Honestly, I think it's the attempt to cast all of this into a modern, western "liberal vs conservative" thing that's the problem here.
Gridania isn't conservative because of Gridanian racism, nor because of the state-sponsored religion.
It's not liberal because it's led by a woman or because of the strong system of socialized care for Gridanians.
It simply is the way it is. You can call it one or the other to make it easy to understand the culture, but you're really missing out on the complexity of it if you simply use some sort of conservative-vs-liberal axis as your way of understanding them. And you're certainly setting yourself up for some interesting errors if you attempt to use that conservative-vs-liberal axis to predict the other ways that people from that society might respond.
Gridania isn't conservative because of Gridanian racism, nor because of the state-sponsored religion.
It's not liberal because it's led by a woman or because of the strong system of socialized care for Gridanians.
It simply is the way it is. You can call it one or the other to make it easy to understand the culture, but you're really missing out on the complexity of it if you simply use some sort of conservative-vs-liberal axis as your way of understanding them. And you're certainly setting yourself up for some interesting errors if you attempt to use that conservative-vs-liberal axis to predict the other ways that people from that society might respond.