Why Conservative Women Still Lead While Young Voters Shift Left

A Gallup poll indicates that women under 30 now identify as liberal at a rate of 40%, while only 21% label themselves conservative. Nonetheless, the highest political positions are occupied by conservative women, including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Japan’s Sanae Takaichi and Britain’s Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, with Meloni and Takaichi breaking ground as their nations' first female heads of government. Historian Dominic Green explains that periods of national crisis often propel right-wing female leaders to power, citing immigration and inflation in Italy and economic stagnation and security concerns in Japan.

He also argues that major parties sell the notion of "having it all" to young women, yet those who truly achieve that balance tend to be religious conservatives, exemplified by figures such as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, second lady Usha Vance and activist Riley Gaines. Green contrasts the left’s focus on expanding career and reproductive options with the right’s emphasis on family and motherhood, noting that young women are caught between these messages. He concludes by urging the Republican Party to adopt a more welcoming stance toward women, inviting them to join rather than exclude them based on rigid ideological standards.