Understanding internalized sexism, identity, social media, and why people sometimes support systems that appear to work against their own interests.
It can seem like a contradiction.
Some women campaign for greater equality and expanded opportunities, while others advocate for more traditional gender roles, criticize feminism, or even express support for limiting rights that many women have fought to obtain. Recently, interviews with attendees at Turning Point USA’s Women’s Leadership Summit received widespread attention after several women said they would be willing to give up their own right to vote if it meant creating what they believed would be a better society.
For many observers, this raises an obvious question.
Why would someone support policies or cultural norms that appear to reduce their own freedom?
The answer is more complex than assuming these women simply “hate women” or have been manipulated. Psychology, sociology, and political science suggest that multiple forces shape these beliefs, and many of them are common to all human beings.
Can Women Hold Sexist Beliefs About Women?
Research suggests the answer is yes.
Psychologists have long studied internalized sexism (sometimes called internalized misogyny), a process in which women adopt cultural beliefs that portray women as less capable, less suited for leadership, or naturally meant for more restrictive social roles. This does not require conscious hostility toward women. Instead, these beliefs can become normalized through family, religion, education, media, and community until they simply feel like common sense.
This is not unique to gender. Researchers have documented similar forms of internalized bias across many groups. Human beings often absorb the assumptions of the cultures in which they are raised, even when those assumptions place limits on themselves.
The important distinction is that holding traditional beliefs about gender is not, by itself, evidence of internalized sexism. Many women genuinely believe traditional family structures lead to happier lives. Internalized sexism refers specifically to adopting beliefs that systematically devalue women’s abilities, autonomy, or participation because they are women.
Why Do People Defend Systems That May Disadvantage Them?
Another explanation comes from System Justification Theory, one of the most widely studied ideas in political psychology.
The theory proposes that people have a psychological motivation to see the existing social order as legitimate, stable, and fair. Even individuals who occupy less powerful positions may defend existing institutions because predictability often feels safer than uncertainty. Research has repeatedly found that members of disadvantaged groups sometimes support systems that appear contrary to their own material interests because those systems provide identity, stability, and meaning.
This helps explain why political beliefs often cannot be reduced to self-interest alone. People frequently vote according to moral values, religious convictions, national identity, or their vision of what creates a healthy society rather than what immediately benefits them personally.
The deeper question, then, is not why someone would vote against their interests. It is why identity can become more influential than interest itself.
Why Are “Tradwife” Influencers So Popular?
The recent rise of “tradwife” influencers has introduced another layer to this conversation.
Many of these creators promote homemaking, early marriage, large families, and traditional divisions of labor. Some explicitly reject feminism, while others simply argue that modern culture has undervalued domestic life. Their audiences are often young women searching for certainty, purpose, or an alternative to the pressures of contemporary work culture. Reporting from recent Turning Point USA events found that many attendees described traditional roles as offering meaning and community rather than oppression.
Social media, however, changes the equation.
Algorithms reward content that is emotionally engaging, morally certain, and easy to identify with. Strong identities often outperform nuanced conversations because they invite loyalty, debate, and repeated engagement. Influencers who present a clear worldview frequently receive more attention than those who acknowledge complexity.
That attention can also become income.
Platforms reward views, subscriptions, sponsorships, and merchandise sales. This does not mean influencers are insincere. It does mean that certainty often becomes economically valuable, encouraging creators to develop increasingly recognizable public identities.
Does Supporting Traditional Gender Roles Mean Supporting Less Freedom?
Not necessarily.
Many women who embrace traditional roles do not argue that every woman should make the same choices. They simply believe those roles lead to healthier families or more meaningful lives.
Others, however, advocate for broader cultural or legal changes that critics argue would reduce women’s autonomy. These positions often arise from deeply held religious or moral convictions rather than personal resentment toward women.
Research on benevolent sexism helps explain why these ideas can be attractive. Unlike hostile sexism, which openly portrays women as inferior, benevolent sexism frames women as valuable, deserving of protection, and morally important while simultaneously reinforcing the belief that men should lead and women should occupy different social roles. Although these beliefs often sound positive, decades of research have shown they can still reinforce unequal distributions of power.
Why Would Someone Support Taking Away Rights They Personally Have?
This question gained renewed attention after several women interviewed at the Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit said they would support eliminating women’s voting rights if husbands represented the household politically. Those comments reflected the views of the individuals interviewed, not all attendees or conservative women generally.
From a psychological perspective, these statements illustrate something larger than politics.
Human beings frequently place loyalty to a shared identity above individual advantage. Religious identity, national identity, family identity, and political identity can all become more psychologically important than maximizing personal freedom. When someone believes a particular social structure is morally correct, they may willingly accept restrictions on themselves if they believe those restrictions serve a greater good.
History provides many examples of people voluntarily accepting limitations because they believed those limitations created order, stability, or virtue.
Whether those beliefs ultimately produce those outcomes is a separate question.
The Search for Certainty
Notice what happens beneath every political debate.
People rarely defend only policies.
They defend identities.
The conservative.
The progressive.
The feminist.
The traditionalist.
The patriot.
The rebel.
Each identity offers more than opinions. It provides belonging, certainty, and a way of understanding a complicated world.
The difficulty begins when identity becomes more important than curiosity.
At that point, disagreement feels like a personal attack because the ideas are no longer separate from the person defending them.
Beyond Politics
It is tempting to ask why they believe what they believe.
A more revealing question is why all of us become so attached to identities that promise certainty.
Whether the identity is feminist or anti-feminist, conservative or progressive, traditional or modern, the psychological process often looks remarkably similar. We search for communities that affirm our worldview, adopt stories that help explain the world, and gradually begin protecting those stories as though they define who we are.
The conversation then shifts from politics to something much more fundamental.
How much of who we believe ourselves to be depends upon belonging to a particular story?
That question reaches beyond any movement or ideology. It invites us to examine the mind itself and the subtle ways it searches for certainty in a world that rarely offers it.
Continue the Exploration
This article explored what psychology and sociology can tell us about identity, traditional gender roles, and why people sometimes support systems that appear contrary to their own interests. If you’d like to explore the deeper questions beneath these patterns, Proof That You’re God examines how the mind constructs identity, seeks certainty, and mistakes the roles it performs for who we truly are.
For readers who want to continue the conversation with our community, our Patreon essays and weekly discussions explore these ideas in even greater depth.
