Winning women's votes
Wednesday, 9 June 2004
Women are not a minority in Britain or Stevenage. But, as recent reports produced by the Electoral Commission and the Fawcett Society vividly illustrate this fact continues to elude our main political parties.
Sidelined, ignored and discounted for 11 months of the year, women only become important to politicians in the run up to an election. Then, courting the votes of 52% of the population becomes urgent again.
This, to put it mildly, infuriates me. As a woman and as a politician I am fed up with banging on about what you have to do to win women’s votes. This is met with indifference, amused interest or fawning eagerness by the mainly male hierarchies of Britain’s political parties, depending on the stage of the electoral cycle that we have reached.
As we are, once again, in a fawning eagerness phase this might be a good time to do a little more shouting into the wind. So, listen up boys, this is serious.
Listen up
In fact, listening is the single most important thing politicians have to do to win women’s votes. By this I do not mean endless government consultations or meaningless party political exercises. I mean paying attention to what is being said and reacting to it. A few sagacious nods, or a brief acknowledgement of the speaker’s position followed by a rapid segue into your main message simply will not do. Forget the media training. Listen, react and relate.
Then you will start to come over as a real person, not a waffle machine. That is what people, especially women, want their politicians to be. If you do not know something, say so. If you make a mistake, admit it. People will understand. They are human too. They just want to know that you know what you did. Then they might think about trusting you with their vote again.
Listen then react. Not with a previously memorised line to be taken. But with what you feel. Then you will use real words instead of jargon and people will listen to you. Dialogue, not demagoguery, is what they want. This is particularly true of women. Most of them do not have time to waste on political posturing. They want to know what you are going to do for them. Not what you think of the other party and its politics.
Watch the words you use and the examples you give. Use plain, straightforward language and give real examples. Research has shown that this improves communication with both sexes but particularly with women. This is because they approach politics in a less abstract fashion than men. They want to know how policies will impact on them, their families and their community. In other words, use people not percentages and talk of outcomes not measurements. Eschew the abstract. Concentrate on the concrete.
Segregating issues
Do not patronise the public. Especially women. This means being careful about what you identify as “women’s issues”. They have them, just as men do, but we never bother to segregate theirs. The concerns of men are assumed to be those of the whole human race. Women’s are too.
Remember too that the public have a relationship with you that you do not have with them. They know you. They see you in the local paper. They hear you on the radio. Sometimes they see you on television. This permits close and repeated scrutiny. So, be yourself. Then people may not think you good looking, well dressed or articulate but they will think you sincere. Especially the women.
Sincerity is the key ingredient of trust. Without trust women will not vote for a politician or his or her party. That is why turnout is falling. It is also why politician’s relationship with the voters is failing.
But all is far from lost. There is still a great deal of goodwill around for us to build on. We just have some work to do. Sadly Relate’s services do not extend to political parties or this might be a good point to call them in. But we could use a few of their techniques.
This is not as easy as it sounds. Understanding, empathy, compassion and humility are not words usually applied to our profession. The adjectives most often used are arrogance, selfishness, greed and pride. No wonder people are turned off. To be fair, this is not all the politician’s fault. Britain’s media plays a shoddy part in downgrading public service and fostering hopelessness. But, as we cannot control them, we have to focus on ourselves.
So, watch what you say, be careful about how you say it and, this above all, “to thine own self be true. And then it must follow, as the night does the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”*or more importantly in this case - woman.
Barbara Follett MP
*Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.
