{"title":"Weaponizing women and gender: Party appeals to women voters ahead of the 2024 UK general election","authors":"Anna Sanders, F. Gains","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsae021","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Whilst there are significant electoral advantages for political parties to target women’s votes, scholarship on recent electoral appeals questions the quality of gendered policy promises to address deep structural gender inequalities existing within the British state. This article examines British Election Study data to identify women voters’ concerns and explores how the two largest Westminster parties developed appeals to women voters in the build up to the 2024 UK general election through an analysis of leadership speeches to the 2023 party conferences. We find a disconnect between women’s electoral demands to address class-based gender inequalities and party attempts to ‘weaponize’ the woman question around status issues. We conclude by pointing to the enduring nature of gendered inequalities despite the election of a Labour government, which targeted appeals more closely to the class-based concerns of women voters.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Parliamentary Affairs","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsae021","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Whilst there are significant electoral advantages for political parties to target women’s votes, scholarship on recent electoral appeals questions the quality of gendered policy promises to address deep structural gender inequalities existing within the British state. This article examines British Election Study data to identify women voters’ concerns and explores how the two largest Westminster parties developed appeals to women voters in the build up to the 2024 UK general election through an analysis of leadership speeches to the 2023 party conferences. We find a disconnect between women’s electoral demands to address class-based gender inequalities and party attempts to ‘weaponize’ the woman question around status issues. We conclude by pointing to the enduring nature of gendered inequalities despite the election of a Labour government, which targeted appeals more closely to the class-based concerns of women voters.
期刊介绍:
Parliamentary Affairs is an established, peer-reviewed academic quarterly covering all the aspects of government and politics directly or indirectly connected with Parliament and parliamentary systems in Britain and throughout the world. The journal is published in partnership with the Hansard Society. The Society was created to promote parliamentary democracy throughout the world, a theme which is reflected in the pages of Parliamentary Affairs.