell victims.Her legacy was built on work that marginalised people of colour even further, and she mobilised this work to establish herself as the most suitable leader in a populist moment.

The female leader's body as site and source of weakness
This leadership, however, was only recognised as such at the beginning of her tenure as PM.Towards the end, much of the media coverage of May's resignation was steeped in the same or similar sexism evident in previous media coverage, and similar to the coverage of other female political leaders.The media coverage of May is indicative of a broader cultural and political misogyny that links the female body to irrationality and patriarchal narratives that reinforce the idea that women are inherently too emotional and thus unreliable to be political leaders (Candida Yates 2019).Similar narratives can be found in the media coverage of May's resignation.
Initially, there was an element of sympathy evident in the coverage.The Telegraph suggested that "It was impossible not to feel for her.Impossible not to root for her" (Michael Deacon 2019), with the caveat that Leave voters would not be so inclined.Everybody else though, as Ron Liddle in The Times argues would "need to be a psychopath not to feel for her and perhaps even to experience a certain amount of weird admiration" (Rod Liddle 2019).However, the mood quickly turned against her, and the coverage shows a sense of unease and discomfort with what is considered an excessive display of emotions and by extension femininity.May's outburst seemed to have confirmed again many of the sexist anxieties found in the treatment of female politicians.
This is achieved through a focus on her body, beginning with observations about her sartorial choices.Her fashion choices are read as attempts at self-defence: "the anguish masked by statement necklaces and smart jackets and awkward attempts at jauntiness" (Judith Woods 2019), and the size of her necklace a barometer of the difficulty she has been in: "the size of which has increased with the scale of the mess she has faced in recent years" (Pippa Crerar 2019).Her leadership style was "all kitten and not a lot of heel" (Allison Pearson 2019) that "Interesting necklaces do not make a personality" (Moore 2019).The derision of her supposedly superficial feminine interest in fashion lays the groundwork for portraying her as a political lightweight and her display of emotions as uncomfortably excessive: the descriptions of the physical act of crying are often described in an almost hysterical manner.She "wept again" (Tim N. Dunn 2019), and her breakdown is described as "yet another moment of excruciating melodrama" (Dominic Sandbrook 2019) or "weepy histrionics" (Robin Harris 2019a).Melodrama, a genre heavily associated (and thus dismissed and devalued) with women and female audiences, is constructed as the opposite of the serious business of politics, and May's presumed tendency towards repeated unnecessary drama marks her as unsuitable for this space.These descriptions are excessive and exaggerated in their nature, and this is partly due to the nature of political sketch-writing "where journalists, mostly male, are granted a degree of latitude and subjectivity in their descriptions of politicians" (O'Neill, Savigny, and Cann 2016, 303) through which writers construct alignment with their readers (Kay Richardson, Katy Parry, and John Corner 2013).But these descriptions are not only used to construct her as weak -they serve to ridicule May, and undermine any authority she may have held previously.
This image of weakness is further highlighted in the bodily descriptions of May's misery.It was not only her feelings that were excessive and out of control but also her entire body.May's body was clearly perceived as out of control, as "it was the voice that refused to obey her, cracking with emotion at several points during her speech and forcing her to pause and suck in her lips before continuing" (Judi James 2019)."Additionally, Her shoulders [were] hunched" (Jason Beattie 2019a), and finally "that bottom lip broke out into an uncontrollable convulsion" (Henry Deedes 2019).And the Daily Mail states that "At this point the left side of her mouth pulled downward, clearly out of her control, and her brows puckered while her eyes gazed upward wearing a distraught expression" (James 2019).Descriptions like these construct May as a woman beholden to her weak female flesh.This of course emphasises a historic association between women, the body and weakness, as opposed to men's association with the mind and rational thought.While men are somewhat freed from bodily constraints, women cannot escape their inherently feminine nature.
The Daily Mail's comment also highlights the intersection of sexism with racism that further constructs May as excessively female by mobilising exoticising language: "her face wore an expression of cratered desolation.I half expected her to throw back her head and ululate with despair for about half an hour, but no" (Moir 2019).Ululating as an expression of both joy and grief is largely associated with cultures of the Middle East and parts of Africa, and its reception in the West is one of exoticism (Jennifer E. Jacobs 2007).This comment in particular marks the Whiteness of the political sphere in the UK, where expressions of cultural difference are apparently considered unfit for public political life.The language of cultural difference is used to highlight May's out-of-placeness, and she is rhetorically cast out from the future of UK politics.The feminist messaging explored then earlier can only serve as a fig leaf for the broader populist discourses that are deeply invested in sexism, and the creation of space for a male successor who is seen as naturally more suitable than a woman.Arguably, truly feminist discourse is difficult to create in a media environment that perpetuates and is invested in the success of a populist project.These descriptions further serve to humiliate May in defeat, and despite the feminist proclamations explored earlier, highlight the misogyny of significant parts of the British press landscape.
In the context of May's resignation, this moment of emotional and physical weakness became symbolic for her entire premiership: "The cracking voice was the sound of self-pity over the collapse of her disastrous Premiership" (Crerar 2019).Her weak body also becomes a metaphor for her weakness on Brexit.The populist leader's strong body is often considered symbolic of "the health of the body politic" (Moffit 2016, 65).May's weak body, as this article argues, is seen as not strong enough to complete the Brexit project-in other words, her weak body makes her unsuitable for the leadership of a populist project.May failed to perform the role of populist strongman required for the success of Brexit, and her emotional resignation served as final evidence for her inherent inability.This inability, as the next section will demonstrate, is inherently gendered.

Brexit as political and personal gendered failure
May used her resignation speech to highlight what she considered the achievements of her time in government, including "the deficit [being] almost eliminated," the national debt "falling" and "bringing an end to austerity" (May 2019).However, in contrast, the assessment of her legacy in the British press is overwhelmingly negative.The Telegraph suggests that "she will go down in history as the worst Prime Minister of all time" (Lilico 2019), and further: "The statistics for ministerial resignations, broken promises, deadlines missed and elections catastrophically lost will see to that.Mrs May had one task-to give effect to the British people's decision to leave the EU" (Harris 2019b).May will be remembered "for a series of fatal political mistakes" (Christopher Hope 2019).Indeed, May has become "the living embodiment of failure itself" (Pat Flanagan 2019) as "a hopeless prime minister whose incompetence and intransigence haven't just wrecked the Tory Party but may have irreparably damaged our political system for years to come" (Malone 2019).
These, however, were not the political failures discussed in the hours after her resignation.Excluding a very small handful of exceptions, the main political failure for which May was criticised again and again was Brexit: it appeared as her biggest political failure in 68 articles.(In comparison, Grenfell was mentioned in this manner only 15 times.)She "has failed to deliver Brexit" and thus "she has failed the British public" (Flanagan 2019).In failing to deliver the Brexit her colleagues envisioned, she committed the populist's cardinal sin: not delivering on "the will of the people." It is here that the cultural specificity (Geva 2020) of populism and its gendering shapes the kinds of gender performance deemed permissible for female populist leaders.May's failure to deliver Brexit is firmly rooted in her political persona and personality, not in impossible parliamentary symmetries, the complexities of the withdrawal process, or a desire for compromise that does not fully alienate the non-Brexit voting part of the electorate.May's robotic persona, originally seen as an asset, soon became to blame for her political failures: "This stonewall warrior, secretive, robotic, dithery in an age that demands wit and clarity, was, as a PM, the most monumental dud" (Quentin Letts 2019).Her entire personality for which she was famous led to the eventual failure of her politics; it was "Her hallmarks of timidity coupled with political calculation" (Beattie 2019b) that spelled the end of Brexit.May is "an indecisive leader" who "became the timid prisoner of the Remainer establishment" (Leo McKinstry 2019).
Her weakness is seen as particularly problematic in the context of negotiations with her European counterparts.May is repeatedly described as weak, especially in her dealings with EU politicians: "Weakened and dispirited, May made her fourth mistake, meekly ordering her Brexit secretary David Davis to accept the EU's sequencing of the talks" (Tim Shipman 2019,).This weakness is further gendered, as "she proved a terrible pushover in the dealings with Brussels" (Letts 2019).As The Telegraph argues, "she showed neither guts nor guile as, stooping apologetically, she scuttled into another meeting with Michel Barnier" (Pearson 2019).This is considered especially grave, as her weakness means a delay in the breaking away from an organisation that has been portrayed as antidemocratic and overreaching.And there are notes of betrayal in some of the media coverage.May was "equally feeble in standing up to Remainer ministers like Philip Hammond and Greg Clark.Was she incompetent?Or did she [. ..] want the softest of EU exits all along?"(Letts 2019).Similarly, Liddle suggests, "Her heart was never in Brexit (as Brussels knew, to its advantage)" (Liddle 2019).Despite her rhetorical posturing, May is here seen as somewhat more aligned with the EU, rather than the will of the people.Her inability to stand up to European politicians is considered a direct threat to the populist project and will of the people.Conservative British prime ministers have a long history of constructing Europe and the EU as a distant other at best, and an enemy figure at worst (Anna Islentyeva and Deborah Dunkel 2022).Conservative leaders then position themselves as saviours of Britain that protect the nation from the European threat.May was considered too weak to weather this threat, and it was specifically her performance of femininity that created this weakness, leaving the country unprotected.This protection, often linked to a virile male body, is part and parcel of the populist strongman's performance of national leadership (Moffit 2016).
Indeed, it was not only the existence of some personal qualities but also the absence of others that made her unsuitable to get Brexit done.May "lacked vital traits for a leader" which were "core beliefs, confidence, decisiveness, mental agility, communication skills and a willingness to trust and delegate" (Dunn 2019), qualities predominantly associated with masculine leadership styles.May was "refusing to fight" (Shipman 2019) at a time when "We need a pilot not a passenger" (Deedes 2019).This reproduces the military language of the Brexit referendum (Achilleos-Sarll and Martil 2019).May is "lacking any natural authority" (McKinstry 2019) required for effective leadership.Leadership here is an innate quality that one either possesses or not, and it is clearly gendered: authority is still seen as a natural threat in male political leaders, but not women (Donatella Campus 2013).It quickly becomes apparent which gender "naturally" embodies authority.As the Daily Mail asks, what if it "had been a belligerent, blustering man rather than a cautious, awkward woman?" (Sandbrook 2019).Thus, May is not the populist strongman that is required for populist leadership.So, while populism may be "gender neutral," who gets to lead the people is deeply, heavily gendered.As Katy Parry and Beth Johnson argue, political discourse in the context of Brexit lends "legitimacy to a martial discourse of 'cowardice' and punishment for those deemed weak" (2023, 3).May's treatment in the media and by fellow politicians must be understood as another manifestation of this discursive environment, and this gestures towards the gender politics of this populist political moment.
Hypervisible women of colour like Meghan Markle are seen to embody a threat to the Brexit project (Nathalie Weidhase 2022), as they are seen to embody a cosmopolitan, feminist femininity in opposition to the masculinist, nationalist ideology underlying much Brexit politics.What becomes evident here is that White women, too, can be seen as a threat to the project.Women in general are seen as the (re)producers of the nation (Tamar Mayer 2000), and perhaps female politicians, due to their proximity to power over the country, especially so.When women are seen to fail this reproductive task (and Brexit is perhaps as a birth or re-birth of the nation as a sovereign state), they are rhetorically punished by a media environment deeply entangled in populist mechanics.These range from the standard sexist remarks explored earlier, to more violent descriptions.The relationship between White men's rage and White women's tears is a "circuit" (Phipps 2021, 90), and a product of White supremacy that "produces both white tears and white rage" (Phipps 2021, 85), and White rage is the male equivalent of White women's tears, both utilised to uphold White supremacy.While tracing White supremacy more systematically in the media coverage of Brexit goes beyond the scope of this article, it is important to highlight the xenophobic undercurrents of Brexit discourse.Brexit is in many ways a project invested in Whiteness (Gurminder K. Bhambra 2017) and stemming from imperial nostalgia (Satnam Virdee and Brendan McGeever 2018) and led to a rise in reported hate crimes (Lumsden, Goode, and Black 2019) in the aftermath of a campaign that stoked fears of high immigration as a threat to sovereignty.This is perhaps also evident in some of the emotive language used to describe the end of May's career.Some of that focus on emotionality found in the media coverage stems of course from the sampling method that centred on the emotional and gendered act of crying.The violence of some of the descriptions is noteworthy nonetheless: beyond the almost voyeuristic pleasure in seeing May "break down," articles include descriptions that refer to her "sliced up" (Owen and Cole 2019) career.These can be read as a more obvious articulation of the White male rage at the heart of critics of May's political failures in relation to Brexit.Consequently, the particular vitriol May received during her tenure and after her resignation then need to be considered within these gendered dynamics at the heart of Brexit discourse.The anger expressed at May's failure to get Brexit over the line further entrenches the gendered nature of Brexit discourse, where men are seen as strong, trustworthy, and capable of executing "the will of the people," whereas women are seen as weak, unable to handle the project, and thus a threat to the envisioned success of Brexit.

Conclusion
This article has demonstrated that gender is an often underexplored but vital factor in the ways in which Brexit is discursively constructed.Theresa May as a political figure is of particular interest here, as she was tasked with solving what some people considered an impossible task, failed publicly, and became the subject of a range of emotions in the moment of her resignation.As an emotive moment in British political life, May's resignation served as a crucial point for analysis.This article confirms that female politicians continue to be subjected to sexist, impossible standards, and shows how far UK media continue to have to go in their political reporting.Brief mobilisations of feminist language do not change this, and instead only highlight how far is left to go.But this article is not a call for populist media lean-in feminism and does not seek or see feminist liberation from equal gender representations in the boardrooms of populism.Rather, it highlights alignment with populist goals and movements for women and female politicians only momentarily benefits their careers.More broadly, it may function as a warning that populist movements do not care about women.
It is not just that women were tasked with the cleaning up after Brexit (Hozic and True 2017) and some, like May, were seen to spectacularly fail.More significantly, what the article has demonstrated is an inherent gendering of Brexit as discursive project.Qualities that are seen as feminine are seen to be the qualities that have left May unable to fulfil "the will of the people."The anger expressed at her is a manifestation of that male anger of White supremacy, and while May's White women tears give her moments of respite, ultimately they are seen as another piece of evidence of May's feminine weakness and inherent political inability.The gendering of Brexit goes beyond the purely discursive registers, in which militarist, masculine language is used: the project itself can only be fulfilled by a man.Female qualities, and women, can only stand in the way of the success of this inherently male political populist project.