Women make up 52% of the electorate, and nine million women did not vote in the last election. Perhaps this is why the Coalition felt safe enough to wage all-out war on Britain’s female population with a series of austerity measures that disproportionately affected women in a negative way.
Research by the House of Commons Library has determined that nearly 75 per cent of budget savings since 2010 have targeted women’s incomes, and a report by the Women’s Budget Group found that the May 2012 budget primarily leads to women losing out. One fifth of women have an average income consisting of benefit payments, and the planned £10 billion of cuts from welfare spending by 2016-17 will hit women the hardest. Women also make up two thirds of public sector employees, and the 30,000 planned job losses between 2011 and 2017 and proposed ‘regional pay’ rates will have a devastating impact on them.
If austerity is a gendered attack, then it is essential that female voters turn to a party that will protect their interests when they enter the polling stations on May 7th.
