'Pick-Me' Girl Power: Why Conservative Women Choose Patriarchy Over Progress

In 2009, Obama was in the White House, Labour was in government, Elphaba had already been defying gravity for six years on Broadway, and in the film He’s Just Not That Into You, we were asked to suspend our disbelief that Ginnifer Goodwin isn’t a complete goddess. Unlucky in love, she must be coached in men by f*ckboy bartender, Justin Long. Early on he tells her she’s not the exception, she’s the rule, so if a guy is “treating her like he doesn’t give a shit, he genuinely doesn’t give a shit. No exceptions.” Low and behold, by the end of the movie, Justin Long is taking Ginnifer in his arms and saying, “You’re my exception.” Being picked out as the exception is intoxicating. For those of us socialised as little girls, being told you’re “not like other girls” can be the first time we ever feel powerful. It can feel like the price of entry, both in romantic love and politics. This is true even for those of us who come to identify as lesbian, queer, gender non-conforming or trans. Twenty years after its Broadway debut, the world is, once again, Wicked mad. Perhaps the enduring power of Wicked, is that it exposes a universal truth about conservativism and women in power. Glinda is more conservative than her best friend, Elphaba. She believes in the system, she’s famously “Popular,” more classically feminine, and understands how to charm those in power. Elphaba is the more talented, yet Glinda is the one who attains political power while Elphaba, the radical, is villainised, dehumanised for the colour of her skin and literally hunted down. Whether in Westminster, Washington, or the magical land of Oz, women are faced a choice. Are you a Glinda the Good or a Wicked Witch? In other words, make the system work for you and be held up as the exception, or challenge oppressive structures and face character assassination. The intensity of the character attacks on Dianne Abbot and Angela Rayner can feel like something akin to decrying the Labour MP and Deputy Prime Minister as witches. In Western society, female conservativism is still linked to Christian ideas of female purity. When Trump Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, regularly excoriates her predecessor, Karine Jean Pierre, as well as the panellists on The View, she steeps her criticism in the moral superiority of a Christian missionary. Her rhetoric conflates political dissent with incompetence and immorality whilst invoking an almost Victorian fearmongering of female hysteria. In this way, she discredits the often black, brown and queer women who disagree with her as “deranged.” In the UK, Margaret Thatcher and current Leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, are held up as poster girls to prove that conservativism cannot be innately misogynistic or racist. This is an act of wilful ignorance. Badenoch couches her anti-trans hate speech in British “common sense.” She thus situates her own view as the logical and therefore male stance, in opposition to misogynistic ideas of female frailty, insanity and emotionality. Women are more easily allowed to succeed when they uphold systems of oppression. The conservative woman’s brand of girl power grounded in her credentials as a wife, mother and Christian, all identities that link her to structures of male power. Conservative women, above all else, defend their position as the acceptable woman in the room. I was walking into Mighty Hoopla with my girlfriend when I noticed a group of girls all dressed in frilly mini-dresses and cowboy boots. I have a sparkly pink pair myself, but for a queer music festival where one is usually more likely to see throngs of scantily clad gay men and queer people pushing the edge of gendered fashion, this group of uniformly hyper feminine young women was notable. A few minutes later, we saw another group dressed almost identically, then another. My girlfriend’s eyes widened, “Conservative is hot again.”I was wearing a black tank top that said “Dyke” in diamantés across my chest. As we walked home that night, a man shouted at us in the street. My girlfriend and I dropped hands. I covered my chest the rest of the way home. The world outside my front door is feeling more and more conservative.Fashion always says something about the politics of the day. Conservativism is indeed on trend. Like Maggie Thatcher clutched her pearls in the 1980s, conservative women are brandishing cross necklaces and curling irons. The new reality show, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, has been a hit, sparking the “Utah curls” trend and launching the cast into international stardom. “Trad Wives” like Hannah Neeleman are blowing up social media. Her Ballerina Farm account boasts 9.9 million followers on TikTok. The Conservateur is a growing lifestyle empire with a mission to “bring back traditional femininity,” which co-founders, Jayme Franklin and Isabelle Redfield, both in their mid-twenties, see in direct opposition to “more of this feminist, progressive lifestyle.” As a femme lesbian, I like a flouncy pilgrim sleeve and a curly blowout as much as the next girl. I love glamour, I love beauty, and I love fashion, but femininity and feminism are not mutually exclusive. It might be America that The Conservateur is, “Making Hot Again” but women on both sides of the Atlantic are being pulled in. The gloss of beauty hacks and girl bossing covers thinly veiled hate speech and the systematic oppression of others, all to be told “You’re our exception.” Just as the lure of being held up as “the exception” has kept women chasing men who “just aren’t that into them,” in 2025, it’s ennobling a generation of conservative women.In ‘ROTUS: Receptionist of the United States’, queer Irish-American comedian Leigh Douglas plays Chastity Quirke – a rising Republican aide whose faith in the system begins to crack. Blending political satire, theatre and stand-up, the show explores the role of conservative women in upholding patriarchal power. Inspired by real-life figures like Cassidy Hutchinson (the former aide to President Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who testified against the president regarding the January 6th Capitol attack) and Alyssa Farah (Trump’s former assistant).ROTUS is a sharp, darkly funny portrait of loyalty, ambition, and the courage to break ranks and will be at the Gilded Balloon – 30th July – 24th August. For tickets and more info, visit: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:5380/Related...Harrison Ford Opens Up About US Politics Making A ‘Healthy Swing To The Right’Compassion Is Not Weakness – It’s What Our Politics Desperately Needs, MP SaysIf You Think Incels Are 'Gross, Basement Dwellers', Your Smug Politics Are Part Of The Problem

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