Julia Gillard's venture into the so-called ''gender wars'' has been an unmitigated disaster with the voting public. The latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows she has won her government no new support among women.

To be exact, Labor's share of the women's vote rose by 1 percentage point, which is within the poll's margin of error of 2.6 percentage points and not statistically significant. Yet her comments have lost the government the support of more than a fifth of the men who were prepared to vote Labor a month ago.

The percentage of male voters who have abandoned Labor - 7 per cent - equates to about half a million men walking away from the party compared with the previous poll.

Fewer than one in four men in Australia - 24 per cent - now count themselves as likely Labor voters.