The Feminist Paradox of Conservative Female Leadership: Italy’s and Japan’s First Female Prime Ministers

Source: Wikimedia Commons

As Giorgia Meloni and Sanae Takaichi rise to power as conservative leaders on the global stage, they face backlash for policies undermining women’s rights. Even so, their very presence in office raises a key question: are conservative female leaders still advancing feminism simply by governing?

A new kind of far-right symbol

On the morning of Italy’s 2022 general election, Giorgia Meloni posted a video of herself holding up two melons in front of her chest – a sexist pun on her surname – encouraging Italians to vote. It captured the contradictions shaping global politics today: a moment where far-right movements surge and women, once excluded from these movements, increasingly lead them.

Right-wing extremism is now mainstream in major economies across the globe. Within this broader shift, a smaller trend is emerging: the rise of conservative women to the highest offices in nations that historically offered little opportunity for female political authority. Many feminists interpret this as a step backward for rights-based agendas; however, the symbolism of women entering institutions built by and for men complicates this critique.

This article argues that Meloni and Takaichi embody a paradox at the centre of contemporary feminism: they promote policies that restrict women’s autonomy, yet their leadership fulfills a core feminist demand for equal representation. Their rise forces us to ask whether feminist progress is defined by women’s accomplishments or women’s political beliefs.

Feminism’s difficult measure of progress

The Cambridge dictionary defines feminism as the “belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way.” However, radical feminism often dominates public discourse, with its emphasis on abolishing patriarchal norms and defending bodily autonomy, particularly on issues like traditional family roles or abortion.

This conflation shapes reactions to conservative female leaders. American labor activist Dolores Huerta said, “We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to be at the table when decisions are being made so that the right decisions will be made.” If feminist movements insist that electing more women is a route to equality, then what happens when the women elected oppose feminist policies? What if those women stabilise, rather than dismantle, patriarchal frameworks?

Giorgia Meloni: Breaking barriers while reinforcing boundaries

Giorgia Meloni, raised by a single, working-class mother and politically active since age 15, is the leader of Italy’s “most right-wing government since World War II.” She rose through a party founded by former Mussolini supporters, became postwar Italy’s youngest minister, and later co-founded the Brothers of Italy, known for its anti-immigration stance and scepticism toward EU authority. Her viral 2019 rallying cry – “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian” – equates woman to mother, Italian to Christian. This reinforced the restriction of acceptable identities of conservative Italian women.

Meloni often highlights the realities of political life for women. She has publicly acknowledged sexism, including facing sexually explicit deepfakes distributed on a website featuring altered images of female politicians. She once ended a NATO press conference by removing her high heels, joking about the pain, an unusually candid moment for a European head of government. Yet she simultaneously adopts masculinised symbols of power, choosing to be referred to as Presidente del Consiglio, the masculine form of president in Italian. Her cabinet, upon taking office, had six women out of twenty-four seats, indicating that Meloni did not follow the feminist pillar of equal representation.

Her policy record on women’s rights reveals deeper contradictions. Much of her rhetoric is centred around motherhood: lower taxes on baby products, expanded childcare, and workplace protections for pregnant women. On the other hand, she also champions measures that restrict autonomy: criminalising surrogacy, erasing non-biological LGBTQ+ parents from birth certificates, and further enabling localities governed by her party to curtail same-sex parental recognition. 

On abortion, observers note that she has enabled indirect restrictions rather than frontal bans, such as supporting organisations that dissuade women from terminating pregnancies.

Meloni’s presence in an all-male political lineage is symbolically groundbreaking, but her policies narrow rather than widen the conditions for gender equality.

And she isn’t the only female leader to do this.

Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s first woman PM and the conservative archetype

Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, presents a similarly nuanced case. Raised by an office worker and a policewoman, she spent her youth drumming in a heavy metal band, later becoming a scuba diver, vintage-car enthusiast, and television host. She once worked in the Washington office of American politician Patricia Schroeder and has said she strives to embody Japan’s version of Margaret Thatcher’s “Iron Lady” image.

Her rise to power depended on hardline immigration stances and appeals to cultural preservation during a period of demographic shifts and economic stagnation. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, Japan ranked 118th out of 148 countries. Still, Takaichi campaigned on expanding military capabilities, strengthening nationalist education, and reinforcing “familial unity.”

Her position on women’s rights mirrors Meloni’s in their restrictive nature. She opposes same-sex marriage, rejects married women’s rights to keep their maiden names, and resists reforms allowing female imperial succession. Her cabinet includes two women among 19 ministers, which she defends, citing anti-quota and meritocracy arguments.

Like Meloni, Takaichi deploys selective pro-women policies while simultaneously promoting constraints on those women. She supports babysitter tax credits and encourages companies to offer in-house childcare while simultaneously urging women to have more children to solve the country’s demographic crisis, reinforcing gender norms.

South Korean media labelled her the “Female Abe”, likening her to Japan’s former far-right Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, implying that her gender changes little about the ideological direction of her governance. In light of her emulation of Abe and her limiting policy stances towards women, Takaichi’s feminist critics have gone so far as to describe her as “an old man with a woman’s face” and “not representative of women.” 

Are they advancing or hindering feminism?

Second-wave feminism established that representation in government was essential to achieving equality. Under this logic, Meloni and Takaichi, the first women to lead their nations, are historic breakthroughs.

But representation is not the end of the story; it also comes with political power. These women hold the authority to pass legislation that will shape gender relations for generations. This raises a dilemma: is the symbolic victory of a woman at the helm worth the long-term consequences of policies that could further cement inequality?

Beyond their election, Meloni’s and Takaichi’s mere positions also overcome another common obstacle to women in politics: the suspicion that women are less competent than men. Studies about people’s attitudes towards males’ versus females’ level of expertise demonstrated that proposals to handle conflicts netted greater positive attitudes among participants when they were written by men than women. Waiting until women have adequate experience to be taken seriously isn’t enough. Rather, increasing the visibility of female leaders, regardless of ideology, could help thwart gender biases in political leadership, paving the way for equal access and opportunity, an inherently feminist cause.

Meta analysis studies further demonstrate that voters often favor masculine traits over feminine traits in their leaders. At the same time, voters also appreciate a motherly image in female leaders. This creates a choice for female leaders over whether to embody male-associated traits in their leadership style or embrace the traditional stereotype uniquely associated with their gender. Often, women try to do both.

Both leaders exemplify the “double bind” facing conservative women: they must project toughness, which is associated with masculinity, to garner respect while also seeming feminine enough to adhere to the maternal behaviour expected of women. This dynamic helps explain why their policies often uphold conservative gender roles rather than challenge them. Conservative female leaders, paradoxically, rise by supporting the very structures that historically excluded them.

Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, and Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, offer a useful contrast to Meloni and Takaichi. Both expanded women’s rights and governed from positions far closer to feminist policy preferences, but even these globally admired leaders faced the same gendered expectations, pressures, and contradictions that confront conservative women. Their experiences show that ideology does not shield female leaders from the double bind of femininity in politics.

Angela Merkel and the “Feminist Identity Trap”

Angela Merkel’s leadership reveals how even leaders who support feminist policy struggle to escape gendered scrutiny. Throughout her tenure as Germany’s first female chancellor, she balanced a carefully constructed dual identity. By labelling the refugee crisis as a humanitarian one, she earned the title of “Mutti,” ‘mother’ in German, for her warm welcome of immigrants, Simultaneously, she presented herself as a confident, pragmatic leader who refused to waver in her position on Germany’s open borders and belief in a joint European Union solution, a stance which ultimately improved domestic and international public opinion. This blend allowed her to gain legitimacy in a political culture accustomed to male leadership while avoiding being dismissed as overly emotional or overly harsh; a tightrope all female leaders must walk.

Merkel’s relationship to feminism highlights this tension. Although she oversaw the legalisation of same-sex marriage and previously served as Minister for Women and Youth, she long resisted labeling herself a feminist. When she finally adopted the term, critics accused her of “belated feminism.” Her hesitation reflected not a lack of commitment but an awareness that declaring oneself a feminist, especially as a conservative-leaning leader, risked trapping her in gendered expectations. Her case shows that even women whose policies directly expand gender equality often feel compelled to distance themselves from feminist identity to preserve political authority.

Jacinda Ardern and the Burden of Feminised Leadership

If Merkel navigated the masculine expectations of political leadership, Jacinda Ardern confronted its opposite. Ardern’s empathetic, collaborative, and openly compassionate style was initially celebrated, then increasingly criticised by those who equated these traits with weakness. Her policy record, including the decriminalisation of abortion and strong protections for working women, aligned squarely with feminist aims. But the public fixation remained on her demeanor, her kindness, and especially her motherhood, keeping the focus on her femininity rather than the content of her accomplishments.

Ardern repeatedly pushed back against gendered scrutiny, calling out discriminatory hiring practices that targeted women for their reproductive plans and condemning the media's obsession with her pregnancy. She also acknowledged that, as prime minister, New Zealanders had a right to know she would take maternity leave – a reminder of the impossible position women leaders face, in which expectations of personal disclosure are imposed on them solely because they are women.

Despite governing from the left and championing women’s autonomy, Ardern still endured critiques centered not on her decisions but on her femininity. Her resignation reinvigorated debates about whether empathetic female leadership is sustainable in a political culture that still equates authority with masculine traits.

What Merkel and Ardern Reveal

Together, Merkel and Ardern demonstrate that even women whose policy agendas advance gender equality are constrained by the same pressures that shape the leadership of Meloni and Takaichi. Their experiences prove that sexism is ideologically blind, policing women from the right for being insufficiently feminist and women from the left for being too feminine. This comparison underscores the broader paradox driving this article: symbolic representation, substantive policy, gender performance, and public perception rarely align neatly. Female leadership complicates feminism because they are judged through the same gendered lens regardless of their beliefs.

Meloni and Takaichi have stood up in arenas that women haven’t been able to penetrate for centuries. Although their policies may constrain gender equality, their ascent signals a future in which women’s presence in and influence over power can become routine.

This is today’s feminist paradox: representation can coexist with retrenchment, and symbolic victories may arrive through leaders whose policy agendas may oppose feminist ideals. Ignoring the significance of their presence risks narrowing understanding of how feminist progress unfolds, slowly, unevenly, and occasionally through highly complicated figures.

If women’s leadership is judged only through ideological purity, feminism risks blinding itself to the very forces that limit equality.

If sexism is universal, then feminism cannot afford to be selective.

Written by Sarina Sharma-Welsh

Edited by Rida Fatima