The Impact of a Conservative Worldview on Women and Children’s Health

It has been proposed by George Lakoff [1] that politically liberal and conservative individuals possess very different worldviews. This is especially true around topics such as women’s rights, childrearing, gender equality, and healthcare. Lakoff explains these differences in the form of “family metaphors” where conservatives lean toward the model of the authoritarian Strict Father and liberals the model of the supportive Nurturing Parent. This paper reviews the research into the impact of a conservative worldview on public health. Although the purpose of this paper is not to determine which worldview is correct, it does show that conservative beliefs can have negative effects in various health related areas such as women’s health, reproductive rights, punishment, childrearing, healthcare, disease transmission, and domestic violence.