The recent release of Sex and the City II has inspired a wave of insipid think-pieces musing on the decline of feminism. How, these writers ask, could a programme — and now a film — which exalts the idea of autonomous womanhood promote characters with the emotional intelligence of 13-year-old girls? Yet in their own absurd way, these characters are a cultural expression of the bankruptcy of mainstream, politicised feminism — an authoritarian creed which has infantilised and ultimately alienated the women it purports to liberate.

For any woman who has tired of the enforced homogeneity of mainstream feminism, the emergence of a self-described "conservative feminism" in the US should come as a breath of fresh air. An increasingly vocal group of female voters, led by a record number of female Republicans standing in the summer primaries, are challenging popular assumptions of women as a voting bloc, modernising the Republican Party and provoking a long-overdue debate over the nature of feminism. 

From former Hewlett Packard chief operating officer Carly Fiorina to South Carolina's Nikki Haley, outsider female candidates are taking on the male establishment of their own party — or as Nikki Haley calls them, the "good ol' boys". These confident, self-made women neither apologise for their gender nor believe it should determine their politics. Rhetorically, they appeal to the American ideals of self-reliance, entrepreneurialism and a passion for pushing boundaries — a message to which women of various backgrounds can relate. Sarah Palin — whose weaknesses as a candidate are many and obvious — nevertheless astutely identified this trend and has thrown her rhetorical and financial support behind a number of these so-called "mama grizzlies". 

So why the sudden onslaught of conservative women? After the second wave of feminism in the 1970s, American women were statistically more inclined to sympathise with Democrats, who embraced Women's Lib and made a legislative commitment to issues such as equal pay, sexual harassment and abortion rights. By stridently promoting "traditional family values", many Republican politicians of the post-feminist era actively alienated the rising number of independent, working women by ignoring their particular challenges. 

Today, nearly 60 per cent of American women work, and while the Republican Party remains strongly socially conservative, mainstream Republicans are supportive of female social equality. So it shouldn't be surprising that women voters, and particularly the professional women who tend to run for political office, would be attracted by the party's emphasis on small government and entrepreneurialism. And although women remain statistically more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, the increasing presence of women at Tea Party demonstrations and Republican rallies indicates a rising trend of politically assertive conservative women.