Women’s Intuition: Is it Something About Pierre?

Pierre Poilievre’s struggles with women voters may not only be about policy—they may be about perception, tone, and instinct.

In the spring of 2025, the Conservative Party of Canada finds itself caught in a curious tension. On the one hand, Pierre Poilievre is doing well among a certain slice of the electorate—particularly disaffected men who see in him a vessel for their frustration. On the other, he has hit an electoral wall: women. Consistently, persistently, across every poll, and all age groups, women are rejecting him by double-digit margins.

This isn’t just a voting pattern. It’s a signal. And if we want to understand what it might mean—not just for this campaign, but for the culture at large—we have to consider something deeper than policy differences or partisanship. What we appear to be witnessing is an instinctual, emotional, and even biological response from millions of women who look at Pierre Poilievre and sense, in some hard-to-define way, that something’s off.

The Gender Gap Is a Character Gap

The polling data tells a clear story. According to Nanos Research, women back the Liberals over the Conservatives by 23 points. Angus Reid puts the gender gap at 19 points. Poilievre’s favorability among women is notably low: 61% of women view him unfavorably. Meanwhile, Mark Carney enjoys positive numbers and a strikingly higher level of trust among female voters.

This isn’t just a matter of programmatic preference. Sure, women tend to support stronger social safety nets—healthcare, childcare, reproductive rights—all areas where Poilievre’s small-government, libertarian instincts offer little reassurance. But the divide may run deeper. It may have to do with tone, affect, and a kind of moral signaling that many voters interpret as reflective of deeper character.

Women and the Evolution of Intuition

Let’s acknowledge something fundamental: women have historically been socially and biologically conditioned to assess men carefully. Over millennia, women developed especially attuned instincts for reading cues of trustworthiness and threat in male behavior. The stakes were always high—who would protect them, who might harm them, who could be counted on. That vigilance, still embedded in our neurobiology, may manifest today as what we often call “women’s intuition.”

Psychologists sometimes describe this as an adaptive early-warning system: a heightened sense for danger, ambiguity, or duplicity. Women, more than men, are often taught to read between the lines—to pay attention to tone, body language, and respect for boundaries. They develop a capacity to detect when someone’s energy doesn’t align with their words, when friendliness may mask contempt, when charm seems too rehearsed.

In politics, as in life, those instincts remain active. And in Poilievre’s case, a significant number of women appear to be picking up a signal—an incongruity they may not be able to explain rationally, but can feel intuitively.

Artificial Masculinity and the “Glow-Up” Effect

Poilievre’s recent makeover has only sharpened this perception for some voters. In the past year, he’s adopted a new look—tight T-shirts, contact lenses, a trimmer physique, an aggressive fitness regimen, and a fake tan. On social media, he now appears stylized, polished, more image-conscious than ever before.

To many male observers, this might seem like a logical political rebrand—“strong leader” optics in the age of Instagram. But to some female voters, it comes across differently: as performative fake masculinity. As a kind of costume. And in a cultural moment already saturated with artificial male posturing, many women may be particularly attuned to the difference between authenticity and aesthetic engineering.

We’ve seen this pattern elsewhere. Mark Zuckerberg, once a hoodie-wearing coder, now posts shirtless photos of himself sparring in a UFC octagon. Elon Musk, the awkward inventor, now exudes techno-alpha confidence with designer hair plugs and cryptic X posts. Jeff Bezos, once a mild-mannered CEO, transformed into a yacht-bound caricature of male midlife reinvention. These “tech-bro glow-ups” offer a blueprint for socially challenged status-seeking men looking to rebrand vulnerability into dominance.

Poilievre’s makeover seems to follow this playbook. And while some may admire the transformation, others appear to see through it. Because for many women, real strength doesn’t announce itself through spray-on toughness. The men they admire aren’t the ones trying to prove they’re men.

This isn’t about looks. It’s about signaling. When a politician suddenly starts dressing like a startup founder trying to impress a venture capitalist, it raises questions: What is he compensating for? What’s he hiding? Who is he really?

Perception Is Reality

This is where Poilievre’s challenge with women crystallizes—not just in what he says, but in how he presents, how he reacts, how he carries himself. His clipped speech. His sarcasm. His combative stance toward journalists. His tendency to dominate rather than persuade. These traits may energize a populist base, but to many women, they register as emotionally closed-off, reactive or threatening.

There’s also the controversy around the #MGTOW hashtags that were quietly embedded in some of his YouTube videos—a connection to a fringe misogynistic movement. He disavowed the association when it came to light, and there’s no evidence that he personally inserted the tags. Still, for some women, it was a moment of dissonance—a passing glimpse behind the curtain that aligned with their preexisting discomfort.

Even seemingly offhand remarks—like a recent comment invoking women’s “biological clocks” in a speech about housing affordability—are received by some not as economic analysis, but as tone-deaf condescension. These moments reinforce a perception: that this may be a politician who misunderstands women’s lives, or does not place their concerns at the center of his worldview.

Carney as the Anti-Glow-Up

Contrast that with Mark Carney, who has not undergone a reinvention so much as a steady emergence. He projects calm, seriousness, and restraint. His background as a central banker gives him gravitas. His speech is unhurried. His temperament is measured. He doesn’t posture. He doesn’t perform masculinity—he simply inhabits his role.

Women, according to polling, respond positively to that. They trust it—not because he tells them what they want to hear, but because his tone and manner suggest someone who understands complexity, who doesn’t mock difference, and who doesn’t need to flex in order to lead.

He is not without flaws, of course. But he seems to meet the moment with a kind of emotional credibility. That, more than ideology, may explain his broader appeal.

The Gut Test

Every election carries an unspoken emotional test. For men, it’s often the “beer test”—which candidate would you want to hang out with? For many women, the question can be more intuitive: Would I feel at ease in this person’s presence?

It’s not about assuming malice or danger. It’s about gauging trust, emotional safety, and integrity. It’s shorthand for an entire set of subconscious judgments about character.

And when that gut-level test is applied to Pierre Poilievre, a significant number of women appear to fail him. Their intuition, based on tone, posture, and emotional cues, suggests something doesn’t quite align. That he’s trying too hard to project strength. That he listens too little. That in his anger and tone he seems to be driven by resentment more than guiding principles.

Intuition as Civic Insight

To be clear, this is not a moral condemnation. Pierre Poilievre has no known record of personal misconduct. This is not a courtroom, but a campaign. And elections are character studies—public auditions for trust and leadership.

The instincts many women bring to those judgments aren’t shallow or sentimental. They are forged in lived experience and honed over time, both culturally and personally. And when large numbers of women arrive at the same unspoken but persistent unease, that’s not just electoral noise—it’s a kind of civic signal.

It may not always be easy to define in the language of polling or policy. But it is often early. And history has shown that women are frequently the first to notice the cracks—before the façade crumbles.

So when millions of women look at a would-be prime minister and quietly say, “No, something isn’t right,” it’s worth asking what they see—and what the rest of us might be missing.