Isabella Link is a Politics, Philosophy and Law undergraduate at the University of Warwick

The Young Conservatives have a woman problem, and Tory party conference has only served to highlight that. From a worryingly male-dominated YC Chair election, to halls devoid of women under 30, the Conservative Party has never looked so devoid of feminine support, despite the fact that it is still the most popular party amongst women.

Whether that’s truly an accurate image of how much of the young female vote Badenoch will be able to secure at the next election is questionable, but it is very clear that internally the party is failing to attract the next generation of right-wing women.

Officially, Conference began on Sunday. Of course, many attendees arrived in Birmingham, for reasons beyond comprehension, the night before, to prepare themselves for the well-intentioned chaos set to dominate the ICC over the next few days. That being said, referring to Conference as chaos, at least in regards to the YCs, is a rather kind way to put it. Perhaps “” is a more accurate description.

On the Sunday, desperate to prove to the media that young people really do support the Tories, the current YC leadership attempted to herd 50 young Tories into the front few rows of Kemi’s opening speech, of which around 45 of those were men.

Upon realising this, a few seat changes were made inside the hall, and I, one of the very few YC women, was moved closer to the front. On the other side, the reminding few women were also placed in the very front few rows, clearly in camera sight.

Now, there’s a few ways to take this. This could have purely been from the kindness of their hearts, wanting to give young women a chance to see the disproportionately female leadership up close. Or, more likely, the YCs wanted to ensure that their many photos before the speeches reflected well upon them, hoping to deflect from social media critics about the rather obvious lack of women. That, based on comments made by politicos on X and Instagram, clearly didn’t work so well.

It does have to be said that Kemi made an absolutely wonderful speech, as she did so yesterday as well, and that “”, is probably the best policy documents we’ve seen from the party in years. The only issue is, if the numbers attending conference reflect how many young women are willing to be politically active for the Conservative Party, the future of our group could be disappointingly phallocentric.

Outside of parliamentary politics, the YCs have had a very tepid buzz around their first ever leadership election – a heavily criticised contest between three young men. According to sources, of the 13 who applied to be YC chair, no women applied, which, if true, should be taken as a badge of shame by the YCs.

Young women were not entirely devoid of the hustings. Plenty of them were swarming around one of the candidates. But it sounds absurd, right? Absurd that women, in the party of Thatcher, May and now Badenoch, have been reduced to cheerleaders for their preferred male candidate.

Clearly, the lack of women involved was an issue for many attendees, who raised questions to the three candidates about how they planned to fix the lack of feminine influence. Their answers were not that satisfactory. In fact, the three had more to say on whether they’ve ever kissed a socialist, which the three seemed far more comfortable answering.

There are, presumably, women in other important roles across the YCs, influencing policy behind the scenes. If that’s true, their lack of visibility only serves to prove to outsiders of the current YC administration bubble that it’s still a lads club. As Camilla Tominey rightly identified, there are very few young women in our party willing to challenge this status quo and dominate the party.

I’m not suggesting that we have women’s shortlists, or any other sort of DEI scheme to get more women involved. That defeats the purpose of trying to attract girls to put themselves forward to stand as candidates, not only in the YC internal elections, but in wider elections too.

Instead, I believe the YCs need to consider why women do not want to be visibly a YC, and look beyond the nonsense excuses usually given by individuals such as the three hoping to take over the YCs. That means difficult discussions, but those talks are so essential to ensuring the Conservatives are a party who can survive the test of time.

Would the Conservative Party be where it is today without brave women, such as Ann Widdicombe and Priti Patel, Joy Morrissey and Katie Lam, willing to put themselves forwards to defeat the ever closer tide of wokeness threatening to erode order and tradition? I think not.

Now, the Conservatives must work to ensure that the next generation of women like those mentioned, are able to find their place in the Conservative Party.