From October 2022 to May 2025, more women approved of the Democratic party than not, but nowadays, it has become the opposite (https://apnews.com/projects/polling-tracker/). Still, most women are consistently disapproving of the Republican party. Are female ideas of politics expanding outside of the typical two parties? 

Many women, including myself, may be feeling limited by political discourse, and these statistics demonstrate that despite partisan identification, people are beginning to feel overwhelmed by the system altogether. This is likely due to both modern and traditional institutions both failing to keep our interests prioritized. It’s arguable that the women of today want to be freed from generational chains, but we fear making new ones.

While conservative and religious institutions often have issues of sexual assault and abuse, promotion of extremist gender norms, limitations on our livelihoods, and neglect towards women altogether, modern institutions are feeding women with a poisoned spoon. Sexualization of our existences and commercialization of our sexuality are two rampant issues in modernist political spaces. For example, collegiate culture has increasingly intensified in these problems, shifting from academic prosperity to an image of alcoholic vanity.

We can take from this the understanding that both the Democrat’s party aestheticism and the Republicans’ don’t have our interests in mind. Additionally, it’s important to note that these issues are not issues with the ideals themselves, but with the parties’ inability to solve women’s gripes with the system.

It’s an educated guess to say that many women do not want either party. We want to be college educated, make new experiences outside of our homes, and enjoy rights of our own, but we don’t want to be a tool for the industry. An ideal existence for many women is one where we have our liberty and our groundedness. It’s unfortunate to say that both Republican traditionalists and Democratic modernists want us to choose between having a beautiful family and a picket fence or having a degree and a career that gives us mental stimulation and fulfillment. 

What’s to make of this? Well, this adds to the expanding list of rationales for why the two party system is increasingly unpopular among Generation-Z. Beyond polarization’s strong negative effects on our ability to function as a society, it perpetrates gender discrimination in both expected and unexpected forms.

Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole