Conservatism was born out of defending the ideas behind monarchy and aristocracy, namely that some people, by the grace of the Christian god, were born better than others, and that those better people are ordained by god, or maybe "nature's god" to rule over others. When monarchies started to crumble, those supporters of the idea, shifted the goal posts and said, "well, hereditary monarchy wasn't the right way to go so, umm...wealthy people, yeah wealthy White Protestant men people, those are the ones worthy to rule" They still believe the exact same things that were in vogue in the late 17th and 18th Centuries minus the hereditary monarchs.
As the world has moved on and as we start to understand more and more about our societies and identities, they (Conservatives) remain stuck in the ideas of their founders, in their hierarchy, in their religiosity (whether Christianity, or just money and power as god). Conservatives are rigid. They reject the idea that people are inherently worthy of equal dignity. They still think there are "only two genders" even though gender is a made up social construct based on observations of how our sexually dimorphic species acted.
We as liberals/progressives/leftists understand that the way we act changes as time progresses, but again, Conservatives are stuck in how "men" acted sometime in the past in some golden age, though they never really know exactly when. Why? because there has always been a spectrum, a continuum of behaviors which overlap in our species.
They think "leadership, strength, assertiveness, etc.." are "Manly" characteristics when they are just characteristics that have been attributed and encouraged in males, and discouraged in women. Those are HUMAN characteristics, as are empathy, kindness, and nurturing, only if you are a "Man" and exhibit those traits, you can be ridiculed.
The actual reality is that people are people and there is a very wide range of behaviors that we all engage in. If you aren't hurting anyone, then you should be free to be who and what makes the most sense for you. To Conservatives, who need to be in a very binary world, that is scary so they create and live in their alternative reality.
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