Enough of this schlock: an interesting editorial on Labour and women

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1419843,00.html

New Labour has a problem with women. You can tell, because Ruth Kelly is popping up everywhere like the acceptable face of jack-in-the-box, and also because of the figures. In 1997, 44% of women supported Labour. This time round, the projected proportion is 36%. Females over 55 are a particular thorn, scoring high on disappointment and contributing, thanks to their rude health, one-fifth of the electorate.

Why are we so disenchanted, us girls? Back in September, Tessa Jowell blamed the confrontational language of politics. "We could do without the militaristic language about 'frontlines' and so on," she opined, in the weird contention, so soon after a war, that what the distaff voter objected to about militarism wasn't the conflict itself but all the beastly words.

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There is nothing objectionable about the word "frontline". Certainly, there are voters, and some will be female, who feel "betrayed" by Blair, but it's a ludicrous leap of misogyny to get from "betrayed" to "betrayed lover". Those concepts resemble one another only in so far as any act of treachery resembles any other. The irritating thing about this language is that once you're a betrayed lover rather than a betrayed voter, than a) everything's fair, this being love (unlike democracy, in which some things are demonstrably more fair than others) and b) you can probably be re-wooed with a bottle of Babycham.

<snip>

There is sense in the idea that women will respond positively to a party with a lot of women in it, since it's a clear gesture of commitment towards gender equality. However, once you start to refine that, to focus on women with whom female voters might "identify", it becomes the very opposite: a gesture of bad faith in women's ability to sort issues from personalities.

It is not a word. It is two words. Front Line.