There have been times when I (very secretly) wished women had never got the vote. In nearly every election from 1945 to 2015, more women voted Tory than men; men-only votes would often have given us Labour governments. God knows why – older women’s traditional fear of change, social aspiration? But no longer.
Labour now has a larger lead among women than it does among men, according to a new Women’s Budget Group (WBG) poll. But a quarter of women have still not made up their minds, compared with just 11% of men (they are equally likely to vote). Despite “a generational trend of female voters moving away from Conservatives and towards Labour, our polling shows that women’s votes are in no way guaranteed and should not be taken for granted by any political party,” says its research and policy director, Zubaida Haque.
So what’s keeping them? Labour’s headline policies all affect women even more than men: more women have insecure jobs, and are at risk of fire and rehire, and are less able to access employment tribunals, especially when illegally sacked due to pregnancy, as the WBG records.
If those “undecided” women had heard Rachel Reeves on Wednesday, speaking at the launch of her book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, they might have been persuaded how far this likely first woman chancellor, a feminist, would change priorities in their favour. Reeves has had to apologise for failing to “properly reference” her book after it emerged passages were lifted from Wikipedia and the Guardian, but nonetheless her own comments on these economists reveal far more about her economic thinking than we knew before. On the damage done by the 15% pay gap between women and men, she said at her launch: “I’ll be the first chancellor to close the gap once and for all.” She uses the term “everyday economics” when she talks of how women in social care, retail, education and health “need a wage they can live on”: she says flexible, affordable childcare is key to ending the pay gap. Every company, every City firm, relies on these everyday economics, she said, meaning the labour of lower-paid women. It’s not a side issue, but the underpaid, undervalued jobs woman do are at the heart of all social inequality. She would return paying benefits to each household’s main carer: universal credit reversed that principle, despite years of research showing that, once credits go into the pockets of men, far fewer reach their children.
Women rank “cost of living” as their top concern in polls, while men rank “the economy” high. Is that just stylistic, if they both mean the same? Rosie Campbell, professor of politics at King’s College London, says “economics” is a male word partly because it relates to the value of wealth, shares and pensions, things possessed far more by men than women. By the age of 64, men have 42% more wealth than women and there’s a 90% gap in men and women’s private pension assets.
Women are less likely to say they are interested in politics (so many Westminster men revealed as gropers hardly makes that word attractive). But when “politics” is presented as particular policies, women are just as keenly interested, says Campbell – as everyone who has ever canvassed on doorsteps knows. All the harm done by wage stagnation, public service cuts, rent rises and food-price rises always affects women most, as the WBG has monitored for years, yet too little of that disadvantage filters through to the “politics” some women shun.
That’s why it matters that there are too few female economists. When Reeves joined the Bank of England, an intake of 36 had only six women: all six left. Only just over a third of Treasury economists are women, her book reveals, only 19% of economics professors are women and only three women have ever won the Nobel prize for economics.
It matters because the economic world looks so different through women’s eyes. Of course, some men see it: Gus O’Donnell, ex-cabinet secretary turned radical, asked Reeves at the launch if GDP measurement should change to include all the unpaid, uncounted work and productivity of women as carers on which the country depends. Plainly pleased with the question, she was not about to be drawn into what the Tories would turn into some maniacal attack. Her heroine is Janet Yellen, first woman secretary of the US treasury, whose policies she plans to pursue, “in-sourcing” green industrial jobs back to Britain, levered in with state investment: good new jobs, she stresses, for women and men.
Almost every issue looks different through the female lens: a GB News poll this week found 51% of men oppose 20mph speed limits in built-up areas, but only 31% of women. Women give the NHS and the climate a higher priority than men. Those caring for adults naturally put social care high up. The Women’s Budget Group has found that a third of women caring for children rank education as one of their top three priorities, compared with only 14% of all voters.
Remember how Margaret Thatcher, as first woman prime minister, shunned any hint of feminism, appointing as few women to her cabinet as possible, refusing questions on women’s rights. Harriet Harman was fearless when she first asked Thatcher at prime minister’s questions about childcare in school holidays: Thatcher dismissed it as nothing to do with government, and the House of Commons roared with laughter. Now this probable first woman chancellor has no fear that feminism would damage her. An Ipsos poll this week finds she is seen as more capable as chancellor than Jeremy Hunt by a margin of 41% to 29%. So why are a quarter of women still “undecided” on whom to vote for?
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
