I hope that OP was clear. I have known several females that were fairly to strongly conservative (Democrat) in thoughts and deeds but after hooking up with or marrying a conservative they switched.
One is a daughter in law. She grew up in a strongly conservative home. Her grandfather a lawyer and her mom constantly decrying the right. I’ve known her a while and she she didn’t seem too political up until she married a (sort of) biker. Now she has a Trump sign in the yard, and is an anti-vaxxer.
I also have some nieces that switched. Their mom, my sister, is a strong advocate for liberal causes (you might have seen her on CNN). Now they’ve gone the whole route, Trumpers, Anti-vaxxers, etc.
Also a woman I work with. And others.
I realize this is a pretty small sample but I’ve never heard of a guy switching because of a partners beliefs. Of course I know it’s probably happened.
So I’m wondering if conservatism is more male dominated. This isn’t to disparage ones choices, just wondering if you have heard of a male switching to liberalism due to a partners influence.
My Aunt is very liberal and married a man who was a staunch libertarian. She argued and argued and argued and argued until he finally saw her point. He’s a very opinionated liberal now.
But yes, conservatism and patriarchy often go hand in hand. I think women are also more likely to change POV for a man than vice-versa. But this is also because of the patriarchy. Most women I have known who do this do it because they think being pleasing to their male partner is more important than being true to their values. When my free-spirited liberal grandmother married her second husband, she quickly adopted his conservatism and his racism - at least as far as he knew. As soon as he died, she was back to being a liberal again. She also adjusts her political beliefs for her friends as well. She is a really good example of how cultural conditioning to always be agreeable can really mess a woman up. She was raised in an orphanage so being likeable was a matter of survival to her, I think.
Are you sure they’re becoming conservative because of their partners or because they fell down the rabbit hole? My mother was apolitical most of her life, beliving all politicians to crooks & liars, but she was all to happy to jump on the Trump train. In the years leading up to Trump, she really fell through the online looking glass where her anti-vaxx beliefs were confirmed and reinforced, but it didn’t stop there are she continued her descent. Ashli Babbit supposedly voted for Obama in previous elections but in 2020 she died storming the capitol in order to see Trump get elected. I don’t know if she switched political beliefs for a man, but I’m doubting it.
If anything I’ve become more liberal because my wife watches a lot of Fox News and her family often parrot conservative talking points. I think it mostly has to do with that I find my wife’s family to be very rural and unsophisticated and to my ears Fox News sounds like a bunch of frat guys and their stupid entitled girlfriends talking about how lame the nerds are (regardless of what they are actually talking about).
I guess if like someone you ignore the press (and the facts). But thinking about it, my father was very liberal (though not political) and when he died, my mom sort of drifted the other way - though I’m not sure she’s a Trumper. I hadn’t really thought of it that way until I read your post.
I wasn’t intentionally being vague. I meant it in the broad sense and not concerned with the fuzzy edges.
Conservatism broad strokes:
~ Watches and believes in Fox news
~ Anti-vaxxer
~ Supports banning abortions and gay marriage.
~ Believes in hands-off government - less active government in private or business life.
~ Abolishing antidiscrimination laws, on the basis that they infringe individual freedoms (that is, if you choose to be racist or sexist, you should be permitted to do so).
~ Things were better in the 50’s, etc
I don’t mean the above as a strict definition but if you’ve gone from a liberal viewpoint to 3 or more of the above, I’d say you’ve tiptoed into conservativille.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’” – Ronad Reagan, August 12, 1986.
Smaller government has been a conerstone of conservative ideology for a while now. Even now, conservatives will claim they want less government involvement in business and personal life, but in reality they’re usually very happy for the government to intervene in your personal life.
I’d correct this to, “talking about smaller government has been a cornerstone of conservative ideology for a while now”. Actual smaller government has never been part of the conservative platform – for every part that they want to shrink, they want another part to grow.
I’d say that of my parents, my mother was the conservative one (lots of church attendance, griping about minorities in a “white people can’t get jobs because of affirmative action” kind of way, intensely worried that her kids might be gay or on drugs) while my dad just kind of went along with it until she died and turned moderately more liberal then.
Polling found (as of 2021) that while men were more likely to view themselves as conservative vs. liberal by an approximate 2:1 margin, women were slightly more likely to identify as conservative than liberal (32 to 29%). Most women saw themselves as moderates; for men, being conservative won out over moderate by 41 to 37%.
So the idea of conservatism being “male-centric” appears to be an overstatement. If abortion rights magically disappeared as an issue, the reported gender differences would likely narrow considerably.
If we don’t agree on what conservativism means, how can there be a meaningful discussion of the OP?
And on the point that US conservatives supposedly want less gov’f regulation of business and personal lives, it’s important to look at what they’re actually doing:
To a very mild extent, I’d agree that conservatism is male-centric. But there’s plenty “in it” for conservative women. The majority of Christians are women, for instance, and Christianity and conservatism already overlap a lot, so there is considerable reason for Christian women to endorse conservatism. And one frequent conservative anti-trans argument is that it’s unfair, in sports, to make a cis-woman compete against a transgender athlete who’s really someone who still retains a cis-man body (the more powerful muscles, bones, many years of testosterone, etc.)
You asked about “conservative thought” or “conservatism.” I took that to mean conservatism in general, not limited to a specific time or place. At least some of the “broad strokes” you list are things that people who identify as conservative in the USA today tend to do or believe or support, as opposed to defining characteristics of conservatism the political/social philosophy/orientation that dates back to long before Fox News existed.
Surely all that would really be necessary is to figure out how they identify and/or who they support. These are “very political people,” so surely that information will be known.
Actually, the overlap is not as clear-cut as that.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center among ~25,000 American Christians:
44% (a plurality, but not a majority) identify as politically conservative
32% identify as politically moderate
18% identify as politically liberal
6% don’t know
That said, among evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, I would expect that the large majority of them do identify as conservative.
In that same study, 43% of Christians identify as (or lean) Republican; that number is essentially identical to the percentage who identify as “conservative.” 40% identify or lean as Democratic, and 17% don’t identify or lean towards either party.
Those two questions are about 3/4 of the way down the page in the link below:
Let me restate it for you, I’ve know a few registered US Democrat females who switched to voting with the far right Republican Party for their men. I don’t know any registered US Republican males who have become Democrats, in thoughts or votes, for their SO female partners. So I was curious how prevalent it is.
Yes, my sample is small, that’s why I asked and that’s why I put the question in IMHO.
A fellow I worked with not long before I retired was quite active in “moderate to left” political circles. I recall him saying that the “worst” demographic for the left was “uneducated white males”. It does stand to follow that states which have the worst public education systems (more often than not, red states) will have more “right wing males” supporting republicans.