With a general election due in either 2009 or 2010, the battle for votes is set to intensify and recent trends suggest that we can expect a continued emphasis from the main parties on wooing the female vote.

This week’s Knowledgeshop will explore what women really want from politicians. 

Political evolution

There are of course many different groups within society that political parties aim to please, and it is perhaps not so easy to target a diverse 50% of the population all at once. Yet women as a group have decided crucial elections.  For example, Bill Clinton’s courting of the ‘soccer moms’ is largely credited with helping him win in ’96, and ‘Worcester Woman’ is a term given to the crucial, female Middle England voter whose support for Tony Blair has been attributed to helping him win the ’97 election.  Worcester held particular significance being a Labour-Tory marginal seat which Labour needed to win from the Tories in order to get an overall majority.  Women in Worcester were seen as the key group which could swing the vote in their favour, if Labour could win them over.  “School gate mums” were another female group targeted by Labour in 2005.  They focused on those mothers who had responsibility for picking up the children from school, and whose main concern in both life and politics is their children.

Some say the historically macho approach to politics is becoming outdated: politics is being feminised in Western democracies and voters are looking for change.  In 2005, Angela Merkel became Germany’s first woman Chancellor.  In 2007 Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the American House of Representatives and third in line to the presidency. She did so after campaigning as a ‘mother and a grandmother’.  A year later, Segolene Royal secured the socialist nomination for the French presidential elections. She did so in a country which has not had a female head of state in almost 500 years.  Today, Hilary Clinton is the first ever serious female contender for an American Presidential election.  Meanwhile, in the UK there is no question that the three main parties know the need to target the female vote. Analysis of results from a 2003 MORI poll in the UK shows that attracting and keeping women’s votes should be a key priority for the main political parties.

On March 10 Cameron decided to reaffirm his courtship of women voters by pledging to give a third of ministerial jobs in a Conservative government to women. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Cameron acknowledged that his party needs to better represent women, saying; “If we exclude women, which the Conservative Party has for too long, you exclude an extremely talented part of the population.”  Significantly, he has said he wants to see more women standing as Tory candidates, in particular for the marginal seats that his party needs to win to form a government. The Tory leader believes women politicians will devise policies that matter to female voters, such as his proposals for working mothers to be outlined later this month.

While all three major parties are working to increase the number of female MPs, neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Tories are following Labour’s established approach of positive discrimination.  Both opposition parties have stressed the need for women to be recruited on merit alone if there is to be any benefit to them or society.  Blair took the view that without positive discrimination, getting decent numbers of women elected to Parliament would take decades, and so he opted for women-only shortlists in certain constituencies.  Those constituencies would be required to choose a candidate from an all-woman shortlist for a minimum of half of the vacant seats.  In terms of increasing numbers this has had some success.  Until 20 years ago, there had never been more than 5% women MPs in Parliament: today one-in-five MPs are women and both the Labour and Conservative front bench teams now include six women, the Liberal Democrats have four.

Leading figures

The British political establishment has historically taken the view that the nation prefers a strong ruler. Our first female Prime Minister played that role, and did not play on femininity.  ‘Iron Brown’ with his ‘big clunking fist’ would certainly seem to fit this bill.  However, as early as 2006, when Blair described the next general election as “flyweight versus heavyweight”, some members of his party were expressing concern that such a focus on masculinity would alienate the female voter.  At the same time, Labour were attempting to paint Cameron as a ‘wimp’ and a ‘posh softie’. However, that too could backfire as it may serve to fuel the view of Brown as a playground bully. 

Perhaps, as the Guardian once described the battle between Gordon and Cameron; “It’s not so much a case of Left versus Right as Mars versus Venus.”

He who wins the women’s vote will depend on who is rightly reading the mood of the nation. Do women want a man’s man, to rule with experience and strength, or a more sensitive, metrosexual leader?  Indeed, is the personality of the contender the most important factor here, or will the battle be won on issues?

Policy matters

There have been indications that policy matters to women more than persona.  Between Brown and Cameron there is no clear front runner for the female vote.  Furthermore, Royal was shunned by women, despite playing on her femininity, and there has been much written on the subject of whether women will vote for Clinton on account of her sex alone.  The answer seems to be that voters care more about policy. An Ipsos MORI poll conducted in the run-up to the last UK General Election found that given a choice, only 11% of woman would prefer to have a woman MP, with 72% saying it made no difference.

In addition to showing that women care more about issues than personalities, polls indicate that women care about different issues to men: the MORI poll also found that 78% of women believed they looked for different things to men when choosing a political party.

Issues traditionally viewed as key to winning the women’s vote include education, health, child welfare and equality, and so these are the areas on which we would expect politicians hoping to get women on side to focus.  A poll conducted by the Fawcett society and Birkbeck in 2007 found that sexual equality, in particular with regards to work and pay, is a big issue for women.  It is hard for women to believe that the gender pay gap still exists, and with more families than ever dependent on a woman’s wage, the problem is increasingly pertinent.  It also revealed that women were 6% more likely than men to say that the Government should spend more on health, education and social services. 

Upon becoming Prime Minister last year, Gordon Brown said his priorities were education, health and restoring trust in politics.  At the start of the month, Brown appealed to women by marking International Women’s Day asking senior businesswomen to participate in a mentoring scheme to improve equality and help young women to break the ‘glass ceiling’.  Meanwhile, the Government plans to extend maternity leave to 52 weeks by 2010, and recently announced an extra £5 million a year to help women get on in work.  The Education and Skills Bill currently going through Parliament further serves to highlight the importance this Government is placing on looking after young people, as does a current inquiry into looked after young people.  In last week’s Budget, Alistair Darling announced plans tackle child poverty.  There was also a focus on improving education, and an increase on alcohol duty which will signal to mothers that the Government is taking seriously the problem of underage binge-drinkers. 

“Making families stronger” is currently a prominent statement in the Conservatives Party’s promise: a clear attempt to appeal to women.  In November, Cameron unveiled a package of measures designed to be attractive to women, including tougher sentences for rapists and long-term funding for victim-support centres.  He has called for a cultural change in attitudes towards women and sexual violence. 

More controversially, at the end of February, Cameron announced that he supported proposals to lower the abortion time limit, putting him at odds with the Pro Choice lobby. This will cost him votes among many liberal women, undermining recent efforts to please them, for example with calls for more flexible leave for both parents after the birth of a child.

The Liberal Democrats are also making sustained efforts to win the female vote.  On Thursday they made a stand for women’s rights, responding to a report on the desperate situation of abused women trapped in immigration limbo by calling for help for abused women regardless of their immigration status. Back in 2006, they released a policy paper entitled; Stronger Families and Brighter Futures.  This outlined how they would tackle the ‘female friendly’ issues, with a focus on child poverty, education and communities, and easier parenting. 

Polls and trends

Recent polls conducted by YouGov and Populus indicate that when asked which party they’d vote for at the next election, women show almost no preference between the two main contenders. When asked their views on Gordon Brown as a leader, around a third of women had a positive view, with around two thirds negative.  The results for Cameron were very similar. Interestingly, across all the results, voting intentions of women did not differ significantly from the male intention.  This further suggests that personality is not a significant determining factor in female voting intentions.

The YouGov poll gives an idea of who is currently leading on a central female issue.  When asked who was trusted more to raise standards of living for every family, Cameron came out 9% ahead of Brown among women, and 5 % among men. 

It is worth noting that the leaning of the female vote is very volatile, and that is why politicians can benefit from focusing on it.  A poll undertaken for Channel 4 News, immediately following the Prime Minister’s conference speech last year, showed Brown securing a huge lead amongst women. This was seen as a vindication of his focus on domestic issues, such as schools.  Yet barely weeks later, a string of polls were showing a resurgent Tory party had recaptured the support of female voters.

How to win the election

With polls, events in other countries, and common sense all confirming that women will not vote for mere novelty, nor caricature, political parties and their leaders must focus on solid policies which are relevant not only to women, but society as a whole.  

A clear message from most of the gender-based polls is the female electorate’s scepticism of politics and political leaders in general.  Disenchantment with the Government indicates that women are still making up their minds about where to place their political allegiance, and now is the time that all political parties need to set out a bold vision that captures women’s interest, and ultimately their votes.

Clearly, both Cameron and Brown are going to have to continue to make concerted efforts if they want to win over the female vote at the next election. The women of Britain will be no pushover.