[ericmay]

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In communist and other leftist authoritarian ideologies and there are of course different degrees and expressions of this, but you typically have to engage in mass conformity, whereas democracies with free markets and free expression of ideas and allow for folks to style themselves outside of the norm.

It's one of those things that unfortunately popular culture has become confused about. Free markets, property rights, and free expression (as examples), which are not leftist, are the cultural mechanism which allows and encourages individuality. In societies where those things are not valued, free expression for example in communist societies, women are more oppressed and that's arguably by definition. Even at the economic level, capitalist economies and free market economies permit worker-owned collectives, whereas communism destroys and disallows private ownership of the means of production (and typically property rights in general). Free markets are more permissive and more, well, free. Leftist economic systems aren't because they are unnatural and require forced cooperation.