Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a New York Times bestselling author and historian, argues in a new essay that LDS and evangelical women's embrace of 'positive thinking' ideology has been instrumental in sustaining conservative gender roles and limiting women's autonomy across generations. The piece examines how religious women internalized and promoted frameworks that constrained their own agency while presenting limitation as empowerment. Du Mez's analysis draws on her scholarship on the intersection of Latter-day Saint culture, evangelicalism, and American conservatism.