Charlotte Vere: We Conservatives need a fundamental rethink to win the trust of women

Charlotte Vere is the Executive Director of the Girls’ Schools Association.  She is also the Founder of Women On, a campaign group for women in the economy, and was formerly the Finance Director of No2AV.  She was the Conservative PPC in Brighton Pavilion in 2010. Follow Charlotte on Twitter.

This is the first contribution to a week long ConservativeHome series on women.

If you are brave enough to dip your toe into the debate around women, the expectation is that you will fall into one of two camps: the pro-quota, pro-positive discrimination proponents, driven by radical feminists and the ‘equalities industry’, or 1950s-rooted traditionalists warning of imminent social destruction should mums go out to work.  Both are misguided.

To make any headway in gaining the trust of women, the Conservatives need to offer something new. They need to rethink the issue entirely, by starting with a Miliband-style blank piece of paper and drawing up a long-term strategy to reconnect.  Contrary to the intransigent beliefs of some, it is possible to construct a strong Conservative message based on core values of choice, responsibility and self-reliance which chimes with women.  A pragmatic message rooted in economic resilience and social success, which resonates with the country we live in today, rather than harking back to the country of yore.

Charlotte Vere: Conservatives must start talking about women in order to help achieve true equality between the genders

Charlotte Vere is the founder of Women On, a new think tank for women.

Despite decades of equalities activism and legislation, women are still not reaching their full potential – there are more women than men in workless households, there are far fewer female entrepreneurs, there is a dearth of women in the boardroom. The list goes on.

But many campaigners for women have done themselvves, and the group they claim to represent, no favours.  They cling to the misguided belief that a 50:50 gender split is a viable goal, that parity across all walks of life is achievable and desirable. Of course it isn’t, and by claiming it is, campaigners have alienated both men and women and pushed an important debate to the outer reaches of politics. People aren’t at ease talking about "women".

Is there an alternative? Perhaps. Instead of striving for equality of numbers and promoting women at the expense of men to achieve a baseless target, we need a goal of "true equality". This is certainly a more nebulous and ill-definable concept but one which doesn’t make promises it can’t deliver. True Equality is the state which exists when men and women have equality of opportunity and a breadth of choice, a state in which a natural equilibrium occurs between men and women. 

Charlotte Vere: Women should not be on boards because of tokenism, but because they create jobs and make good decisions

Charlotte Vere is the founder of Women On, a new think tank for women.

Whilst it is a relief that the government has woken up to women, I can’t help feeling that some of the focus is just a tad elitist and won’t make a jot of different to the millions of women striving day-to-day at home and in the workplace.

Today’s focus is women on boards. More specifically, women on FTSE 100 boards or, at a push, on FTSE 350 boards. Assuming that each FTSE 100 company has on average 12 directors, we are focusing on who does or does not fill 1,200 very highly paid jobs available only to people of extraordinary talent. An elitist competition indeed.

But let’s play the game for a while, and join in this concern for the elite. Does the gender make-up of boards really matter?