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.

“Does Brittany look oppressed to you?”

That question could be the tagline of white Christian nationalists’ decades-long, meticulous and diligent take over 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.