Weaponising women and gender:Party appeals to women ahead of the 2024 UK General Election

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 paper reviews the latest British Election Study data to identify the heterogeneity of women voters’ concerns and examines how the two main Westminster parties are developing appeals to women voters in the build up to the next 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 - for example, childcare policies - and party attempts to ‘weaponise’ the woman question around status issues. We highlight both fiscal and governance constraints that parties face in winning women’s votes where the national picture encompasses devolved policy making. We conclude by pointing to the enduring nature of gendered inequalities despite the electoral battle ahead.