The British government is to use women's magazines and daytime television programmes to target female voters over Europe and the euro amid alarm that the election has confirmed women's disengagement from politics.
As polls show that women are significantly more sceptical about the euro than men, the new women's minister, Patricia Hewitt, is concerned that female voters - particularly those under 30 - are so turned off by the current style of political debate that they are turning away from national issues altogether in favour of local matters. She plans to make reconnecting with female voters a key plank of her programme, together with continuing moves to improve worklife balance and equal pay.
"In relation to a possible referendum on the euro, there is a whole issue about how we campaign and how we communicate," she said. "I think women, and particularly younger women, were the least likely to vote of all demographic groups. Women were more turned off by television coverage even than men - they are not interested in very stage-managed `I'm right and you're wrong' kinds of political argument."
Ms Hewitt argues that ministers must explain policies using concrete, personal examples rather than sweeping sets of statistics. Instead of stating that more than one million salaries have risen though the minimum wage, politicians should give examples such as: "Sheila in my constituency has had an increase of a pound an hour in her home-working job and there are over a million like Sheila."
Ms Hewitt will also lead a drive to step up government efforts to sell its message through women's media and TV shows with a high proportion of female viewers.
Though Ms Hewitt is careful not to suggest when or if a euro referendum may come, her words reflect government concern that women will need more persuasion than men to vote in favour of the single currency. A Mori poll for the Economist last week found 31 per cent of men support the euro, compared with 23 per cent of women. While 56 per cent of men oppose entry, 61 per cent of women do so.
Indications that, if the government decides to hold a referendum, it will sell the single currency from the sofas of daytime TV studios are the first signals of how it is planning to conduct the debate.
Mary-Ann Stephenson of the Fawcett Society said the society's polling had shown women were more sceptical than men about the EU as a whole. "To sell the euro, the government will need concrete examples to match the metric martyrs and so on of the other side," she said.
"If the focus of the campaign is all about consensus between trade unions and business and across parties, we are in danger of a campaign presented purely by white men."
