By Gordon Brown has been criticised for not taking women seriously in the past, but a new poll suggests that he might want to pay them a bit more attention. A new gender gap appears to be splitting the electorate as women become increasingly convinced that the Tories will deliver better public services after 2010.
If any stereotypes about tight-walleted women in Thatcherite clothing are springing to mind, you can put them away now. The YouGov poll conducted for the Fabian Women’s Network doesn’t indicate that women prefer the Tories because they dislike public services; but because they support them. Out of the 2,420 people polled, only 26% of women believed that services would deteriorate under Cameron, compared to 36% of men. Women don’t just think that the Tories would run our public services more efficiently than Labour, they also believe that they care more about them.
Such news should ruffle Brown’s feathers. Until Blair charmed Britain’s ladies, most of them voted blue, carrying the overall outcome of our elections with them. According to Andrew Grice in the Independent today, experts calculate that if women had not been given the vote, Labour would have ruled more or less uninterrupted since 1945. However, a helpful graph on Left Foot Forward points out that over the last thirty years, Labour has managed to close the gap – in 2005, women were actually more likely to vote Labour than men. We cannot afford a reversal.
In contrast to the majority of women, I do think Labour would be better at running Britain’s public services. But I understand why others might not. Labour’s commitment to the public sector no longer seems to come from the heart, but from political pragmatism. Rather than celebrating the achievements of public sector workers, ministers are suspicious of being aligned too closely with them. Their history has left them wary of expressing – oooh scary word – “ideological” support for the public sector. This leads to an ambiguous double-edged approach to services that isn’t just hypocritical, it’s also harder to trust. Over the weekend I heard Harriet Harman say investment was the way forward, today Mandelson says that Labour might stand for cuts after all. To solve this, Brown needs to become a little more black and white.
With women doing the majority of caring in this society (see report p.2), they are more likely to interact with public services on a regular basis, and more likely to care about getting them right. But this isn’t just a matter for the female heart; it’s also about the female brain. Only 14% of women – compared to 19% of men - believe that Labour would be the most efficient at running public services, whilst 25% of women think that a Cameron administration would deliver more cardios for their cash. As Seema Malhotra from the Fabians points out, Labour need to be clearer about where taxpayers’ money goes, what it delivers, and what would happen if it were withdrawn.
Women’s concern for efficiency makes sense. As carers, they are often in charge of domestic budgets. Caring on the frontline, they are the ones that make the case to male partners about exactly how much needs to be saved for food, school uniforms, books and medicine cabinets. More often out at work, men don’t see these needs. British women may think that the men who make up 80% of Parliament will also be too busy with other priorities to leave enough for caring budgets. In such circumstances, they may prefer the Tories to balance the books than to trust mixed Labour promises that might not be kept. To prevent women sleepwalking into belittling the quality of the services they value, we need to address these concerns.
An alternative version of this post first appeared at Comment is Free.
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The noise when the Blairs visited the Booths! Sisiter in law or aka Barbie as she was known locally seemed to be dressed for a tart's party daily.
I read that you would be worried by receiving an invite to a Pimps and Tarts party-how do you survive in the real world Rowenna?
I have a girl friend who was also at St Hildas (you would be shocked to learn how she makes a living) but she is not a male hater.
I dislike your generalisation that women are the "ones that make the case to male partners about exactly how much needs to be saved for food, school uniforms, books and medicine cabinets".
What utter tosh. In my family and from conversation's with friends it's always a coming together of needs and wants and how much is available for pay for certain items. No one person has the final say it's a joint decision.
Patronising ("Matronising"?) generalising crap. How *dare* you tell me what I "don't see"? Is this what the lecture notes said on your Wimmin's Studies course when you got round to reading them? Meanwhile I'll just get on with working (as my wife does), shopping (ditto) and looking after the children (ditto) if that's OK with you. I do most of the cooking and food shopping so I'm afraid I probably know more about food prices than she does- maybe we're completely unique in this respect. Or maybe you're a Viz spoof, in which case, you got me.
"Labour’s commitment to the public sector no longer seems to come from the heart, but from political pragmatism"
Do you read your articles before pressing send? What could be more politically pragmatic than changing his views on a subject (in this case women) because of the results of an opinion poll?
I'm not aware I made any slurs or insults about you or claimed to know anything about your family or background, if I had I would apologise. Can you point out exactly where I have done that so I can apologise?
Education should be seperate from politics, that is one of the problems with the New Labour project and for that matter the Conservative administration before it. Education isn't a political football and shouldn't be treated as such. Yes, government should make sound judgements on education policy, but they don't, they make monumentally stupid mistakes which effects the children of that year. More decisions should be made by headteachers and teachers who have trained specifically to make those decisions, not a politician who in majority of cases have been moved from another government department where they didn't do a particularly good job either. Are you suggesting that a mother or father needs to be political to be interested in the education of their child? Genuine question.
Now about whether if you replaced 'women' with 'swing voters' - you'd have written a different article that didn't include "Caring on the frontline, they are the ones that make the case to male partners about exactly how much needs to be saved for food, school uniforms, books and medicine cabinets" wouldn't you? Or would that statement have remained in the article if it focused on swing voters?
I know full well you were not saying Labour should only listen to women, my point was that you're not listening to women. You've included a myriad of links to reports and surveys, but have you sat down with a cross section of women and asked them what they want? Whether they feel like they are being listened to? And my point, possibly hidden by some impromptu ranting, is that nobody is being listened to at the moment, so why should government pay special attention to one particular group for the coming election? I disagree that women have been ignored or not listened to enough in the recent past, in fact I think quite the opposite has happened in some cases.
I realise I'm banging on a bit here but kind request, when you say "other priorities to leave enough for caring budgets" could you explain in your view what men view as a higher priority than caring budgets? I'm interested because if we define the caring budget in the same way, that particular budget overrides anything else in our family household as I know it does in many other households, so I'm curious to what these other priorities are from your perspective.
You mean to say a large % of the UK's women can actually add up and know that spending more than you get coming in isn't clever?
You mean to say a large % of the UK's women haven't been bought off by the blatantly sexist and racist nonsense that big "sister" Harriet has dumped on us all to "help" them?
But despite all this right-on leftie feministas like you still write rubbish. I suggest you rewrite your piece and change the references to the sexes about 180 degrees and see how sexist it reads then.
I'm sure you'd be telling us dumb men how women are intrinsically better at maths as well if it wasn't for the recent GCSE Maths results that showed another of NuLabour's lies up.
I'll agree with "As carers, they are often in charge of domestic budgets" but in response I'll say "as workers, men ar often in charge of family income and budgets". See what I did there? Now taken together what does that tell you? That anyone of any sex in any given relationship may or may not be in charge of money? That is may be a joint responsibility? That your moronic and crude sexism pretending to be "feminism" is yet another reason why NuLabour needs consigning to the scrapheap?
I'd say the UK's women have got you and yours about right, they say "time to go" to you and it is exactly that.
Male and Female roles and caricatures are precisely what was being left behind. Now they are being reasserted by the 'feminists' leaders themselves. The feminism 'movement' itself has become the main part of the problem - its leaders are more interested in being big fish in a half-sized pond. They have power only while they maintain the divisions they were originally supposed to eradicate.
Labours womens policy doesn't want the true equality ('gender blindness') we are actually achieving - they want to return to clear divisions of gender roles, and conflict between them to maintain the misandronistic 'arms' industry that they control.
A parallel problem to labour and unions themselves -- they long ago achieved what most people actually wanted from them, now they only reinforce division and discontent to give themselves a purpose and their leaders a healthy income (at the expense of their original purpose).
Well he didn't charm my astute wife who spotted quite early on that he was an oily chancer who would say and do anything to serve his own ends. The only good thing she has got to say about Gordon Brown was that at least he was partly responsible for getting the dreadful grasping Cherie out of public life.
1) I'm not saying that Labour should only listen to women. I'm saying that this is a valuable group that often carries elections that has been ignored in the past. Good strategy now means listening to their concerns. I wonder if I replaced the word "women" with "swing voters" you'd still have a problem.
2) I don't know what politics is to you, but to me it's not something separate to eduction, struggling to hold down a job or even maintaing a good relationship. Certain policies can make these things easier or harder for people. That's why I care about it. True, people don't always make these connections, but this is what politics should be about, and you limit it by thinking it's just a bunch of power play in Westminster.
3) You can disagree all you want with my statement that most carers are women in society - it's still a fact. Read the report. I think your confusing me saying "Women do most of the caring" with "men can't be carers" or "men who work rather than look after the kids are terrible". I completely disagree with those second two statements, as I'm sure your wife and children do.
4) You clearly have absolutely no information about my family or background. Please don't resort to personal insults - it just makes you look like you can't handle my actual arguments.
Can we please just take the blinkers of and see the truth The Labour Goverment
is no longer trusted or belived .
Trust is hard if not near impossible to get back when its been lost .
ricki
Please listen to what we are saying. Get rid of Brown and let us have a leader with principals and integrity - who believes in something more than a need to have power and control over the rest of us.
I realise you have put a bit of effort into this article so obviously you've had a think, but any idea how many women don't give a rat's behind about politics? Any idea of how many of them are struggling to keep a job going and manage a home, a meaningful relationship with their other half and busily panicking about their children's education? How many are sat with their significant other right now puzzling how to pay the bills and crying away their evening into a bottle of wine? How many are feeling the strain on their relationship with their partner because of finances and thinking they may do a Shirley Valentine? Why would they sit there and wonder what you're thinking? Why would they even take what you've just written seriously at all?
The problem is here you're speaking from a perspective that doesn't match the women who are working hard all around this country. They share the views of their spouses sometimes and although that might be difficult to stomach, there are still a good majority of couples who share their lives and political beliefs. They share the view that GB is an incompetent fool, that his cabinet is full of people who really should know better but no one is surprised that they don't and the majority just want a better life. Remember the one promised every year for the past 12?
I object to your statement that women do most of the caring in society, but I would because I'm male and I have to work away from home a lot. My wife works hard too, she stays at home with our children and manages the house, pays the bills on time and ensures we eat well cooked food. I miss the time with my kids, I don't see their first step or hear their first word and because of that I am not a caring father am I? I'm heartless because I strive for a better life for my kids and try my best to give them a nice place to live, good food and a decent education. Or maybe you have your head stuck in some form of time warp and you think I come from work and brandish a slipper.
Do me a favour, reread your article and think about it from the average woman's perspective and ask yourself whether they give a flying monkey whether or not GB is considering their personal view or whether they are wondering what the rest of us are, when he'll be leaving Downing Street and making politics look slightly better than a comedy show from the 1930's. Then wonder out of the 2000 and odd women polled whether they are actually from a regular household or whether they are women spoken to on the streets of central London, or if thats too subtle, career women or women who choose to have a family, having their children as a career whilst having to work pretty much dead end jobs to make sure bills are paid because their husband works on minimum wage for the council while he studies a computer qualification in the hope to regain a touch of pride and a larger wage so his wife gets more time at home with the kids so they turn out right.
And just to make it crystal clear, I know how much a loaf of bread is, I do the majority of the food shopping and I know precisely how much my children's clothes cost because I picked them and bought them, so take your biased and sexist view to the circles you move in where they all believe you to be right. All you know about the modern family or how men and women function in today's society is written in a trendy paper or from an opinion poll, meanwhile I ask real people and I live it every day. Maybe you should try it and your writing may gain a bit of reality and truth.
Oh come on! An extra £1 Trillion of debt since 1997 and also the annual tax take has nigh on doubled.
If you think Labour have been doing a good management job, then I can assure you that you will be equally thrilled by Luton as a holiday destination. The activities and services that the town lay on for holidaymakers are second to none. Right up your street.