Under the contemporary societal debate raised by right-wing claims that gender equality went
too far, this paper analyses whether a potential substitution effect occurs among the
covariates of support for gender equality, focusing on political stances and modernization
factors. Using WVS/EVS repeated cross-sectional data, we show a shift towards a higher
prevalence of political ideology as correlate of attitudes on gender roles, while modernity-
related factors exhibit a contrary tendency, slightly decreasing over time. We also observe a
silent gender backlash, with support for gender-equality at lower levels, contrary to
expectations based on transformations in the population structure. Furthermore, the
covariation of gender beliefs with political stances relates rather to support for democracy
than to orientations towards non-democratic options and is more salient in case of gender
beliefs associated to life-domains in which gender equality come at later times.