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CNN
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Celebrity drama, wellness and right-wing politics: A new crop of magazines and influencers is appealing to young women
Gabrielle, who is 24 and lives in Alabama, is a fan of Rachel Zegler. Naturally, wherever she goes online, she gets served a lot of social media posts about the actress. Recently, she saw one that she thought was weird. The post was about how Zegler had not only ruined the 'Snow White' remake — but that she'd also ruined the 'Hunger Games' prequel, too, mostly by 'rejecting' femininity. Zegler, for those who don't follow online dramas, had dared to call the original 'Snow White' film's ideas about women 'extremely dated,' and this spiraled into a proxy fight about being a woman. Gabrielle says she'd been recommended content from this particular publication before, typically articles about beauty trends. She now began to realize this was no ordinary women's magazine. Digging around, she found posts from the publisher that used 'woke' as a pejorative, and other writing that was cruel about trans people. She felt she was being lured in with perky pop culture content, only then to be exposed to right-wing propaganda. 'I found what they posted to be hateful and trying to trick people into reading their views,' Gabrielle tells CNN. This was Evie Magazine, a publication and website founded in 2019 by married couple Brittany and Gabriel Hugoboom. The magazine has characterized itself as a 'conservative Cosmo.' Some, pointing to its record of publishing conspiracy theories, vaccine misinformation and tradwife nostalgia, have characterized it as 'alt right.' (Evie Magazine did not respond to requests for comment.) At first glance, though, you might not pick up on any of this at all. On Evie's TikTok account, there's a recent post about WNBA drama and another about Dua Lipa's engagement. Articles on its website contain recipes for iced Starbucks dupes and wedding trend reports that could be found in any mainstream women's magazine. (You'd be forgiven for thinking you're reading Elle — Evie was recently sued over allegations that its logo was nearly identical.) Evie's culture and lifestyle content, as well as past comments from its co-founder and editor-in-chief, suggests that the publication is attempting to appeal to a broader audience of young women. It's hardly alone. Over the past few years, a new wave of right-leaning magazines and influencers has been courting female audiences by covering celebrity gossip, wellness and fashion — a landscape that includes Jayme Franklin's magazine The Conservateur, Alex Clark's popular wellness podcast 'Culture Apothecary' and Brett Cooper's eponymous YouTube show. Like the ecosystem of right-leaning 'bro' podcasters who successfully reached disengaged men in the 2024 US presidential election, this burgeoning conservative women's media sphere is connecting with audiences on subjects that aren't overtly political. If these outlets and influencers cultivate that relationship successfully, they could prove to be powerful, says Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama whose research focuses on social media platforms and internet culture. Not only could they shape how young women engage with pop culture, she says, but they could also shape how they see the world. Allison Thompkins, a 27-year-old in Missouri, recalls Evie surfacing in her TikTok feed in February. She unwittingly tapped the heart button in response to a montage of celebrities sporting natural teeth onscreen. 'Off the bat, I was like, 'Yeah, I agree with that. I think veneers are kind of a scourge, and they make everyone look the same,'' she says. 'Then I looked at who posted it and did a double take.' Thompkins, who describes her politics as 'pretty far left,' quickly unliked the video — which, to date, has 2.8 million likes, as well as tens of thousands of comments and shares — but says she was alarmed to see Evie on her feed. She associates the publication with a worldview that is increasingly gaining support on the right: That women should return to traditional gender roles. Last year, Evie selected homesteading influencer and mother-of-eight Hannah Neeleman, better known as Ballerina Farm, as its annual cover star. The brand also sells a 'raw milkmaid dress' that evokes a tradwife aesthetic and nods to the right-wing movement around unpasteurized milk. Then there are headlines like 'The Spiritual Economics of Staying Home With Kids' and '3 Surprisingly Common Ways Women Disrespect Their Husbands (Without Meaning To).' Editorial choices like these reflect an emerging cultural and political shift toward conservatism in the US. Though a majority of women 18-29 voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, more young women identified as conservative and Republican in 2024 than they did in 2020, per data from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. As youth researcher Rachel Janfanza writes, some of these shifts, like attitudes on gender roles, are ideological. Others, like the reemergence of 1950s silhouettes or concerns about 'toxins' in our food and environment, are reflected through aesthetics and lifestyle. In this conservative women's media sphere, modern feminism is seen as anti-men, casual sex and nontraditional relationship structures are viewed as detrimental, and being a wife and a mother is considered a woman's highest purpose. These outlets and influencers implore their readers to embrace a long-lost femininity and reclaim control over their bodies through their nutritional and medical choices. Julie Mastrine, a 33-year-old in Pennsylvania and a former contributor for Evie, experienced this political and cultural transformation personally. During her six years in San Francisco, she says many of her peers experimented with polyamory and open relationships, practices she felt hindered them from forming healthy bonds. That was among the experiences that led Mastrine to eventually conclude that a flourishing society needed more, not fewer, constraints. Once a self-identified liberal feminist, she now identifies as a conservative. 'When I found Evie, I was like, 'Finally, there's a women's magazine that is not going to be smutty, promote hookup culture, promote certain ideals that I had found in my life were not working well,'' she says. Mastrine says she doesn't agree with the right on everything (for one, she feels the tradwife movement doesn't account for the realities of modern life), but she's glad that a publication like Evie exists. As she and others in this sphere see it, this wave of conservative outlets and influencers is catering to an audience that isn't otherwise represented in women's media. Jayme Franklin, 27, grew up reading glossies like Teen Vogue and Marie Claire. But around Donald Trump's election in 2016, she says she noticed that these publications started getting political. It wasn't Vogue's Hillary Clinton endorsement or glowing write-ups of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that bothered her, she says, but rather content that she found to be 'anti-men, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-free speech, very rabidly pro-feminist.' As someone who is Catholic, anti-abortion and who believes in 'more traditional values,' she says she felt alienated. After stints in the first Trump White House and at Fox News, Franklin launched The Conservateur in 2020, a media and lifestyle brand that she says is aimed at modern, yet traditional-minded women in liberal hotspots. The Conservateur doesn't shy away from politics — in April, it hosted the sold-out America Is Hot Again party in DC, and the brand sells a pink 'Make America Hot Again' hat that's been spotted on Lara Trump. Even so, Franklin says the website's culture coverage is first and foremost, with plans to launch a culture-focused podcast next month. At a time when a majority of young women are liberal (and have moved more to the left on some issues), Franklin is making a strategic play for the minority on the other end of the political spectrum. While the top podcasts catering to men — 'The Joe Rogan Experience,' 'The Tucker Carlson Show,' 'This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von' — have a conservative bent, Franklin notes that there isn't really an equivalent for women. ('Call Her Daddy,' one of the most popular podcasts among young women, typically avoids politics, but its host Alex Cooper has been outspoken about reproductive rights and interviewed Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election.) 'We're igniting a counterculture within this female space, where there's 'Call Her Daddy,' there's Teen Vogue,' Franklin says. 'We're The Conservateur, and we will offer the exact opposite that a Cosmopolitan or an Alex Cooper is offering.' Franklin might be following Joe Rogan's approach, but there are some notable differences between the 'bro' podcast sphere and the conservative women's media landscape. Unlike Rogan, a comedian whose politics don't neatly cohere into a particular ideology, Franklin and other young women in this niche have backgrounds in right-wing politics. Brett Cooper, who left The Daily Wire and launched an independent YouTube channel, has amassed more than 1.5 million subscribers through videos about what's happening with Justin Bieber or the latest in the Diddy trial. Alex Clark, host of the podcast 'Culture Apothecary' and an influencer for the Charlie Kirk-founded student organization Turning Point USA, has built her following by talking about wellness topics like parenting and chemicals in food. Candace Owens, the far-right political commentator, has found new audiences through her deep dive coverage of the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni case, and has since launched a women's media brand that includes a book club and fitness app for new moms. If these influencers are introducing young women to conservative ideas through pop culture and wellness, they don't always acknowledge it as a calculated strategy. Cooper and Owens both tell CNN they have long covered pop culture alongside politics as a matter of personal interest. Clark calls the Make America Healthy Again ideology that she promotes on her podcast 'nonpartisan,' adding 'if it has become a tool to bring women into the conservative right-wing…there is no one to blame but the Democratic Party.' Franklin, though, does see The Conservateur as a vehicle to attract young women to the MAGA right. 'Politics is downstream from culture, as Andrew Breitbart once said,' she says. 'That was really apparent in this last election — that if you want to succeed in pushing values and politics, you need to be intimately involved in culture.' Right-leaning women's media don't merely express political perspectives. In some instances, publications and podcasts veer into pseudoscience, conspiracies and misinformation — and it's easy for unsuspecting users to get drawn in. Researchers for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that searching terms such as 'organic skincare' and 'nutrition' on Instagram could quickly lead a user to Clark's wellness content. Engaging with her content, in turn, led Instagram's algorithm to recommend accounts that promoted election denialism and other far-right ideas. Another prominent example is in the right-wing campaign against birth control. While negative attitudes around birth control aren't confined to the right, they've become a hallmark of a 'crunchy' conservatism that raises skepticism around conventional medicines and vaccines and that has culminated in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s movement to Make America Healthy Again. Evie Magazine has published numerous negative articles about the pill, IUDs and even condoms, instead promoting 'natural' birth control methods that can be less effective at preventing pregnancy. (Evie's founders also own the Peter Thiel-backed app 28, which offers fitness and nutrition recommendations based on where you are in your menstrual cycle. A representative for 28 told the Washington Post last year that the app has 'never been marketed as an alternative to hormonal birth control.') Clark has said she's 'on a mission to get young women off this pill,' claiming it causes a host of negative health outcomes and describing it as 'poison.' Cooper has echoed similar claims, telling her viewers the pill 'chemically alters the very hormones that make a woman a woman.' When asked about medical experts' assertions that such statements are untrue, both Clark and Cooper say they are operating out of concern for women. 'I am listening to and sharing the stories of women who've experienced things that often get dismissed or ignored,' Cooper writes in an email. 'Calling that perspective 'misinformation' shuts down a much-needed conversation about how we treat women's bodies,' says Clark. Hormonal birth control can certainly cause side effects in some users, and physicians don't always adequately communicate the risks to patients before prescribing it. But medical experts note that many influencers overexaggerate the risks and omit key context about a medication that has proven to be safe and effective for contraception and treating some medical conditions. 'People get on the internet and they just absolutely fearmonger, and they do it from a place of not caring who that could hurt or acknowledging the nuance that's required to have a really level-headed discussion about contraceptive pills,' Dr. Danielle Jones, an obstetrician-gynecologist and online educator, said in a recent Twitch stream. Misleading messaging around birth control can have political consequences. Republican lawmakers around the US have falsely conflated emergency contraceptives and IUDs with abortion, sometimes resulting in legislative efforts that threaten contraception access. Maddox, the University of Alabama researcher, sees this rhetoric as inherently connected to political attacks on reproductive rights. 'A magazine having an article about the natural method of birth control on the surface isn't that problematic,' she says. 'But when you situate it within a moment where Roe v. Wade has been overturned, where states are implementing these absolutely draconian anti-abortion laws, where women's bodily autonomy is under threat … I think about those as speaking to these larger political projects that are actually abuses of power.' The readerships of Evie and The Conservateur still pale in comparison to women's magazines like Bustle, Glamour or Vogue. But their hundreds of thousands of combined social media followers, and the even greater reach of influencers like Cooper and Clark, suggest that conservative views on gender, relationships and wellness are resonating among some young women. After years of being on the fringe of mainstream women's media, conservatism is having a cultural moment. Jess Rauchberg, an assistant professor at Seton Hall University whose research explores digital media cultures, characterizes this as a reaction to the 'girlboss of the 2010s' — a shorthand for that decade's prevailing ethos that women merely needed to advocate for themselves to reach new professional heights. Despite the liberating ideas at their core, the girlboss trope and other aspects of 2010s culture had their limitations, adds Maddox, the University of Alabama researcher. Grinding at work didn't necessarily translate to financial security, nor was it as fulfilling as spending time with loved ones. Dating app algorithms and casual sex left some women feeling degraded and lonelier than before. Conservative women's media offers one answer to these problems in its embrace of traditional ideas around gender roles. But Maddox says influencers who speak fondly of eras like the 1950s don't usually account for how people of color or the LGBTQ community fared back then. 'When promises are unmet today, the past seems appealing because the past indicates a time when promises were met,' she says. 'Of course, then the problem goes: Promises met for who?' Conservatism's current appeal also reflects a recurring push and pull between progress and backlash, Maddox adds. Young women coming of age today might not fully understand why some of their predecessors fought so hard for ideals like sex positivity or body positivity — without that context, ideas to the contrary can seem more attractive. In a few years, Rauchberg notes, the pendulum may very well swing back again. 'As our current political administration in the US continues to make certain decisions that are impacting women in ways that maybe they did not anticipate, we will see maybe a disavowal or a step away from what these magazines or these influencers say,' she says.
CNN
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Celebrity drama, wellness and right-wing politics: A new crop of magazines and influencers is appealing to young women
Gabrielle, who is 24 and lives in Alabama, is a fan of Rachel Zegler. Naturally, wherever she goes online, she gets served a lot of social media posts about the actress. Recently, she saw one that she thought was weird. The post was about how Zegler had not only ruined the 'Snow White' remake — but that she'd also ruined the 'Hunger Games' prequel, too, mostly by 'rejecting' femininity. Zegler, for those who don't follow online dramas, had dared to call the original 'Snow White' film's ideas about women 'extremely dated,' and this spiraled into a proxy fight about being a woman. Gabrielle says she'd been recommended content from this particular publication before, typically articles about beauty trends. She now began to realize this was no ordinary women's magazine. Digging around, she found posts from the publisher that used 'woke' as a pejorative, and other writing that was cruel about trans people. She felt she was being lured in with perky pop culture content, only then to be exposed to right-wing propaganda. 'I found what they posted to be hateful and trying to trick people into reading their views,' Gabrielle tells CNN. This was Evie Magazine, a publication and website founded in 2019 by married couple Brittany and Gabriel Hugoboom. The magazine has characterized itself as a 'conservative Cosmo.' Some, pointing to its record of publishing conspiracy theories, vaccine misinformation and tradwife nostalgia, have characterized it as 'alt right.' (Evie Magazine did not respond to requests for comment.) At first glance, though, you might not pick up on any of this at all. On Evie's TikTok account, there's a recent post about WNBA drama and another about Dua Lipa's engagement. Articles on its website contain recipes for iced Starbucks dupes and wedding trend reports that could be found in any mainstream women's magazine. (You'd be forgiven for thinking you're reading Elle — Evie was recently sued over allegations that its logo was nearly identical.) Evie's culture and lifestyle content, as well as past comments from its co-founder and editor-in-chief, suggests that the publication is attempting to appeal to a broader audience of young women. It's hardly alone. Over the past few years, a new wave of right-leaning magazines and influencers has been courting female audiences by covering celebrity gossip, wellness and fashion — a landscape that includes Jayme Franklin's magazine The Conservateur, Alex Clark's popular wellness podcast 'Culture Apothecary' and Brett Cooper's eponymous YouTube show. Like the ecosystem of right-leaning 'bro' podcasters who successfully reached disengaged men in the 2024 US presidential election, this burgeoning conservative women's media sphere is connecting with audiences on subjects that aren't overtly political. If these outlets and influencers cultivate that relationship successfully, they could prove to be powerful, says Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama whose research focuses on social media platforms and internet culture. Not only could they shape how young women engage with pop culture, she says, but they could also shape how they see the world. Allison Thompkins, a 27-year-old in Missouri, recalls Evie surfacing in her TikTok feed in February. She unwittingly tapped the heart button in response to a montage of celebrities sporting natural teeth onscreen. 'Off the bat, I was like, 'Yeah, I agree with that. I think veneers are kind of a scourge, and they make everyone look the same,'' she says. 'Then I looked at who posted it and did a double take.' Thompkins, who describes her politics as 'pretty far left,' quickly unliked the video — which, to date, has 2.8 million likes, as well as tens of thousands of comments and shares — but says she was alarmed to see Evie on her feed. She associates the publication with a worldview that is increasingly gaining support on the right: That women should return to traditional gender roles. Last year, Evie selected homesteading influencer and mother-of-eight Hannah Neeleman, better known as Ballerina Farm, as its annual cover star. The brand also sells a 'raw milkmaid dress' that evokes a tradwife aesthetic and nods to the right-wing movement around unpasteurized milk. Then there are headlines like 'The Spiritual Economics of Staying Home With Kids' and '3 Surprisingly Common Ways Women Disrespect Their Husbands (Without Meaning To).' Editorial choices like these reflect an emerging cultural and political shift toward conservatism in the US. Though a majority of women 18-29 voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, more young women identified as conservative and Republican in 2024 than they did in 2020, per data from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. As youth researcher Rachel Janfanza writes, some of these shifts, like attitudes on gender roles, are ideological. Others, like the reemergence of 1950s silhouettes or concerns about 'toxins' in our food and environment, are reflected through aesthetics and lifestyle. In this conservative women's media sphere, modern feminism is seen as anti-men, casual sex and nontraditional relationship structures are viewed as detrimental, and being a wife and a mother is considered a woman's highest purpose. These outlets and influencers implore their readers to embrace a long-lost femininity and reclaim control over their bodies through their nutritional and medical choices. Julie Mastrine, a 33-year-old in Pennsylvania and a former contributor for Evie, experienced this political and cultural transformation personally. During her six years in San Francisco, she says many of her peers experimented with polyamory and open relationships, practices she felt hindered them from forming healthy bonds. That was among the experiences that led Mastrine to eventually conclude that a flourishing society needed more, not fewer, constraints. Once a self-identified liberal feminist, she now identifies as a conservative. 'When I found Evie, I was like, 'Finally, there's a women's magazine that is not going to be smutty, promote hookup culture, promote certain ideals that I had found in my life were not working well,'' she says. Mastrine says she doesn't agree with the right on everything (for one, she feels the tradwife movement doesn't account for the realities of modern life), but she's glad that a publication like Evie exists. As she and others in this sphere see it, this wave of conservative outlets and influencers is catering to an audience that isn't otherwise represented in women's media. Jayme Franklin, 27, grew up reading glossies like Teen Vogue and Marie Claire. But around Donald Trump's election in 2016, she says she noticed that these publications started getting political. It wasn't Vogue's Hillary Clinton endorsement or glowing write-ups of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that bothered her, she says, but rather content that she found to be 'anti-men, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-free speech, very rabidly pro-feminist.' As someone who is Catholic, anti-abortion and who believes in 'more traditional values,' she says she felt alienated. After stints in the first Trump White House and at Fox News, Franklin launched The Conservateur in 2020, a media and lifestyle brand that she says is aimed at modern, yet traditional-minded women in liberal hotspots. The Conservateur doesn't shy away from politics — in April, it hosted the sold-out America Is Hot Again party in DC, and the brand sells a pink 'Make America Hot Again' hat that's been spotted on Lara Trump. Even so, Franklin says the website's culture coverage is first and foremost, with plans to launch a culture-focused podcast next month. At a time when a majority of young women are liberal (and have moved more to the left on some issues), Franklin is making a strategic play for the minority on the other end of the political spectrum. While the top podcasts catering to men — 'The Joe Rogan Experience,' 'The Tucker Carlson Show,' 'This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von' — have a conservative bent, Franklin notes that there isn't really an equivalent for women. ('Call Her Daddy,' one of the most popular podcasts among young women, typically avoids politics, but its host Alex Cooper has been outspoken about reproductive rights and interviewed Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election.) 'We're igniting a counterculture within this female space, where there's 'Call Her Daddy,' there's Teen Vogue,' Franklin says. 'We're The Conservateur, and we will offer the exact opposite that a Cosmopolitan or an Alex Cooper is offering.' Franklin might be following Joe Rogan's approach, but there are some notable differences between the 'bro' podcast sphere and the conservative women's media landscape. Unlike Rogan, a comedian whose politics don't neatly cohere into a particular ideology, Franklin and other young women in this niche have backgrounds in right-wing politics. Brett Cooper, who left The Daily Wire and launched an independent YouTube channel, has amassed more than 1.5 million subscribers through videos about what's happening with Justin Bieber or the latest in the Diddy trial. Alex Clark, host of the podcast 'Culture Apothecary' and an influencer for the Charlie Kirk-founded student organization Turning Point USA, has built her following by talking about wellness topics like parenting and chemicals in food. Candace Owens, the far-right political commentator, has found new audiences through her deep dive coverage of the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni case, and has since launched a women's media brand that includes a book club and fitness app for new moms. If these influencers are introducing young women to conservative ideas through pop culture and wellness, they don't always acknowledge it as a calculated strategy. Cooper and Owens both tell CNN they have long covered pop culture alongside politics as a matter of personal interest. Clark calls the Make America Healthy Again ideology that she promotes on her podcast 'nonpartisan,' adding 'if it has become a tool to bring women into the conservative right-wing…there is no one to blame but the Democratic Party.' Franklin, though, does see The Conservateur as a vehicle to attract young women to the MAGA right. 'Politics is downstream from culture, as Andrew Breitbart once said,' she says. 'That was really apparent in this last election — that if you want to succeed in pushing values and politics, you need to be intimately involved in culture.' Right-leaning women's media don't merely express political perspectives. In some instances, publications and podcasts veer into pseudoscience, conspiracies and misinformation — and it's easy for unsuspecting users to get drawn in. Researchers for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that searching terms such as 'organic skincare' and 'nutrition' on Instagram could quickly lead a user to Clark's wellness content. Engaging with her content, in turn, led Instagram's algorithm to recommend accounts that promoted election denialism and other far-right ideas. Another prominent example is in the right-wing campaign against birth control. While negative attitudes around birth control aren't confined to the right, they've become a hallmark of a 'crunchy' conservatism that raises skepticism around conventional medicines and vaccines and that has culminated in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s movement to Make America Healthy Again. Evie Magazine has published numerous negative articles about the pill, IUDs and even condoms, instead promoting 'natural' birth control methods that can be less effective at preventing pregnancy. (Evie's founders also own the Peter Thiel-backed app 28, which offers fitness and nutrition recommendations based on where you are in your menstrual cycle. A representative for 28 told the Washington Post last year that the app has 'never been marketed as an alternative to hormonal birth control.') Clark has said she's 'on a mission to get young women off this pill,' claiming it causes a host of negative health outcomes and describing it as 'poison.' Cooper has echoed similar claims, telling her viewers the pill 'chemically alters the very hormones that make a woman a woman.' When asked about medical experts' assertions that such statements are untrue, both Clark and Cooper say they are operating out of concern for women. 'I am listening to and sharing the stories of women who've experienced things that often get dismissed or ignored,' Cooper writes in an email. 'Calling that perspective 'misinformation' shuts down a much-needed conversation about how we treat women's bodies,' says Clark. Hormonal birth control can certainly cause side effects in some users, and physicians don't always adequately communicate the risks to patients before prescribing it. But medical experts note that many influencers overexaggerate the risks and omit key context about a medication that has proven to be safe and effective for contraception and treating some medical conditions. 'People get on the internet and they just absolutely fearmonger, and they do it from a place of not caring who that could hurt or acknowledging the nuance that's required to have a really level-headed discussion about contraceptive pills,' Dr. Danielle Jones, an obstetrician-gynecologist and online educator, said in a recent Twitch stream. Misleading messaging around birth control can have political consequences. Republican lawmakers around the US have falsely conflated emergency contraceptives and IUDs with abortion, sometimes resulting in legislative efforts that threaten contraception access. Maddox, the University of Alabama researcher, sees this rhetoric as inherently connected to political attacks on reproductive rights. 'A magazine having an article about the natural method of birth control on the surface isn't that problematic,' she says. 'But when you situate it within a moment where Roe v. Wade has been overturned, where states are implementing these absolutely draconian anti-abortion laws, where women's bodily autonomy is under threat … I think about those as speaking to these larger political projects that are actually abuses of power.' The readerships of Evie and The Conservateur still pale in comparison to women's magazines like Bustle, Glamour or Vogue. But their hundreds of thousands of combined social media followers, and the even greater reach of influencers like Cooper and Clark, suggest that conservative views on gender, relationships and wellness are resonating among some young women. After years of being on the fringe of mainstream women's media, conservatism is having a cultural moment. Jess Rauchberg, an assistant professor at Seton Hall University whose research explores digital media cultures, characterizes this as a reaction to the 'girlboss of the 2010s' — a shorthand for that decade's prevailing ethos that women merely needed to advocate for themselves to reach new professional heights. Despite the liberating ideas at their core, the girlboss trope and other aspects of 2010s culture had their limitations, adds Maddox, the University of Alabama researcher. Grinding at work didn't necessarily translate to financial security, nor was it as fulfilling as spending time with loved ones. Dating app algorithms and casual sex left some women feeling degraded and lonelier than before. Conservative women's media offers one answer to these problems in its embrace of traditional ideas around gender roles. But Maddox says influencers who speak fondly of eras like the 1950s don't usually account for how people of color or the LGBTQ community fared back then. 'When promises are unmet today, the past seems appealing because the past indicates a time when promises were met,' she says. 'Of course, then the problem goes: Promises met for who?' Conservatism's current appeal also reflects a recurring push and pull between progress and backlash, Maddox adds. Young women coming of age today might not fully understand why some of their predecessors fought so hard for ideals like sex positivity or body positivity — without that context, ideas to the contrary can seem more attractive. In a few years, Rauchberg notes, the pendulum may very well swing back again. 'As our current political administration in the US continues to make certain decisions that are impacting women in ways that maybe they did not anticipate, we will see maybe a disavowal or a step away from what these magazines or these influencers say,' she says.
Daily Mail
03-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The mother hoping to forge a global multi-million pound empire by championing women who refuse sex before marriage, stay at home and have babies - and buy her £142 milkmaid dresses
Brittany Hugoboom, editor and co-founder of the glossy magazine Evie, arrives with a big smile on her face – and it's hard to interpret it as anything other than a smile of defiance. Evie – and Hugoboom – are controversial even in Donald Trump 's US for their anti-feminist positions. Swipe past the professional fashion shoots and the celebrity gossip, and this is a magazine that advocates no sex before marriage, takes a stand against the Pill, and says feminism is making women depressed.
Hindustan Times
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Megyn Kelly blasts Blake Lively's TIME 100 spot, calls her out over ‘fake MeToo allegations' against Justin Baldoni
American political commentator Megyn Kelly isn't one to mince words, and she made that clear on Thursday night at the TIME100 Gala in New York City, especially when asked about fellow honoree Blake Lively. The journalist-turned-podcaster took a firm stance against Lively's inclusion on TIME's list of the most influential people of the year, calling it not just undeserved, but 'a ridiculous joke'. 'She's only here because she's a celebrity,' Kelly said bluntly. 'She has no influence over anything. She launched a fake MeToo allegation… She's lived to regret doing it because virtually every allegation she has made has fallen apart. And so for her to be honoured for doing that — to try to ruin a man over absolutely nothing — is a scandal.' Kelly was referring to Lively's infamous disputed claims involving her It Ends With Us (2024) co-star Justin Baldoni. While those allegations never resulted in legal action, they have caused a considerable stir online. Now, Kelly claims the entire controversy was baseless. 'Obviously, TIME is looking for big stars to come here and generate pages on their magazines, but that was very wrong,' she added. 'I have a feeling [Lively is] going to be avoiding me. I won't be avoiding anybody. I'm good.' A post shared by Evie Magazine (@eviemagazine) You'd expect social media to be divided, but to the surprise of many, the majority of netizens rallied behind Kelly. One viral comment on X read: 'Megyn 'Thug Life' Kelly absolutely DISMANTLED Blake Lively on the red carpet of the TIME 100 Gala. Mind you, Blake and Ryan were on that same red carpet. Megyn Kelly literally doing a drive-by on the opps. Is this why Ryan was pissed off last night?' Another added: 'Megyn is 100% correct. She didn't sugarcoat anything or hold back. That was awesome!' A third chimed in: 'Agree 1000%. Blake bought that award, plain and simple. She got it for doing damage control over the plantation wedding scandal. They donated money, and in 2025 they called in a favor.' Others praised Kelly's boldness, saying: 'She's stunning! You should have been standing right next to her there! I believe her when she says Blake would be hiding from Megyn! lol.' And perhaps the harshest take of all: 'Got to give it to Megyn. She's the only one so far from that event to state the truth. Blake should stay home. She deserves nothing but the karma coming her way.' As always, Megyn Kelly has left the red carpet — and the internet — buzzing. What do you think about this?
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chappell Roan doesn't need to be a parent to see that raising kids can be hell
I was too busy wiping mustard-colored feces off my 3-month-old's delightfully chubby legs and screaming at my 6-year-old to stop throwing rocks at his 10-year-old brother, to give my full attention to Chappell Roan's remarks on the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast that all her friends who are mothers are miserable. The 27-year-old pop star told host Alex Cooper that she's not sure she wants to be a mother because 'All of my friends who have kids are in hell.' She continued: 'I don't know anyone, I actually don't know anyone, who is happy and has children at this age. Like, a 1-year-old, like 3-year old — 4 and under, 5 and under. I literally have not met anyone who is happy, anyone who has, like, light in their eyes. Anyone who has slept.' I became aware of Roan's comments in the dead of night, while I was doom scrolling and breastfeeding my daughter for what felt like the gazillionth time. My doom scrolling gave way to me reading responses from moms angry at Roan. 'Having children is a blessing, not a burden,' Evie Magazine posted on Instagram, and the comments from mothers who disagreed with Roan ranged from 'I don't know what she's talking about' to 'having kids is absolute bliss' to various iterations of 'she's not a mom, so what does she know?' Mothers are not a monolith, and I cannot speak for every procreating parent with kids under 10 attached to their legs. But as I sit here having not showered in three days, wearing sweats covered with spit-up, attempting to write this column while my daughter uses my nipple as a chew toy, I can confidently say: Roan's right. Most moms are miserable. We're sleep deprived and stressed and dead-eyed not just because raising another human being is hard work, but also because of where we are raising our children — in a country that only pays lip service to mothers and nothing more. Some of us live in states, like Roan's native Missouri, that are especially hostile to women and mothers. There's no wonder why Roan would see young mothers in her home state struggling. Missouri, like many so-called 'red states,' ranks as one of the worst states in the country for women's health and reproductive care. Regardless of which state we live in, we're generally raising our children without mandated parental leave or universal free lunch or even the simple promise that motherhood will remain a choice and not a punishment mandated by the government. In 33 states, day care costs more than college tuition. In 17 states and the District of Columbia, child care costs more than rent. Congress has shut down universal pre-K and universal child care initiatives, and the Trump administration has frozen funds for Head Start programs and fired many of the employees responsible for keeping early education programs afloat. Many of us are forced to return to work just two weeks after giving birth to jobs that pay us less than what our male counterparts get — because in this country, employers treat fatherhood as proof a man's responsible and treat motherhood as proof a woman will be distracted. Others are simply forced to quit their jobs entirely, forgoing their own dreams and career goals for the sake of their families. In 2023, a survey of 3,000 working mothers with children under 4 found that 1 in 10 moms walked away from their jobs and that twice as many moms at least considered it. We moms with school-age children are trying to find time to help our kids catch up in math, science, reading and writing while they're enthusiastically detailing their latest active shooter drill. We're doing all of this while still handling the majority of the household responsibilities and shouldering most of the unpaid emotional labor of parenthood. But if we speak candidly about how hard any of this is, we're told we're ungrateful, inadequate parents who had no business having a child. Look: Children are demanding by design. The majority of parents with kids under 5 say parenting is stressful most of the time. Yet to say this out loud is a faux pas, precisely because expressing our misery exposes the awful job our country does supporting mothers. Now, this is usually the part where I say that despite it all, I love being a mother and I love my children — the necessary caveat meant to shield all moms from the very backlash Roan has received. But what if we all assume that it's a given that mothers love their children, and focus on the fact that no matter how loving they are, they're still miserable. A 27-year-old childless pop star can see it. Our unfiltered mom group chats reveal it. Countless studies quantify it. Our politicians undoubtedly know it. Any mirror I look at proves it. So why don't we all stop getting mad at the people who acknowledge how hard it is, and start demanding those in power do something to make it easier? This article was originally published on
