&#8220;Rosie the Riveter&#8221; wasn&#8217;t a single person.
There were actually millions of Rosies: women who stepped up to work in factories and shipyards to keep the United States humming while the men who typically held those jobs were away fighting in World War II. Every &#8220;Rosie&#8221; was an integral part of the war effort, doing whatever it took to step up for her country.
A new campaign from Independent Women, a nonprofit advocacy group for women, wants to bring that patriotic spirit back for America&#8217;s 250th birthday. There isn&#8217;t the same workforce crisis as there was 80 years ago, but there is perhaps a greater crisis when it comes to patriotism. A recent Gallup poll found that American pride fell to a 25-year low, with the sharpest decline among women.
In the past year, the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/711938/american-pride-falls-year-record-low.aspx">number of American women</a> who said they were extremely proud to be an American fell 13 points, to just 26%. Another <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/697382/record-numbers-younger-women-leave.aspx">poll</a> found that two out of every five younger women would permanently leave the country if possible.
&#8220;Young women have been taught that patriotism is embarrassing and contempt for America is a badge of intelligence,&#8221; Meaghan Mobbs, director of Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security, told The Daily Wire.
Mobbs, who is a combat veteran herself, says women should be proud to contribute to America, and that military service is far from the only way to do it. She believes the spirit of &#8220;Rosie the Riveter&#8221; is what&#8217;s needed to reverse that tide.
&#8220;Rosie 250 matters because it offers a powerful counterexample — generations of American women who understood that strength meant contributing to their country, not sneering at it,&#8221; Mobbs said. &#8220;As America turns 250, we have an opportunity to give young women something worth inheriting — a sense of pride, purpose, responsibility, and ownership in the nation they will help lead.&#8221;
The campaign says that a Rosie is &#8220;a woman who loves her country, chooses her own path, and uses her strength, talent, and freedom to build something bigger than herself.&#8221;
&#8220;She serves where she is needed, stands alongside the men in her life, and believes America is worth strengthening for the next generation,&#8221; Independent Women says.
While the Rosie of World War II was portrayed as a blue-collar factory worker, this campaign makes it clear that there are many more ways to step up in the current era.
&#8220;There is no single right way to be a woman,&#8221; the campaign says. &#8220;She may raise a family, build a career, serve her country, lead her community, or forge a path entirely her own. Every one of those lives helps build a stronger America.&#8221;

America Needs A New ‘Rosie The Riveter’ For Its 250th Birthday

america 250th anniversary

independent women

patriotism

rosie the riveter

women

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent,” Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith said — and if modern history were to test that theory, the Lindsay Clancy murder trial would be, for lack of a better term, Exhibit A.
The courtroom drama ended Friday in a mistrial, and the jury appears to have narrowly avoided the miscarriage of justice — and the “cruelty to the innocent” — that would have resulted had they returned with a verdict declaring her “not criminally responsible” for her actions.
So who is the guilty in this case? The answer to this question is pretty straightforward: Lindsay Clancy, whatever one might believe about the factors that may have contributed to her mental state at the time of the murders, is the one who committed them.
Clancy herself — along with her entire defense team — has never once denied that she is the one who strangled her three young children to death with exercise bands. During the trial, text messages revealed that she planned the murders — at least in the short term — and intentionally sent her husband on errands away from the house in order to give herself time to carry them out.
Her defense team claimed at trial that she heard a voice telling her to carry out the actions. Reddington then painted a picture of a woman so debilitated by the effects of postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis — coupled with a laundry list of psychotropic drugs that had been prescribed at different times by her doctors — that she could not be held responsible for planning and carrying out three murders and an apparent suicide attempt.
None of this is to say that Clancy was not suffering or did not need help — only that, by her own admission, she committed the crimes of which she stands accused.
And who is the innocent? This is slightly more complicated, because the obvious victims are the three children who will never see another birthday — not to mention the father who was the first to discover the bodies of his dead children and will never toss a football with his sons or walk his daughter down the aisle.
A ”not responsible” verdict, to them, would mean that no justice will ever be served for what was done to them.
But there are many more who would feel the impact of a “not responsible” verdict — and some of them are the ones who have been screaming the loudest for exactly that. The damage such a verdict could do to women across the board cannot be overstated.
While it might look like compassion to declare Clancy a victim — of her diagnoses, of disjointed health care, or a combination of those things — what it would become is an indictment of any woman who has been or might be a victim of the same.
If, for example, postpartum depression is accepted as what pushed Clancy to kill her own children, who could then say that Child Protective Services was out of line if they began removing children from any home in which the mother was diagnosed with PPD? And in family court? Instead of arguing that children need their mothers, lawyers would be forced to prove that their female clients weren’t on the brink of crisis.
And while that seems extreme, what about the women who have high-stress jobs? Would their bosses be correct to sideline them if they learned of such a diagnosis? And given patient privacy laws, why would employers ever risk hiring women at all — knowing that they could be one hormone shift away from crisis — for such jobs?
Female pilots? No airline would ever take the risk. Combat roles? Not likely. In fact, military leadership would put more restrictions on the jobs women were allowed to do. Law enforcement officers? Air traffic controllers? Supreme Court Justice — or any judge, for that matter? Fewer women would ever make it into any of those jobs — and a whole list of others — and every one who did would forever have an asterisk next to her name. And kiss the idea of a female president of the United States goodbye forever.
In starker terms, a “not responsible” verdict for Lindsay Clancy would hit rewind on even the most basic rights and freedoms that the First Wave Feminists — think Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, not Sandra Fluke and the p*ssy-hat mafia — fought to obtain: to vote, to own property, to have a credit card or bank account that didn’t require a man’s signature. After all, can you really trust a woman with the household finances if she’s at the mercy of her hormones? What are the odds that any woman would ever again be allowed to own a firearm?
Women cannot demand equality with men when it comes to jobs and positions of power and then demand special consideration when it comes to accountability for their actions.

Lindsay Clancy ‘said that she heard a male voice ordering her … to kill her children,’ psychologist tells jurors

A Lindsay Clancy ‘Not Responsible’ Verdict Would Have Sent Women Back 100 Years

A Lindsay Clancy 'Not Responsible' Verdict Would Have Sent Women Back 100 Years

insanity defense

lindsay clancy

mistrial

opinion

postpartum depression

For years, the fertility industry has attacked restorative reproductive medicine with two contradictory arguments. 
The first is that RRM is not real medicine. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) dismisses it as an unrecognized subspecialty, and editorials in the industry&#8217;s own journals characterize it as unscientific and ideologically driven. 
The second is that the infertility treatment is unnecessary because fertility clinics already provide the thorough diagnostic workups and root-cause treatment that RRM promises. When the federal government proposed an “excepted fertility benefit” earlier this year to address the “diagnosis, mitigation, or treatment of infertility or infertility-related reproductive health conditions,” ASRM objected that the rule&#8217;s emphasis on treating underlying conditions covers “a gap that does not exist” because standard care already includes thorough workups and root-cause treatment.
Notice that these claims cannot both be true. If the fertility industry is to be believed, RRM is either quackery or exactly the care the industry already delivers. Yet a <a href="https://iirrm.org/real-world-fertility-evaluation-care-prior-to-in-vitro-fertilization/">study</a> released in July suggests the truth is neither. The care that supposedly makes RRM redundant is, for many patients, not happening at all.
The <a href="https://iirrm.org/real-world-fertility-evaluation-care-prior-to-in-vitro-fertilization/">study</a>, conducted by researchers at the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine and now under peer review, analyzed roughly five million insurance claims and identified commercially insured patients who were diagnosed with infertility and went on to receive IVF between 2021 and 2024. For each condition the study covered, the researchers asked a straightforward question: Before these patients began IVF, did they receive the evaluations and first-line treatments that ASRM&#8217;s own published guidelines recommend? 
The study did not measure clinics against RRM&#8217;s more extensive protocols. It measured them against the fertility industry&#8217;s own standards, written by the professional societies to which these physicians belong. The result? The industry failed its own test. 
Across nearly every condition studied, care gaps ranged from roughly 13 to 78 percentage points, depending on the workup. Within one month of an infertility diagnosis, up to 12% of patients had already started IVF before the basic diagnostic picture was complete. Only 1% of men had completed the two semen analyses that guidelines recommend as the starting point of any male evaluation. By nine months, 70% to 85% of patients had begun IVF, while many of the evaluations and treatments the industry itself recommends sat below 40% completion, and several remained in the single digits.
The condition-by-condition numbers are worse. Take endometriosis, a chronic disease affecting <a href="https://womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/endometriosis">more than 11%</a> of American women between 15 and 44 and <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3538128/#R2">making up</a> 30% to 50% of infertility diagnoses. Among younger women with the condition, only 9.3% received the recommended first-line intervention by nine months, while more than 80% had already started IVF. 
Hyperprolactinemia, a hormonal disorder usually correctable with an inexpensive daily pill, showed a gap of nearly 60 percentage points: 25.7% of women received the recommended dopamine agonist, while 85.5% had begun IVF. Likewise, care for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-medical-myth-that-failed-millions-of-women">PMOS</a>, the most common cause of ovulatory infertility, ran the same way: Guidelines say letrozole should be the first-line drug for inducing ovulation, and it costs a few dollars a cycle, but only 34.1% of these women had been prescribed it by nine months, while 78.4% had begun IVF.
Men fared no better. Male-factor problems contribute to roughly half of infertility cases, yet the male half of the workup was the more neglected one. Among men diagnosed after recurrent pregnancy loss, just 3.2% received the recommended sperm DNA testing and 24.5% a karyotype, while 81% had already begun IVF. Notably, a semen analysis is not only a fertility test: male infertility signals undiagnosed conditions that carry consequences long after the question of conception is settled, which means a skipped workup leaves a question about a man&#8217;s health not just unanswered but unasked.
Why does this matter? Because infertility is not a standalone disease. It is a symptom of underlying conditions, such as endometriosis, PMOS, and thyroid disorders in women and low sperm count, low motility, abnormal sperm, and varicoceles in men, with diagnoses split roughly evenly between the sexes. RRM diagnoses and treats those conditions in the hope that couples restore their health and go on to conceive naturally. 
When a clinic moves a couple into IVF without completing the recommended evaluation, it is not simply choosing one fertility treatment over another. It is bypassing the diagnosis of a disease that will continue to affect that patient&#8217;s health, whether or not the IVF cycle produces a child. This is precisely the distinction restorative reproductive medicine exists to address: RRM identifies and treats the underlying condition so that couples can conceive naturally, while IVF bypasses the body to create human embryos in a laboratory setting. IVF may result in the live birth of a child, but it cannot heal anyone, and, in fact, results in much higher rates of adverse outcomes for the mother and baby. 
While I don&#8217;t think that individual doctors, who are themselves captive to the health insurance model, are motivated by financial gain, it is hard to ignore the economics of fertility clinics. Over a third of U.S. fertility clinics are now owned by or affiliated with private equity firms, up from just 4% in 2013, and these clinics perform more than half of all IVF cycles in the country. Private equity does not invest in slow medicine. These firms buy businesses with high patient turnaround and recurring revenue, and they impose a standardized operating model designed to maximize both.
The economics of fertility care help explain how this pattern became standard practice. Diagnosing and treating the underlying causes of infertility in both patients takes time, and a full restorative evaluation and course of treatment typically runs $7,500 to $15,000. A single IVF cycle costs $15,000 to $30,000, succeeds 25% to 35% of the time, and generates additional cycles when it fails or when a couple returns hoping for another child. A treatment model that resolves a patient&#8217;s condition does not produce that kind of recurring revenue.
The public seems to have noticed as well. Earlier this year, when the Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury departments proposed the excepted fertility benefit, a new insurance option designed to cover the diagnosis and treatment of infertility-related conditions, the agencies invited the public to weigh in. The response was extraordinary by the standards of federal rulemaking. Most proposed rules pass through their comment periods in near silence; about 80% draw 10 or fewer comments. 
By the time this one closed on July 13, the docket held 4,652 comments. And the message was consistent. By two preliminary counts, at least 62% of commenters called for greater access to root-cause care, from fertility awareness-based methods to treatment of underlying reproductive health conditions, and many asked that restorative reproductive medicine be named and promoted in the final rule. ASRM, faced with thousands of Americans asking for exactly the care it insists patients already receive, responded by asking the government to withdraw the rule entirely.
The comment docket is no outlier. A March survey by Carrot, a fertility benefits company, found that 89% of women would prefer to try a less invasive option before IVF if it came with clinical guidance, and 78% said better information alone would make them more likely to pursue non-IVF options. Interest in metabolic health support topped every option surveyed, yet fewer than half of the women had ever had a single clinical conversation about metabolic health in their entire fertility journey.
The demand for this medicine is real, and it is growing along with the problem it addresses: More than <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr202.pdf">16% of married women</a> now experience infertility, and most intend to have another child. RRM&#8217;s record with these patients deserves attention, too. Women with <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/08/25/beyond-ivf-finding-root-causes-infertility-can-lead-more-successful-outcomes/">one to nine failed IVF cycles still have nearly a one in three chance</a> of conceiving through restorative care.
The fertility industry can keep calling RRM fake medicine, or it can keep insisting it already provides the same care. It cannot do both — and after the review of five million insurance claims, it cannot credibly do either. The billing records show an IVF-first approach that routinely bypasses the industry&#8217;s own guidelines. American families have said clearly that they want something better, and federal policy and public awareness campaigns should ensure they can find it.
***
Emma Waters is a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and the author of the book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Like-Jael-Timeless-Principles/dp/1510783539/ref=sr_1_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lead Like Jael: Seven Timeless Principles for Today’s Women of Faith</a>” and host of the new podcast &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@rethinkingfertility" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/@rethinkingfertility&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1783520571890000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0iXgoblF18btxePh28hFTy">Rethinking Fertility</a>.&#8221; 
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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What The Fertility Industry Doesn’t Want Couples To Hear

fertility

health

Restorative reproductive medicine (RRM)

upstream

The European Broadcasting Union just dropped new guidelines telling cameras how to film female athletes. No more low angles from behind or beneath. No prolonged close-ups of body parts. No slow-motion replays that don’t “contribute to the understanding of the sporting action.” All in the name of preventing the “sexualization” of women on screen.
I reject it. I think it’s stupid. 
These guidelines treat ordinary athletic movement as inherently suspect when it comes from a woman. A low angle under a high jumper or pole vaulter isn’t automatically pornographic. It’s often the best way to show the height and the technique. Slow motion isn’t automatically leering. It’s how we see elite skill and athleticism. 
When we decide that certain shots of women require special moral scrubbing while the same shots of men are just “good television,” we are not protecting women. We are reinforcing the idea that their bodies are the problem.
Film athletes playing their sports. That’s it. That’s the job. Capture the leap, the strain, the power, the precision, the moment she clears the bar and the moment the finish line breaks. 
Do it for the men. Do it for the women. Same cameras. Same angles. Same standards. 
The idea that we need a special rulebook because women’s bodies might make someone somewhere have a thought is exhausted, condescending nonsense.
What’s next? Hijabs and total body coverings for female athletes so no bad men get distracted? 
For years there have been cries to change the uniform for gymnasts — the leotard — to something more demure. But that is the uniform for good reason. I know this firsthand. I was a gymnast. The 1986 U.S. National Champion, in fact. The leo, as we called them, provides the most comfortable, least interfering outfit for an athlete flipping and flying through the air. Nothing gets caught on the bar or the beam. Nothing flies over the athlete’s head. Anything looser would be dangerous. If it covers the legs, it’s a problem on bars, where the thighs hit the bar for casting to handstand. Anything covering the legs can be slippery against the fiberglass in a way that skin, covered in chalk, is not.
The leotard exists because it works. It is functional. It is the tool that lets the athlete do her thing at the highest level. Just like the swimsuit. Should swimmers not wear bathing suits now because they are too revealing and show women’s bodies? 
The argument in gymnastics always comes up when a pedophile coach is arrested. Like it is somehow the athlete’s fault that he’s a sexual assaulter and abuser and serial rapist. It’s her outfit, you see. It’s the “what was she wearing?” approach. No. Just no. 
It’s his fault for abusing young girls. Whoever he is. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-victims-of-usa-olympic-team-doctor-larry-nassar-to-be-be-paid-380-million-in-settlement">Larry Nassar</a>, Don Peters (the 1984 Olympic coach now banned from the sport for allegedly assaulting three gymnasts) — the list of gymnastics creeps goes on and on.
While of course nothing should be gratuitous in shooting female athletes, we don’t need separate rules for men and women. Film the athletes. Film what they do: their athleticism, their feats, their leaps and jumps and strength and flair.
Should athletes be offered more modest uniforms if they prefer? Sure. Why not. But we don’t need to upend the world of sport so that pervy men don’t perv. I’ve got news: Pervy men are gonna perv no matter what. You can dress every female athlete in a potato sack, and the creeps will still find a way to ogle. The solution is not to hide the athlete. It is to stop treating her body as the story and start treating her performance as the story.
I spent a career in a sport where the uniform is skin-tight for good reason. I know what it feels like to have people fixate on the outfit instead of the work. The answer was never to make us cover up. The answer was to demand that people look at the gymnastics. Look at the performances on bars and beam and floor exercise. Look at the amazing thing that a remarkable athlete just did. And, yes, rid the sport of pedophile coaches and instate a governing body that actually cares about its athletes. 
These new guidelines treat women’s bodies as the problem. The irony, of course, is that in the name of protecting women’s sports, they implement silly camera guidelines while these same broadcasters won’t take a stand to ensure women’s sports are actually for women only. 
Give us our sports back. And stop the special rules. Stop the pearl-clutching about athletic uniforms. Film the athletes. All of them. The same way. Their bodies are not the scandal. Their excellence is the point.
***
Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker, and retired national champion gymnast.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Strange New Rules For Women’s Sports Coverage

europe

Women Sports

What happens when an organization founded to preserve history decides it can no longer preserve the very definitions upon which it was founded?
Recently, at its Continental Congress, the Daughters of the American Revolution rejected a proposed bylaw amendment that would have defined &#8220;woman&#8221; for purposes of membership. <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jun/27/daughters-american-revolution-defeats-proposal-block-transgender/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jun/27/daughters-american-revolution-defeats-proposal-block-transgender/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1784134832324000&amp;usg=AOvVaw38iW2zXCsc3k1_fWIVsA6z">The resolution read</a>: “Resolved, That in Article III, Section 1 of the Bylaws, the term ‘woman’ shall be understood to clearly mean a woman who was born female, and therefore, individuals who were born male shall not be eligible for membership.” By rejecting this bylaw amendment, the organization chose not to adopt language that supporters believed would preserve DAR as a female-only organization.
In the days that followed the vote, many chapters expressed disappointment with both the outcome and the organization&#8217;s response. The official DAR message failed to address their central concern over whether the organization intends to remain a space for women only.
If you’re not in DAR, it’s easy at first glance to give this a “so what?”
DAR exists to preserve history, and, ironically, an organization dedicated to preserving truth about the past is now struggling to acknowledge objective reality in the present. But bigger than that, it represents one more step in a broader cultural movement where we are asking — rather, guilting — women to surrender spaces created specifically for them.
Created to preserve American history and uphold constitutional ideals, DAR was founded by women in 1890. The organization exists and is deeply rooted in service because descendants accepted a responsibility to preserve these ideals, not merely sit in the privilege of being born of them. That calling comes with the responsibility to acknowledge hard truths.
My own journey into DAR wasn’t easy. It took years of genealogical research alongside my grandmother, gathering documentation and verifying lineage. I originally intended to join under the lineage of Oliver Wolcott on my maternal grandfather’s side, linking me to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This was complicated by a courthouse fire where all records were destroyed, so I opted to take the path of joining under my maternal grandmother, a path where the documents were easier to find. This linked me to some horse thieves instead, but, hey, they were patriots nonetheless. Every document I located felt like another thread reconnecting my family to the American story. There were so many hoops I had to jump through, and the deeper I dug, the more I appreciated that patriotism is not merely inherited; it is cultivated through understanding the sacrifices that came before us, and that patriotism and our history must be preserved — the good and the bad.
DAR asks its members to honor historical truth. Every application depends upon documents that cannot be altered to fit our preferences. Birth records matter. Marriage records matter. Death records matter. Genealogy is built on objective facts. Historical preservation depends upon objective facts. If those two things are true, why is it not expected that women’s organizations should likewise depend upon objective definitions? If an organization explicitly dedicated to historical accuracy cannot maintain a clear distinction between a man and a woman, both equally important to our society in their own right, that organization risks undermining its own credibility.
DAR was created by women. Women built it. Women have sustained it for generations. Women deserve organizations created specifically for women, and DAR itself is part of women&#8217;s history. At a time when women had few opportunities to lead national civic organizations, these women built one of their own. Preserving that legacy is itself an act of historical preservation.
Increasingly, women are told that maintaining female-only spaces is exclusionary rather than legitimate. The burden has shifted from explaining why men should enter women&#8217;s organizations to explaining why women should have organizations of their own. For women, it is a burdensome responsibility to explain routinely why we matter and why we uniquely bring value. Supporting women&#8217;s spaces is not hostility or hate toward anyone else.
DAR is not without real historical failures. Black women were wrongly excluded despite qualifying ancestry — an incorrect decision that took us far too long as an organization to rectify. And now, we face another one of those moments where we are failing women, women whose ancestors were the reason our nation exists today.
The question before today&#8217;s DAR is whether an organization founded by and for women should remain one. In the pursuit of making every institution open to everyone, we risk forgetting that some institutions exist precisely because they were created to serve a particular purpose.
One of my favorite stories from DAR came during my first visit to its museum in Washington, D.C. Displayed prominently is one of President James Monroe&#8217;s 1817 armchairs. After the chair was sold from the White House grounds in the 19th century, it eventually found its way into DAR&#8217;s collection. Years later, when the White House sought to reacquire pieces of its original furnishings, DAR refused to part with it. The women who said that chair belonged with DAR felt their responsibility was not to surrender history for cash, but to safeguard it for future generations — an edict they would never abandon. I cannot help but wonder what those women would think of today&#8217;s debate over preserving the organization&#8217;s own identity.
Women who believe this decision departs from the organization&#8217;s founding purpose must stand up and speak out about it. Courage requires speaking up when it is uncomfortable. I do not relish this controversy. I do not like the copious amount of hate I receive because I believe in the importance of protecting women and our spaces, but the courage to do what is right and just means speaking unpopular truths.
The women who founded DAR understood that preserving history required courage. Sometimes that courage meant preserving stories that were uncomfortable. Today, it means preserving truths that are unpopular. Institutions are not preserved through silence but through conviction.
When an organization founded to preserve history decides it can no longer preserve the very definitions upon which it was founded, we already know what happens. Institutions slowly lose sight of the very purpose they were created to preserve. If we cannot, and will not, preserve the truths closest to us, we should not be surprised when future generations stop trusting us to preserve the truths of those who came before us.
***
Taylor Hathorn is a visiting fellow at Independent Women. She has over 10 years of experience in cybersecurity, policy, public relations, and nonprofit management.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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A Historic Women’s Organization Couldn’t Define ‘Woman’

Gender

history

transgender

For years, millions of women were told they didn’t have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) because they lacked ovarian cysts. The recent rename to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) is a course-correct that admits medicine misunderstood the condition all along, and we could not be more pleased.
The &#8220;cystic&#8221; framing has misled patients and clinicians for decades. Women presented classic symptoms — high insulin, stubborn weight, acne, irregular cycles, and facial hair — only to be told their ovaries looked “normal” on an ultrasound, so they didn&#8217;t have PMOS. The diagnosis hinged on a feature that isn&#8217;t even the central problem, and countless women have spent years suffering with a real condition that was never properly named.
The rename puts the truth front and center. PMOS is a multi-system condition affecting metabolism, hormones, skin, and mental health, with insulin resistance at its core, and women will now be seen and diagnosed even when their ovaries look normal on a scan. Roughly one in eight women are diagnosed with this condition, but around 20% of women in their fertile years suffer undiagnosed.  
At its roots, PMOS is the same metabolic slowdown postmenopausal women experience with waning hormones and declining muscle, except it&#8217;s hitting women in their teens, twenties, and thirties, when their metabolism should be thriving.
To every woman with this condition, we see you and know what you’re facing. PMOS is chronic, but there is so much hope. Chronic doesn&#8217;t mean unmanageable, and for many women it can go into deep remission. 
My (Pearl&#8217;s) daughter Meadow was diagnosed as a teenager, and the standard advice of a strict low-carb diet actually made things worse. When she shifted to gentle, fiber-rich carbs, anchored her meals around lean protein, added movement and more veggies, and incorporated a supplement called myo-inositol, her insulin numbers dropped, her cycles normalized, and the condition went into deep remission. It&#8217;s an encouraging pattern we&#8217;ve seen with other women, too.
Some women need more powerful tools, and we’ll get to those. But for every woman with PMOS, lifestyle is the foundation to healing, and we believe four things consistently move the needle.
First, anchor every meal in protein, 25 to 30 grams four times a day. Protein is the body&#8217;s natural GLP-1 stimulator, the same incretin hormone the new weight-loss drugs mimic. Women with PMOS produce less GLP-1, and protein repairs the body. 
Second, don’t shun healthy carbs and get in wise fats. Do ditch sugar and processed foods. When anchored with protein, fiber-rich carbs like beans, legumes, and mid-glycemic fruits such as apples and papaya are an insulin-resistance weapon. 
A 2018 University of Saskatchewan trial found that women with PCOS who ate lentils, chickpeas, and beans saw <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/add-beans-chickpeas-lentils-improve-diet-1966215">significantly greater drops in insulin response</a> than those on a standard diet. Because insulin resistance makes blood sugar testier, go easy on higher-sugar carbs such as white potatoes, bananas, and grapes until yours is better controlled. Wise fats such as avocado, whole eggs, butter, and coconut oil (in moderation) are crucial for endocrine health. For fat loss, the Trim Healthy Mama approach effectively separates fat-focused and carb-focused meals while keeping protein in every one.
Third, add more veggies. Intramuscular fat droplets are one of the largest drivers of insulin resistance. Non-starchy veggies help scrub them out.
Fourth, move your body. You don’t have to boot camp yourself to exhaustion, but two to three strength training sessions a week turn muscle into a glucose sponge. Gaining back lean body mass is key to combating insulin resistance. Beware punishing cardio; it spikes cortisol and works against you. A simple rhythm of strength training paired with walking is doable and effective.
Finally, a word about the pill. The standard medical answer for PMOS has long been the birth control pill, and visible symptoms can seem to improve with it. But the pill doesn&#8217;t fix the underlying condition; it puts the ovaries into a chemically induced menopause. It raises C-reactive protein inflammation and the risk of depression, blood clots, heart disease, and breast cancer, while lowering libido. It can also worsen thyroid problems—a real concern for women with PMOS, who already trend low on thyroid and on the incretin hormones that regulate appetite and blood sugar.
For women whose symptoms don&#8217;t yield to lifestyle changes alone, three tools are worth discussing with your doctor. First, get a full thyroid panel. Most doctors stop at TSH and T4, but women with PMOS need free T3 and Reverse T3 measured too. Restoring thyroid function with the right hormone support can be a game-changer. Second, ask about bioidentical progesterone, which <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740675720300165">some endocrinologists believe may</a> help the brain and body restore normal rhythms disrupted by PMOS, with the bonus of tamping down the hormonal cascade that drives acne. Third, a small, carefully prescribed dose of a GLP-1 medication can fill the gap when the body isn&#8217;t making enough on its own — a bridge, not a crutch.
Used wisely, these tools meet the body where it is.
PMOS is real. But so is the room to heal, and women deserve to hear that too.
***
Pearl Barrett and Serene Allison are the founders of Trim Healthy Mama and New York Times bestselling authors of the forthcoming title &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+seven+skills+to+lasting+health&amp;adgrpid=185689537145&amp;hvadid=779621993755&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvexpln=0&amp;hvlocphy=9210807&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvocijid=5550474026117812759--&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvrand=5550474026117812759&amp;hvtargid=kwd-2460996756465&amp;hydadcr=15555_13842827_8870&amp;mcid=ef3debac22cb3f278916e22a279fd059&amp;tag=googhydr-20&amp;ref=pd_sl_1os91ya29f_e">The 7 Skills to Lasting Health</a>.&#8221;
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Vertigo and dizziness sensation, multiple face effect

The Medical Myth That Failed Millions Of Women

Yael Eckstein, president and global CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, brought thousands of women together at the Turning Point USA Women&#8217;s Leadership Summit in Texas with a speech that wove together personal loss, Biblical wisdom, and a challenge to embrace God&#8217;s calling — however fearful the moment.
Eckstein arrived straight off a plane from Israel, where she lives and works, and opened with characteristic self-deprecating humor. “Have you ever felt like your life is everything you&#8217;ve never dreamed of?” she asked the crowd. “I&#8217;m just a Jewish woman from Israel raising four children, trying to listen to what God is saying to me every single day and follow exactly where he leads.”
At the heart of her address — which followed Erika Kirk’s — was a single Hebrew word: hineni — &#8220;here I am.&#8221; She invited the audience to say it aloud, explaining that the word carries a meaning far deeper than its translation. “It doesn&#8217;t mean ‘God, I have it all figured out.’ And it doesn&#8217;t mean, ‘God, I&#8217;m fearless.’ &#8230; It simply means, ‘God, I&#8217;m available. God, I&#8217;m listening. God, here I am.’”
“I think that word matters now more than ever because if we&#8217;re honest, the world feels very heavy,” she continued. “We open up our phones and we see war and division, hatred, loneliness, anxiety. Can you guys relate to that? It can feel like darkness is winning, right? We just saw that. Who interrupted Erika&#8217;s speech? It was darkness.”
“But I have seen something else. I have seen that when people choose to open up their eyes to where God is moving and decide to bring light to the darkness, like what each one of you is doing, miracles happen,” she declared. “I have seen biblical prophecy come to fruition in our generation. I&#8217;ve seen Christians and Jews stand together in ways that generations before us could have only dreamed about and that Jesus would have been happy with.”
Eckstein spoke candidly about the moment her own capacity to say hineni was tested. Seven and a half years ago, her father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein — who built the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews into the largest nonprofit organization in Israel — passed away suddenly, and she was asked to step into his role. She was young, grieving, and terrified. “I remember thinking, ‘Okay God, surely you have the wrong person,’” she recalled. But drawing on the biblical examples of Moses, Esther, Ruth, Mary, and David — none of whom felt ready — she found her footing. “God was never looking for perfection. He was looking for willingness.”
Standing before the audience, she described that pivotal moment: “In that darkest moment in my life, a mourning child with shaking hands and a terrified heart, I answered God the only way I knew how. I looked up to the heavens and I said, ‘Hineni — here I am. Use me, Lord, in whatever way you see fit.’” The result, she told the crowd, has been more than one million people reached annually through her organization&#8217;s humanitarian work — feeding the hungry, sheltering Holocaust survivors, and delivering aid to war zones in Israel, Ukraine, and Ethiopia.
Her message grew even more personal when she revealed that her 19-year-old daughter is currently serving in the Israeli army, stationed less than half a mile from the Gaza Strip and commanding 80 soldiers. “As a mother, I can tell you there are nights where I want to hold on to her so tightly and never let her go,” Eckstein said, her voice steady. “But then I remember this: light is not built through comfort alone. It&#8217;s built through courage.”
She closed by reframing the conference&#8217;s name — HER — adding a letter: HERE. “The greatest thing that each one of you can offer God is not perfection. It&#8217;s your presence, your openness, your willingness to answer when he calls.”
Her final charge to the crowd was simple and sweeping: “When God calls your name, don&#8217;t wait until you&#8217;re fully prepared. Answer him with faith, with courage, with an open heart. &#8230; Say it — say it every single morning when you wake up: Hineni. Lord, here I am.”
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creation of Adam by Michelangelo , Rome Italy March 08 creation

‘God, Here I Am’: Leader Of Jewish-Christian Organization Inspires Women At TPUSA Event

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

TPUSA

Women’s greatest legacy is their children, Isabel Brown, host of “The Isabel Brown Show” on The Daily Wire, told attendees at Turning Point USA’s 2026 Women’s Leadership Summit on Saturday.
The three-day women’s conference, held June 5–7 in San Antonio, Texas, featured speakers from across the conservative movement, including Brown, Alex Clark, Riley Gaines, Erika Kirk, and Allie Beth Stuckey. Brown spoke on the Left’s attack on motherhood and encouraged young conservative women to have families.
“It is normal, healthy, and beautiful for you to want to bring new life into the world,” Brown said. “It’s a gift that is only available to women. It’s the only experience humanity has to participate in the creation of new life right alongside God.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Isabel Brown: “It is normal, healthy, and beautiful for you to want to bring new life into the world. It&#8217;s a gift that is only available to women.”<a href="https://x.com/theisabelb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@theisabelb</a> live at WLS 2026 <a href="https://t.co/9GNO5WqiaZ">pic.twitter.com/9GNO5WqiaZ</a>
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) <a href="https://x.com/TPUSA/status/2063368586757066913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Brown argued that modern culture increasingly devalues motherhood and traditional family formation, while elevating individual fulfillment above sacrifice and service to others.
“Despite calling me out by name repeatedly, the women of The View weren’t really upset about me,” Brown said. “They were threatened by the fundamental truth that the women sitting in this room know and live out every day: that our greatest contributions are bigger than ourselves.”
Brown also encouraged attendees to reject fears surrounding marriage and raising children.
“Have the courage to fall in love, to get married, and to have children, more children than you think you’re ready for, and far more than you think you can afford,” Brown said.
The Daily Wire host also pointed to Mary, the Mother of God, as the ultimate example of feminine virtue and self-sacrifice.
“Her greatest legacy will always be how she raised God incarnate to become a man, in what she gave rather than what she received,” Brown said.
While acknowledging that many women pursue successful careers, Brown said motherhood remains the most important calling for many women and noted that many of the conference&#8217;s speakers balance professional success with raising families.
Brown also reflected on the sacrifices associated with motherhood, arguing that suffering and hardship can draw people closer to God.
“We do live in a world where we experience pain, discomfort and suffering, but the beauty of suffering is that it uniquely links our experience to that of God, who enduring the ultimate hardship and pain to the point of death for the redemption of all of us,” Brown said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Isabel Brown: “We do live in a world where we experience pain, discomfort and suffering, but the beauty of suffering is that it uniquely links our experience to that of God.”<a href="https://x.com/theisabelb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@theisabelb</a> live at WLS 2026 <a href="https://t.co/kCexonVwaA">pic.twitter.com/kCexonVwaA</a>
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) <a href="https://x.com/TPUSA/status/2063371103402401802?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The summit also featured remarks from TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk, who reflected on the mission of the organization founded by her late husband, Charlie Kirk.
“He saw a generation drifting away from faith, away from a sense of purpose, and he wanted to cultivate a space for community, a space that was so needed, especially on college campuses,” Erika Kirk said of her husband. 
At one point during her speech, a heckler attempted to interrupt Kirk, but was removed from the venue.
“It’s important to remember that happiness comes and goes, and I pray that you find it,” Kirk told the heckler as the woman was removed.
After the audience applauded, Kirk urged attendees to pray for their opponents rather than view them as enemies.
“You pray for your enemies. You pray for those that persecute you,” Kirk said. “That’s not the enemy. We know who the real enemy is.”
&nbsp;

Isabel Brown

Isabel Brown Urges Women To Embrace Motherhood At TPUSA Women’s Summit

erika kirk

Republican Women

the daily wire

turning point usa

Democrat lawmakers are pushing a federal bill to make businesses pay for female workers to take time off for period pain — an issue they&#8217;ve framed through the lens of &#8220;economic violence.&#8221;
The bill, called the Reproductive Healthcare Leave Act, would require employers to provide up to 12 days of paid leave per year for female health issues, including period pain and menopause symptoms, and also covers abortion and vasectomies.  
Notably, the legislation would hit incredibly small businesses, too, even if the owner has as few as five employees. And it&#8217;s backed by abortion giant Planned Parenthood. 
&nbsp;
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&nbsp;
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who attended the presser last month, said women are tired of being told to &#8220;tough it out&#8221; when it comes to their period and suggested the issue is also about ethnicity.
&#8220;While the system is broken for all women, it is in a full blown crisis for Latinas,&#8221; the Democrat said. &#8220;The nationwide 17% of Latinos lack health insurance — more than double the rate of white Americans. Over 20% of adult Latinos in Arizona have been forced to completely avoid medical care because they simply cannot afford it.&#8221;
&#8220;Latinas are the backbone of our workforce, and yet they&#8217;re disproportionately concentrated in low wage and hourly jobs that lack flexible sick leave,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Forcing a worker to choose between paying her rent or losing a day&#8217;s pay to recover from a grueling gynecological procedure is not a choice; it&#8217;s an economic violence.&#8221;
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), who is sponsoring the Reproductive Healthcare Leave Act, recalled during the presser the pain she&#8217;s experienced from her period.
“Today, we are here to talk about women&#8217;s pain and how long it&#8217;s been overlooked,” Ansari said. “Like most women, I have a very personal experience with reproductive health pain.&#8221;
&#8220;In the summer of 2015, while starting my career in New York City, I woke up on floor of my local bodega drenched in sweat being dragged into an ambulance,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Two male paramedics hovered over me and continued to ask me if I was pregnant. I had passed out from period pain. Even now, every month, I have days where it feels like barbed wire is tightening inside me. I&#8217;ve taken 2,000 milligrams of ibuprofen in twenty-four hours and still been in tears from the pain. Often end up on the bathroom floor in the fetal position, crying, moaning, or vomiting. Still, I put on a blazer and gone to work.” 
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is also backing the bill. “I know that many of you understand that we&#8217;re sick and tired of women having to be expected to say, &#8216;suck it up,&#8217; or still perform at the highest level,&#8221; Tlaib said at the presser. &#8220;They&#8217;re expected to show up to work despite incredibly painful periods and sit through meetings after being denied competent health care. And for far too long, women&#8217;s pain has been minimized, ignored, dismissed, and even politicized.”
As highlighted by some online, Democrats like Tlaib are advocates for so-called trans rights, or allowing males who identify as female in women&#8217;s spaces. In fact, Tlaib once said a bill aimed at protecting girls sports was effectively &#8220;legalizing discrimination.&#8221;
However, for this bill, the definition of women has reverted back to reality and biology.
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Screenshot 2026-06-02 at 7.52.06 AM

‘Economic Violence’: Dems Hold Presser Demanding Paid Time Off For Periods

Democrats

economy

Jobs

House Democrats joined with six Republicans on Thursday to block legislation advancing the long-awaited Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, tanking the bill after Republicans added language limiting the museum to celebrating biological women and barring exhibits portraying males as female.
The measure failed on a 216-204 vote after every Democrat voted against it, joined by a small bloc of Republican defectors, halting what had previously been a bipartisan effort to establish the museum on the National Mall. The legislation was led by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY).
The collapse of the bill came after Democrats abandoned legislation many of them had previously supported, once Republicans amended it to explicitly define the museum around biological women.
New language added by Republicans stated the museum would be dedicated to “preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States,” while also prohibiting the museum from depicting “any biological male as a female.”
Democrats immediately denounced the changes, arguing they excluded transgender-identifying individuals and handed too much authority over the museum to President Donald Trump. Republicans countered that a women’s history museum should, by definition, focus on women.
“The addition of the word biological made them all run for the hills,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Wednesday. “If that&#8217;s controversial in the Democratic Party, we&#8217;re in serious trouble.”
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Malliotakis similarly blasted Democrats for withdrawing support over the added language. 
“A women&#8217;s history museum is supposed to be dedicated to women, period,” Malliotakis told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-revolt-over-biological-wording-womens-history-museum-bill">Fox News</a>. “And the fact that they&#8217;re going to pull their support after overwhelmingly co-sponsoring this bill because the word biological was inserted, to me, is ludicrous.”
Democrats insisted the issue extended beyond transgender inclusion. The revised legislation also gave Trump authority to select an alternative site for the museum on the National Mall and included language calling for “equal representation of the diversity of the political viewpoints and authentic experiences held by women in the United States.”
Leaders of the Democratic Women’s Caucus accused Republicans of turning a bipartisan project into a political fight. 
“They amended the bill to give Trump and his allies unregulated power over what content and which women can be included in the museum, and the museum’s location,” caucus leaders said in a statement. “A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man.”
The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum was initially authorized by Congress in 2020 alongside the planned National Museum of the American Latino, but construction has remained stalled pending congressional approval of a permanent site.
House Republicans widely viewed Thursday’s vote as an opportunity to force Democrats into a politically uncomfortable position on gender after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-finally-admit-what-went-wrong-in-2024">party’s struggles during the 2024 election cycle</a> over questions involving transgender-identifying athletes and definitions of “woman.”
But Republicans also faced internal resistance from fiscal conservatives and lawmakers skeptical that another Smithsonian museum was necessary. Several GOP lawmakers reportedly objected that women were already represented across existing Smithsonian institutions and raised concerns that the institution could ultimately become a platform for left-wing causes rather than a celebration of women’s achievements throughout American history. A source familiar with Republican concerns told Fox that lawmakers feared the museum could evolve into “a shrine to abortion activists like Margaret Sanger or the latest progressive cause” without stronger guardrails written into the legislation.
In the end, those Republican defections combined with unanimous Democratic opposition were enough to sink the legislation, leaving the future of the women’s history museum uncertain and construction plans once again stalled indefinitely.

Raised purple fist of a woman for international women’s day and the feminist movement. March 8 for feminism, independence, freedom, empowerment, and activism for women rights

Democrats Kill Women’s History Museum With Help Of 6 Republicans

congress

politics

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Call her daddy? More like call her mommy. 
“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYcNSWLjsjV/?hl=en">pregnancy announcement</a> sent the internet into a frenzy — not because a woman is having a baby, but because this woman is. The host who built an empire telling young women to stay unattached, sleep around, and never apologize for it is now married, expecting, and apparently just fine with all of it. Critics cried hypocrisy. But are they right?
Now, I&#8217;m not here to defend Alex Cooper&#8217;s rhetoric, content, or influence over young women&#8217;s decision-making in any way, but I can&#8217;t help but notice that the criticism of her supposed anti-marriage, anti-motherhood stance misses the point.
Most criticisms surrounding Cooper’s announcement were that she “secretly” dated, decided to get married, and now is becoming a mother after she had told young women to be forever single. So much for a secret! Cooper announced her &#8220;intimate beachside wedding in the Riviera Maya&#8221; in <a href="https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/alex-cooper-and-matthew-kaplan-wedding">Vogue</a>. And her pregnancy announcement was foreshadowed by, ironically, a full episode titled, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TamkxdBiNyY">“I’m Not Ready For A Baby…”</a> in which she openly discussed trying to get pregnant with her husband Matt Kaplan, including going off birth control and questioning whether she was fertile, ultimately concluding the timing wasn&#8217;t right. Hardly the words of someone opposed to motherhood.
Cooper’s podcast has unashamedly encouraged young women to hook up with whomever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want. She has sold a young woman’s twenties as a time to explore any and all desires, party on, and not give an “eff” about what anyone else says. It’s the Samantha Jones philosophy for sex. But unlike the &#8220;Sex in the City&#8221; character, Cooper has chosen monogamy and motherhood — fortunately, as will many other girls who grew up listening to her bad advice.
Millennial women grew up in one of the most &#8220;sex-positive&#8221; moments in history, choosing to not align with traditional timelines for marriage or child-bearing and to &#8220;enjoy their youth&#8221; instead. But this doesn’t mean they’re not getting married or having kids, just like Cooper. Rather, women are delaying these milestones into their late-20s and 30s.
According to a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Cooper’s pregnancy comes at a, dare I say, “normal” time in her life. Lyman Stone, who shared a study <a href="https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?s=20">on X</a>, says this: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
For a non-Hispanic white woman married to a non-Hispanic white man with no children prior to marriage where both have a college degree, 48% of first births were between ages 29 and 33.
Since virginity at ages 29-33 is a statistical minority, and even single-partneredness is, we…
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) <a href="https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
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If Cooper’s timeline isn’t exactly late, and even with her pro hook-up culture rhetoric, she still has the natural desire to get married and have kids, then some may argue, what’s the harm in all of this?
The reality is that women (and certainly men) are using their twenties to party and sleep around — and for some, it might even result in finding the right person. It did for Cooper. But the larger dilemma is that in the name of bodily autonomy, many women find themselves entering a life of adult adolescence, which delays these milestones for a larger portion of the population than in the past. Many women eventually find themselves asking: Where did I go wrong? When in reality, the choices they made may not have been shaping them into the kind of women men envision as &#8220;wifey material,” and leave them feeling like a shell of themselves.
There are many nuances to this theory, but what time cannot change is this: the standards are different for men and women. Society has encouraged young men to “sow their wild oats” and choose to settle down once they reach a place of financial stability that is enough to support a family. Women, on the other hand, even after decades of so-called “progress” and feminism, will still be called slanderous names for having multiple sexual partners.
In season 2 of &#8220;Sex and the City,&#8221; Carrie wrestles this truth: “If you’re a 30-something woman living in Manhattan and you refuse to settle and you’re sexually active, it’s inevitable that you’ll rack up a certain number of partners. But how many men is too many men? Are we simply romantically challenged — or are we sluts?”
The danger in Alex Cooper&#8217;s so-called advice and laissez-faire sexual philosophy is that although she may have ended up in the right place, the question remains: is it working out for the women who have listened to her? It may have for some, as many women desire marriage and motherhood even while playing the field. But for others, they&#8217;re left confused and wondering why, at 30 or older, they still can&#8217;t seem to find a husband.
The truth is, women still want these things, and they are very good things. The best, actually. And rather than empowering themselves by sleeping around like men — without emotion, detached, and &#8220;just for fun&#8221; — many women are turning up feeling left behind, unprepared, and diminished by choices they once thought were liberating. This is the real danger.
Alex Cooper&#8217;s story has a happy ending. The question worth asking is whether the philosophy she sold along the way leads other women to the same place, or leaves them stranded somewhere in the middle, wondering where the script went wrong. Empowerment that only works for the person selling it isn&#8217;t empowerment at all. Call her what you want. Just don&#8217;t call her a role model.
***
Isabella Redjai is a multimedia marketing and senior producer at the Manhattan Institute.

YouTube’s TV Upfront, Brandcast

Alex Cooper Told Women To Delay Settling Down. Now She’s Having The Fairytale Ending.

Alex Cooper

family

marriage

podcasts

Pregnancy

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Mother’s Day exalts womankind’s top job: motherhood. Roughly <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/">86% of women</a> qualify as mothers on this day of &#8216;grammable glory, but the celebration leaves <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/four-million-american-women-reach-ages-40-to-50-without-children">4 million</a> women out in the cold. Casting a wide net, the price of admission into this 24-hour hall of fame is simple: your child. Your human child, not the furry kind with four legs and a tail — at least, if you hope to keep your dignity intact. 
Though Moms deserve their special moment, the cultural rush to get all types of &#8220;moms&#8221; in on the action raises the question: Why can&#8217;t we have another holiday to celebrate all the great ladies in our lives? <a href="https://nationaldaycalendar.com/celebrations/national-dog-moms-day-second-saturday-in-may">National Dog Mom&#8217;s Day</a> on the same weekend doesn&#8217;t quite do it.
There should be another day to honor the women and mother figures we love, and, technically, there is: International Women&#8217;s Day. But here in the U.S., the day is synonymous with celebrating every leftist policy you can imagine. What started as a day meant to elevate all girls and women was largely co-opted by those insisting on wrestling it into something like a “Day for Women’s Rights” or “Feminist New Year’s Eve.” It was riddled with stats about <a href="https://iwda.org.au/take-action/international-womens-day/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=20357781501&amp;gbraid=0AAAAADwVuS4Z6LTUvQwS11kGJNzLABWwK&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwzevPBhBaEiwAplAxvjBpKh5QGaxKZ2zAm6XzA8bfcDNtZ6hqqWWNYmOLjn3k8VJilDJl4BoCKzQQAvD_BwE">women and girls who were murdered</a> by male family members, alleged gender pay gaps, and lax laws against rape and domestic abuse.  
This, according to the rules of fun parties, is the complete opposite of something a person outside the group would ever be inclined to celebrate. No offense to the tattooed girl with the fuzzy pink hair and cheek piercings working behind the counter of my local bookstore. Girl, Women’s Day is for xe/xem/you. Have the best time at the next protest for the current thing.
My first encounter with the Women’s Day concept was enlightening. At the time, I was working a side job as a food delivery driver in Los Angeles (while I hustled on becoming a famous actor, naturally). A prolific blogger for my five subscribers, I happily detailed my life as a fun SoCal gal, totally buying into the message about not needing children in order to validate my existence.
Hello, women were editors of high fashion magazines, famous actresses, and inventors of Spanx! I didn’t need to know if these boss babes had kids or could pay for nannies and IVF. The point was that their careers defined them, not their families. A killer shoe closet or a cute loft apartment was just as good. At least, that’s what I thought.
I arrived at the Bel Air home of a woman who greeted me with a smile as she emerged from an entryway that was overflowing with flowers. I assumed her sunny glow meant no one had died. 
“Ooo, is it someone’s birthday?” I couldn’t think of any other occasions on March 8 and was trying to attach a story to the $400 Sugarfish sushi order I had ferried to her door. 
“We’re celebrating Women’s Day!” she said. “It’s like your Mother’s Day here, but in Sweden we honor all women. These are from my husband to me,” she explained, gesturing toward an obscene arrangement of luscious white roses. Pointing to two more, she added, “And these are for our daughters.” It included all the women in the home. The pure, loving gesture of appreciation seemed nice.
I walked back to my car, wondering why the heck we didn’t do Women’s Day in the U.S. I found out later that Women&#8217;s Day was launched internationally by Marxist <a href="https://wearethecity.com/inspirational-quotes-clara-zetkin-founder-international-womens-day-2/">Clara Zetkin</a> in early-1900s Denmark (stay with me!), spreading to millions of women worldwide who put their own spin on it. Italy’s practically covered with mimosa blossoms for <a href="https://www.italiancs.org/blog/international-womens-day-in-italy">La Festa della Donna</a>. And in <a href="http://masterrussian.com/russianculture/womens_day_march8.htm">Russia</a>, the national public holiday is marked by special meals, gifts, and champagne. Even in China, working women get half a day off for “<a href="https://www.globalimpactinitiative.com/blog/international-womens-day-and-its-impact">self-care</a>.” Without the heavy yoke of politics, it&#8217;s a day where every woman, young and old, blossoms into her own.
Maybe the problem is that all holidays eventually become avenues for propaganda or corporate profit. The whole Mother’s Day idea started <a href="https://time.com/4771354/mothers-day-history-origins/">in 1908</a> as an initiative by Philadelphia teacher Anna Jarvis to celebrate moms with a modest white carnation and a visit to the local church. Once President Woodrow Wilson put it on the calendar, things went off the rails. Jarvis formally disowned the holiday before she died in 1948, lamenting its commercialization. These days, greeting cards and flower bouquets have turned Mother’s Day into a <a href="https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/mother-s-day-spending-expected-to-hit-record-38-billion">$38 billion</a> industry. 
Women make up more than half the population but control <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/03/07/who-runs-the-world-women-control-85-of-purchases-29-of-stem-roles/">85% of purchasing power</a> in the U.S., and they drop more than <a href="https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-women/">$31 trillion</a> worldwide. As <a href="https://youtu.be/j6DHRFuCEwA?t=56">L’Oréal</a> drilled into generations of women’s heads, “If I pay more, I feel I get more. And I’m worth it.” Sold.
On top of this relentless commercialization, Mother’s Day presents its own conundrum. The tragic loss of a child, a long struggle with infertility, or the estrangement of a family member can add stress to a day that’s marketed as being full of love and chocolate truffles. Maybe it’s an impossible task, getting it right for everyone.
I was lucky enough to get the best mom in the biz. And I enjoy participating in motherhood and raising children in a supporting role as an aunt, daughter, and sister. I also recognize the incredible dedication and hard work it takes to be a parent. You don’t hear too many stories about someone’s last words being about a compelling corporate presentation. It’s family. Full stop. 
Maybe someday we’ll find a real way to recognize the value in all women and girls, just as they are. Protect Mother&#8217;s Day for mothers, and let Women&#8217;s Day celebrate women without all the corporate feminist politics. There&#8217;s got to be a way to honor our sisters, aunts, girlfriends, daughters, nurturers, neighbors, and friends, no strings attached.

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Mother’s Day Has A Growing Identity Crisis, And Women Are Feeling It

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