There’s a contradiction happening in politics. Young women are moving left in record numbers, while more conservative women are holding positions of power.
A poll from Gallup showed 40% of women under the age of 30 identify as liberal, versus 21% who identify as conservative.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and Britain’s Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch are examples of conservative women who serve in positions of political leadership. Meloni and Takaichi are also the first women to serve as heads of government for their countries.
The Washington Examiner asked historian Dominic Green: How does the paradox of record-setting, left-leaning women coexist with powerful female conservative heads of government?
“There does seem to be a pattern where in time of crisis, democracies reach for a right-wing female leader,” Green said. “With Giorgia Meloni in Italy there’s the illegal immigration and inflation, and in Japan with the stagnation and serious strategic challenge from China.”
Green further specified that it’s not always about a state’s crisis, institutions, or circumstances that lead to the rise of these women. It goes further into what the political roots of each state’s parties are willing to offer young women.
Green stated the biggest mainstream version parties have tried to sell to young women is that they can “have it all.”
“Ironically though, the women who come closest to having it all are often religious women who are on the Right,” Green said.
He pointed out figures such as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, second lady Usha Vance, and former college swimmer-turned-activist Riley Gaines, all of whom have families and husbands.
“You can try everything at the same time, but some choices matter more than others,” Green said. “Having children matters more than having a career.”
Leavitt, following this trend, announced in August that she was leaving her position to spend more time with her family and provide for her newborn daughter.
On the other hand, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced she was freezing her eggs. On Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez noted issues like women needing to have their own full lives, there being different standards for women and men when it comes to reproductive health, and how demanding and invasive a political career is when trying to have a family.
The Left has traditionally emphasized expanding women’s choices: education, careers, reproductive freedom, and the ability to delay marriage and children. The Right has increasingly emphasized something different: family, marriage, motherhood, and the idea that those choices shouldn’t be treated as obstacles to a meaningful life.
Young women appear to wrestle with both sides of the message.
Green’s advice is to support those women and welcome them into the Republican Party.
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“We should say to them, ‘Come on in, the water’s lovely, ‘ instead of, ‘you don’t measure up to our exacting ideological standards,’” Green said. “We have to summon a real generosity and say, we’re going to move from here — come with us.”
Women may be more conservative than they believe they are. At a time when they are the most left‑leaning in modern history, it may still be conservative women who end up defining what leadership, and “having it all,” really looks like.