The Conservatives Have A Fight On Their Hands When It Comes To Women Voters

Progressive Woman Lucy James attended last week’s Conservative Party conference. You can follow Lucy on twitter @lucyjames01




The Conservatives have a “woman problem”.

In order to win a majority in 2015, they need to secure the female vote. But a range of polls have showed that they are losing popularity amongst women. Recently, a leaked internal memo expressed the Party’s growing concerns. It is clear that they are increasingly aware that they need to improve their female appeal.

If the past year of their coalition leadership is anything to go by, they still have some way to go.

Firstly, there have been the cuts. To begin with, the Coalition failed to undertake a gender impact assessment. Women are now disproportionately bearing the financial burden: as childcare costs increase, child tax credits are frozen; women have been hardest hit by pension reform; two thirds of the public sector jobs that have been cut were held by women; the rise in unemployment is higher amongst women than men.

Let's Not Roll Backwards on Female Equality

This is a guest post by Lucy James and originally appeared in Progressive Women


Political mud-slinging will always be standard practice.

It was inevitable that at a Labour conference, the Coalition would be getting the blame for ‘rolling back the clock’ on female equality – even more so at a conference where Labour were in opposition.

Yvette Cooper, with her Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities hat on, blamed the coalition Government in no uncertain terms as she berated them for implementing drastic cuts to welfare that are having “devastating changes to women’s lives”.

Ed Miliband made the same scathing criticisms against the cuts, particularly in relation to the slow growth of the economy, although they were less focused on specific issues of gender. However, his reference to ‘child-tax credits’ and his language of ‘families’ perhaps paid some lip service to the difficulties women face.

But what made conference far more interesting were the internal debates within the Labour Party itself. This was a conference where Labour was trying to redefine itself – it was Blue versus Purple versus Red.

Women need to be at the frontline of this political redefinition as the resulting outcome will have long-lasting repercussions on Labour’s attitudes and practical policies towards gender equality.