Almost from the moment he became opposition leader in December 2009, the accepted political wisdom has been that Tony Abbott has a "women problem".
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It was a reputation that former prime minister Julia Gillard capitalised on in her "misogyny speech" in 2012, when she launch a stinging parliamentary attack that rolled out as evidence a series of statements, gaffes and missteps that Abbott had made over the years, including a comment that abortion was the easy way out and the suggestion that men might be, "by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command".
To counter that perception, in part, Abbott made a "captain's pick" in March 2010, announcing a very generous paid parental leave scheme. In two election campaigns, Abbott has often appeared in public with his wife and daughters by his side; his chief of staff Peta Credlin has publicly defended him from the accusations of sexism levelled at him by Labor.
Since becoming Prime Minister, Abbott has not helped his own cause by naming only one woman to his cabinet or suggesting in 2014 that removing the carbon tax was his greatest achievement for women.
But the rising fortunes of the Prime Minister in Monday's Fairfax-Ipsos poll poses the question: do female voters still dislike Tony Abbott?
A year ago, after the release of the first Abbott-Joe Hockey budget, the answer was a resounding yes.
In May 2014, 54 per cent of female voters nominated Opposition Leader Bill Shorten as their preferred prime minister; Abbott was the preferred prime minister for just 36 per cent of women, in the Fairfax Nielsen poll.
With men, Shorten led Abbott by the smaller margin of 48 to 44.
Fast forward to April 2015 and the eve of the second Coalition budget and the Fairfax-Ipsos poll showed Shorten led Abbott by 8 points, 46-38, as the preferred prime minister for female voters; with men, the Shorten-Abbott split was 46-39 in favour of the Opposition Leader.
And now, following the release of the government's second budget, the May 2015 poll shows Abbott and Shorten are virtually level as preferred prime minister among female voters - the Opposition Leader is favoured among female voters by just 40 to 39 per cent.
Drilling down into the numbers further shows that between May 2014 and May 2015 Abbott's standing with female voters as preferred prime minister only improved by 3 percentage points, from 36 to 39 per cent.
But Shorten has suffered a precipitous 14 percentage point drop in support among female voters, down from 54 per cent to 40 per cent in that year.
So while Abbott only marginally improved his standing, Shorten has suffered a big hit in his standing among women.
And the most striking shift is arguably among male voters; between May 2014 and May 2015 Shorten's standing with men fell 10 percentage points, from 48 to 38 per cent. At the same time, Abbott's standing among men rose 5 percentage points, from 44 to 49 per cent.
So have female voters - despite much of the post budget debate centring on whether new mums were rorting the system if they "double-dipped" and accessed two paid parental leave schemes - overcome their dislike for the Prime Minister and his Coalition government?
Perhaps the $3.5 billion childcare and families package offset any damage Abbott may have suffered by abandoning his proposal for a more generous paid parental leave scheme and adopting a less generous one. Time will tell.
Abbott's standing with female voters has improved in the past 12 months, but he is still far more popular with men.
On a two-party-preferred basis women still prefer Labor to the Coalition, though the gap has narrowed considerably.
In May 2014, Labor enjoyed a 61-39 lead over the Coalition among women; by May 2015, the lead had narrowed to 52-48.
But among male voters, Labor's 55-45 lead over the Coalition in May 2014 has been smashed; the Coalition now leads Labor 52-48 in the two-party-preferred vote.
A similar trend can be seen when looking at primary voting intentions - while men and women have both swung their support back towards the Coalition in the past month, the government is more popular among male voters on this measure too.
The Coalition's primary vote with women has improved by 8 percentage points, from 33 per cent to 41 per cent between May 2014 and May 2015; among men, there has also been an 8 percentage point improvement, but the rise has been from a higher starting point, from 38 to 46 per cent.
And again, the numbers are bad news for Labor with a 6 point drop in their primary vote among male voters from May 2014 to May 2015 (from 39 per cent to 33 per cent) - and a smaller but significant drop among women, from 40 to 36 per cent.
Fairfax Ipsos pollster Jessica Elgood explains it like this: "We've seen a firming up of the Coalition's performance, a favourably perceived budget and, in doing so they have clawed back some of the Coalition vote among women."
"There has been some rise in women who prefer Abbott as PM but there is, actually, still a significant cohort of women who prefer neither Shorten nor Abbott," she said.
"The Prime Minister has some way to go to win back support from women voters as opposed to male voters, who are relatively more convinced."
The poll found that 21 per cent of female voters preferred neither Abbott nor Shorten; 13 per cent of male voters nominated neither man.
So do female voters have a problem with the Prime Minister?
On the available evidence, the Prime Minister and his party are clearly more popular with men, but Abbott's support among female voters is also on the rise.
And Shorten, for his part, needs to do more to appeal to male voters.
