Essay: "Does Brittany Look Oppressed to You?"

On the Indoctrination of Young White Women in the U.S.

Left: The “raw milkmaid dress,” via Evie, priced at $189. Right: “Ms. Hugoboom once joked on X about the clothing she sells, ‘side effects may include an unplanned pregnancy.’” Caption: New York Times. Photo: Evie.

First published May 16, 2025

“Does Brittany look oppressed to you?”

That question could be the tagline of white Christian nationalists’ decades-long, meticulous and diligent takeover of the United States–a takeover facilitated and often fronted by white women.

Consider Brittany a generic white woman; a face of that white Christian nationalism. Much like other theocracies around the world, the white Christian nationalist takeover revolves around the control of women’s bodies but with Brittany as a face–and body–of that theocracy, white Christian nationalism distinguishes itself: we’re not like those zealots “over there,” it says because instead of a hijab, burqa or chador, Brittany models a milkmaid dress that makes her look like a sexier extra from Little House on the Prairie.

Implicit in that question “Does Brittany look oppressed to you?” is that there is a “look” to being oppressed and that that look is not something to associate with a white woman in the U.S.--the Brittany in question. And even more implicit to that question is that if Brittany looks like me, then she can’t be oppressed because I’m not oppressed therefore she is not oppressed. Remember that circular thinking.

Because right on cue, the New York Times failed the test about Brittany and oppression.

Brittany Hugoboom has described Evie as a “conservative cosmo,” and says it opposes what she calls “modern feminism.” But let’s call it what it is: white Christian nationalist propaganda aimed at indoctrinating young white women.

Brittany is a real woman–not a generic white woman. And that question is not theoretical. It is a question from Gabriel Hugoboom and it is the opening line of a breathless New York Times profile of his wife Brittany, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Evie. Brittany Hugoboom has described Evie as a “conservative cosmo,” and says it opposes what she calls “modern feminism.” But let’s call it what it is: white Christian nationalist propaganda aimed at indoctrinating young white women.

And the white woman journalist who was asked that question by Brittany’s white husband immediately responds that Brittany “the model, clad in thigh-high black boots” did not look oppressed. Because remember: if Brittany looks like me and I am not oppressed then she can’t be oppressed because I’m not oppressed therefore she is not oppressed.

It is easy to see theocrats when they don’t look like you.

I’m collecting pictures of Brittany et al for my Before and After the White Christian Nationalist Takeover of the United States. They are my version of the popular “Look at Iranian/Afghan/generic Muslim woman” before the “Taliban/
Ayatollahs/generic Muslim zealots” took over her country. You’ve seen those pictures, I’m sure, of women in minidresses and skirts, their hair uncovered in one picture. And next to it is women in those countries today, shrouded in hijabs, burqas, and chadors.

A popular collage when you search for “Women before the Iranian revolution.”

The hijab, burqa, and chador are convenient and easy symbols of “oppression.” When women in Iran rose up in the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution in opposition to compulsory hijabs and burned their chadors, it was easy for women in the U.S. to understand that as a revolt against theocracy.

In the U.S., where theocracy does not have a “symbol,” where white women who footsoldier for Christian nationalism are models “clad in thigh-high black boots,” what is there to burn as a symbol of theocracy? What is the through line between forced hijab and forced pregnancy? Are they not both the products of theocracy?

So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia or Iran or Afghanistan, that “looking oppressed” became associated with hijabs, burqas, and chadors. Not thigh-high black boots and not with the destruction of abortion rights.

And when you read the article that begins with “Does Brittany look oppressed to you?” it quickly becomes apparent that Brittany is indeed oppressed. Because despite a host of other Brittany lookalikes–who with the exception of Candace Owens, are all white–claiming that it is “incredibly cool” to be conservative nowadays, their role is the same: to put lipstick on the pig that is Project 2025.

They rail against no fault divorce and careers, propagate for a stay-at-home “soft” life that their lives don’t exemplify and which many people in the U.S. cannot afford, and are Exhibit A of how capitalism and wealth are false indicators of freedom when they don’t recognise structural barriers that hold back many of those people who have neither the time nor the money to spend their whole day looking like an extra from Little House on the Prairie, making a cheese sandwich (for their husband and countless children).

Consider them the younger, more conventionally attractive, more “feminine” and more fertile blondes than Marjorie Taylor Greene. Their ideology is the same.

Despite a host of other Brittany lookalikes–who with the exception of Candace Owens, are all white–claiming that it is “incredibly cool” to be conservative nowadays, their role is the same: to put lipstick on the pig that is Project 2025.

And while they are not clad in hijabs, burqas or chadors, their look is a cocktail of white, wealthy wife. From Kristi Noem and her $50,000 Rolex standing in front of men caged in a Salvadoran concentration camp. To a stream of tradwives (the new word for housewives because tradition is the new “cool”) in milkmaid dresses with just enough cleavage to signal sexy but just for her husband. To the white blonde women wearing cross necklaces that the New York Times calls “A Hot Accessory, at the Intersection of Faith and Culture.” The article, published just a month after their splashy profile of Brittany details the growing ubiquity of cross necklaces, and is illustrated by photographs and includes quotes from “influencers, pop stars and White House staff.” All are skinny, white, blonde women.

From left: Daisy Rogers, Sage Mills and Breanna Anderson spoke about the meaning of their cross necklaces on TikTok. Via New York Times

These are the women that fascists want to model womanhood on, like a butterfly stuck on a pin in a lab. That white supremacist model of ideal womanhood is why the Trump regime and other fascists are fighting transgender rights. That model of ideal womanhood is why those of us who are not skinny, white cisgender women are so vociferous in our pushback against transphobia.

Imagine if the Taliban financed a magazine to indoctrinate women and imagine the New York Times giving it the splashy and sexy coverage it gave to Evie. Imagine the New York Times publishing an article that called hijabs, burqas, or chadors “A Hot Accessory, at the Intersection of Faith and Culture.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said she wears her cross pendant “because it serves as a reminder of the strength that can only be found through faith.”Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

It is unimaginable because the New York Times recognises that the Taliban are zealots. And it recognises that the Taliban’s zealotry is especially harmful to women. And the New York Times should recognise that just because a woman is the face of zealotry, it does not make that zealotry any less harmful.

What the New York Times is incapable of recognising is that white and Christian are considered the default in the U.S. and therefore not deemed harmful or dangerous.

Even when it destroys abortion rights. Even when it elects a sexual predator who dubs himself “Fertilization President” and makes it clear that he and his regime consider white women walking incubators whose wombs will redress the decline in the white birth rate in the U.S. Even when white woman after white woman footsoldiers for that regime and its oligarch backers (tech billionaire Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance’s mentor, is a financier of Evie) to convince other white women to make more white babies.

That white supremacist model of ideal womanhood is why the Trump regime and other fascists are fighting transgender rights. That model of ideal womanhood is why those of us who are not skinny, white cisgender women are so vociferous in our pushback against transphobia.

U.S. newsrooms are still predominantly white and those white reporters rarely see the danger of other white people because it is like seeing a reflection of yourself in the mirror. It is easy to see zealots when they don’t look like you. And those newsrooms are especially bad at recognising the danger of white women who footsoldier for white supremacy because it would require that they look at their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers with the same critical eye they are capable of directing at Muslim women.

Now that feminism in the U.S. has died, and milkmaid dress and cross-necklace wearing Brittany et al are dancing on its grave, let’s fight for a new iteration of feminism that can grow a spine and actually deliver

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 signalled the failure of feminism in the United States. His re-election in 2024 is like a macabre dance of vultures who peck at and feast on the corpse of feminism. From “my body, my choice,” to justify an array of travesties such as refusing to mask during lockdown and refusing to vaccinate children, to co-opting identity politics from a powerful tool to explain how our identities determine the way we walk through the world and the oppressions we face into a hollow “if a woman does something, no matter how harmful it is to others, it must be celebrated simply because a woman is doing it.”

Now that feminism in the U.S. has died, and milkmaid dress and cross-necklace wearing Brittany et al are dancing on its grave, let’s fight for a new iteration of feminism that can grow a spine and actually deliver beyond “girl power,” “girlboss,” and celebrities wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “feminist.”

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 signalled the failure of feminism in the United States. His re-election in 2024 is like a macabre dance of vultures who peck at and feast on the corpse of feminism.

Let’s make feminism even more dangerous than the white Christian nationalist goals in the U.S. The “manosphere” delivered victory for Trump, and the right wing is now pushing Brittany et al as the “womanosphere” to target young female US audiences.

Fascism doesn't happen overnight. Theocracy is not built in a day. White Christian nationalism is diligent and meticulous.

Let’s make feminism even more diligent and meticulous. Let’s make feminism dangerous again.

Let’s terrify patriarchy.

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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her new book, an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World, will be published March 5, 2025. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.

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