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        <title>Evie Magazine</title>
        <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com</link>
        <description>
          Focusing on women and celebrating what makes them so unique, Evie Magazine helps women seek truth and find beauty...the kind that really matters.
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        <copyright>© 2021 Evie Magazine</copyright>
        <pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 06:49:09 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Postpartum Depression Hits Dads Too. We're Just Not Talking About It.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/postpartum-depression-hits-dads-too-were-just-not-talking-about-it</link>
      <dc:creator>Lisa Britton</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[A new study tracking over a million fathers just confirmed what many wives already suspected: your husband is not okay, and the hardest part hits later than you think.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Recent decades have brought seismic shifts in how we parent. Dads today are far more hands-on than their own fathers or grandfathers ever were—changing diapers in the middle of the night, juggling work with story time, and carving out precious paternity leave when they can. As I stroll around Brooklyn, New York, I see so many fathers pushing strollers and playing with their kids at the park. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have been the case a few decades ago. This evolution is wonderful in many ways. Fathers and mothers are different, and each bring unique benefits to raising children. Dads often excel at rough-and-tumble play that builds resilience and confidence in kids, while modeling strength, respect to authority, problem-solving, and emotional steadiness. Moms, on the other hand, provide that irreplaceable nurturing core. Together, they create balance. But if we truly want fathers to stay deeply involved, we must take their unique challenges seriously instead of assuming they’re fine as long as mom and baby are okay. A groundbreaking study published just last week in JAMA Network Open drives this point home. Researchers tracked more than one million fathers in Sweden whose children were born between 2003 and 2021. What they found is eye-opening: a father’s risk for depression and stress-related disorders jumps by more than 30 percent toward the end of his child’s first year. The risk actually decreases during pregnancy and the first few months postpartum, likely because everyone is in survival mode, laser-focused on the newborn. Anxiety and substance-related issues return to pre-pregnancy baselines by the one-year mark. And depression and stress? They spike later, when the initial adrenaline fades and the long haul of fatherhood truly sets in. A father’s risk for depression and stress-related disorders jumps by more than 30 percent toward the end of his child’s first year. Dr. Khatiya Moon, medical director for the collaborative care program at Northwell Health, put it perfectly in the NYPost : “Screening for mental health concerns in fathers is important and is something that isn’t really done very much. Maybe if we did more screening, we’d have more opportunity to catch fathers when they’re struggling and support them.” She notes that dads often slip into a purely supportive role early on, prioritizing mom and baby’s vulnerability. That selflessness is noble, but it takes a toll. “I wonder if that eventually gets more difficult to sustain,” she said. Fathers also lack the community moms enjoy through prenatal appointments, mommy groups, and endless baby visits. No one really asks Dad seriously how he’s sleeping or feeling. That needs to change, starting at home. This isn’t just about feelings, though. Did you know a man’s biology also changes when he has a child? Science confirms it. Studies show that testosterone levels often drop significantly in new fathers—sometimes by 25 percent or more—especially among those most involved in hands-on care like feeding, bathing, and playing. Lower testosterone isn’t a sign of weakness, but it does appear to shift a man’s priorities away from competition or mating efforts toward nurturing. This makes sense. After all, we were biologically designed for family, and family was biologically designed to make communities less aggressive, more safe and unified. Oxytocin, the “bonding hormone,” rises in dads too following a birth , promoting physical closeness, emotional attunement, and that protective instinct we see when a father scoops up a hurt or crying baby. Cortisol, the stress hormone, spikes helpfully when dads hear infant cries (helping them respond fast) but drops during skin-to-skin contact or play, reinforcing positive caregiving loops. Brain imaging reveals neuroplasticity in fathers as well—structural and functional changes in areas tied to empathy, emotion regulation, and reward processing. These shifts happen through real-world father-infant interactions, not pregnancy hormones. In short, fatherhood literally rewires a man to be a better dad. The best version of himself for himself, his family and his community. But when those changes collide with sleep deprivation, financial pressure, relationship strain, and societal expectations to “man up,” the result can be isolation, irritability, or full-blown depression. One study even linked lower testosterone nine months postpartum with higher postpartum depression risk in dads, while very high levels sometimes correlated with hostility in the environment. We ignore this at our own detriment. We ignore this at our own detriment. As we’ve discussed before , involved fathers produce better outcomes for children: higher academic achievement, stronger emotional regulation, and lower rates of behavioral problems. Kids with present, engaged dads are less likely to struggle with anxiety or delinquency later. Strong father-child bonds also protect marriages; couples who navigate the transition together report higher satisfaction and lower divorce risk. Yet our culture still treats paternal mental health as an afterthought or even a joke. Postpartum support is overwhelmingly mom-centric (rightly so in many ways—mothers face their own hormonal tsunami). But dads deserve more than a pat on the back and “you got this, man.” We need practical, targeted help: routine mental-health screening for fathers at pediatric visits (just like we do for moms), dad-specific, male-led support groups or apps that normalize the struggle, and encouragement for couples counseling during those big transitions. Employers could expand meaningful paternity leave without stigma. Churches, neighborhoods, and extended families can build “dad communities” the way we’ve built them for moms, like Saturday morning breakfasts with other fathers sharing the events of the week, a movie they watched, or war stories. We also fail to acknowledge how men’s careers are impacted when they have a newborn at home. The sleep deprivation and being financially stretched carries over into their work environments, sometimes decreasing their productivity and challenging their professional identity. This can take a significant toll on a man’s mental health as well. We already have issues within our feminized mental health system when it comes to men. We’ve been telling men they must change to work with the system. But maybe we need to change the system so it better addresses men’s needs. We can do this by creating more male-led and male-focused therapy solutions, ones that fit with the way they are. We must also encourage more young men to enter therapy career fields. Only 20% of psychologists are male today, and boys and men are paying the price for it. Dr. Donghao Lu, the study’s corresponding author, nailed the urgency: “The delayed increase in depression… underscores the need to pay attention to warning signs of mental ill-health in fathers long after the birth of their child.” The first year isn’t just about baby milestones. It’s when dads quietly wrestle with identity, purpose, and the weight of providing while bonding. If we help them through it—through honest conversations, practical relief, resources and zero judgment—we get more present fathers, happier marriages, and thriving kids. A family where mom and dad are both struggling in silence isn't good for anyone, least of all the baby. But support for dads shouldn’t stop once the baby phase is over. Fatherhood doesn’t end when children grow up, and neither do the struggles. Men carry heavy burdens at every stage: the relentless financial pressures, the anxiety over their kids’ direction in life, the deep worries about their mental health, and the constant fear of how the world will treat them. These challenges don’t magically disappear when kids turn eighteen. We need real, ongoing support for men through every chapter of fatherhood. I'm not suggesting we downplay mothers' challenges, and supporting dads doesn't mean we stop supporting moms. These aren't competing causes. Postpartum depression in moms is real and devastating, and we've made great strides in destigmatizing it. I've had two family members experience postpartum depression, and it was heartbreaking. The progress we've made for mothers is worth protecting. But let's extend that compassion to dads without pretending men and women experience parenthood identically. Biology, roles, and wiring differ, and that's a good thing that should be respected. Celebrating those differences while refusing to leave anyone behind is how we build more resilient families. Both parents matter. Both deserve support. And a family where mom and dad are both struggling in silence isn't good for anyone, least of all the baby. If we do more to help struggling men and dads—through screening, community, biology-informed understanding, and cultural support—I believe we will see more involved dads and stronger families. The data backs it. The science backs it. And children’s futures depend on it.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The WAG Takeover: Inside The Style Evolution Of Sports' Most Talked-About Women]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-wag-takeover-inside-the-style-evolution-of-sports-most-talked-about-women</link>
      <dc:creator>Julie Drake</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[The WAGs have had quite the ride. From curiosity specimen to public enemy #1, and back again, the public is finally ready to admit that the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes are totally captivating. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[WAGs (wives and girlfriends of professional athletes) have got it all: beauty, fame, wealth, and a penchant for the spotlight. The consummate influencer, WAGs took all the content creator genres and rolled them into one: travel, fashion, pop culture (athletes are no doubt pop culture titans), and high-net-worth living. Often traveling to exotic locales and staying in the best hotels for games/matches/races, WAGs have the high life locked in, and the public loves the spectacle. But the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes haven’t always had it so good. The internet’s first “WAG,” Victoria Beckham (then girlfriend, now wife, to soccer-player David Beckham), went from a source of public fascination, to scorn, fairly quickly in the early 2000s. Victoria and other English soccer WAGs were often criticized for exploiting their partners’ fame, and referred to as vapid, shallow “ distractions. ” WAGs have also been inexplicably blamed when their significant other didn’t perform well (Tony Romo was supposedly under Jessica Simpson’s “curse” when he played poorly for the Dallas Cowboys in 2007). Early in their inception, the WAGs just couldn’t win. Fortunately, in the 2010’s, the age of the influencer arrived and changed everything for the WAGs. Through the proliferation of social media, the public began to get a more personal glimpse into the lives of athletes’ partners, and quickly found them to be quite interesting. Fast forward to 2026, and the WAGs have become public figures in their own right. On the backs of the many greats who have gone before them, today’s WAGs are building their own empires. Modern WAGs like Paige Lorenze, Alexandra Leclerc, Olivia Culpo, and Kika Gomes are founders, CEOs, models, wives, influencers and moms to adorable high-net-worth offspring. And their influence is only growing. WAG life in 2026 is giving high fantasy, and we’d love to step into just about any aspect of the apparently magical existence. But none more so than the WAG fashion arena, full of photo shoots, runway shows, and the crucial game-day look. We’re breaking down some of today’s most fashionable WAGs, and how you can steal their elite style. This article may contain affiliate links or paid partnerships. We may earn a commission or compensation at no extra cost to you. All products are chosen independently by our editorial team and reflect our genuine recommendations. Paige Lorenze Paige Lorenze , Connecticut-based influencer and founder of lifestyle brand Dairy Boy, is engaged to professional tennis player Tommy Paul. Of her fiancé, Lorenze told GQ , “He’s so modest, and…not shy, but not boastful . My favorite thing about him is that he’s humble, and so gracious, and not cocky. And I love the way he treats other players.” Accomplished in her own right, Lorenze was a competitive alpine skier, and studied design at Parsons prior to meeting Paul. Lorenze is now a fashion and country-living influencer, while also running Dairy Boy, a preppy/country clothing line for the fashion-informed (think Sporty & Rich meets Ralph Lauren). Day-to-day Lorenze is often seen mixing Dairy Boy pieces with designer accessories (Saint Laurent loafers and Loewe bags), but it’s all Self Portrait and Carolina Herrera for events. Shop her look: Dairy Boy The American Rugby, $95 Dairy Boy The Fisherman's Daughter Sweater, $108 Altar'd State Layla Eyelet Mini Dress, $78 Katie May Yasmin Gown, $309 Alexandra Leclerc Alexandra Leclerc, (formerly Alexandra Saint Mleux), is a French influencer, art historian, and model, most well-known for her relationship with Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc (whom she married in Monte Carlo last month). Famous for her art and travel content, Leclerc is also a darling of fashion-lovers worldwide. Her aesthetic is low-key and elegant, and she knows how to lean into mystery. A master of feminine high-low dressing—seen in Réalisation Par one day and Dolce & Gabbana the next—Leclerc’s style is both relatable and aspirational. If your dream scene is art museums, beautiful locales and F1 paddocks, Alexandra Leclerc is your muse. Shop her look: JW PEI Maren Artificial Crystal Heart Shaped Bag, $199 Altar'd State Dara Crochet Midi Skirt, $128 Heartloom Dionne Set, $179 Realisation Par The Claudia in Super Dot, $310 Morgan Riddle Called “the most famous woman in men’s tennis” by the New York Times , and the “First Lady of American Tennis” by Vogue , Morgan Riddle is an influencer and content creator dating professional tennis player Taylor Fritz. The pair allegedly met on Raya during the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown, and have been inseparable ever since. Fully embracing her role as #1 tennis WAG, Riddle told Glamour “My mission has always been to bring more eyes to the sport. My goal is to get the WAGs dressed by brands, because that had never been done before… there’s so many eyes on us. Why are brands not jumping on this?” Well, mission accomplished, as WAGs are more visible and influential than ever, thanks in part to Riddle’s advocacy, no doubt. Riddle’s preppy-luxury style has been on display at events via Fait par Foutch, Cult Gaia, and Polo Ralph Lauren, and she also has a collaboration of sporty/brunch looks with Beginning Boutique. Shop her look: Fait Par Foutch Adrienna Dress, $295 Beginning Boutique Simona Blue Maxi Knit Skirt, $90 SNDYS x REVOLVE Diana Mini Dress, $114 Kika Gomes Kika Gomes is a beautiful Portuguese model, influencer and actress dating Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly. Following a recent race, Gasly called Gomes "my lucky charm." According to Tatler , Gomes “believes in that ‘kind of energy,” and approved. Good energy seems to surround the WAG icon, whose elevated clean girl vibe has brought her collaborations with brands like Burberry, Carolina Herrera and Nina Ricci. She has also nailed the off-duty look, including for a recent appearance in denim at a Calvin Klein runway show. Shop her look: Calvin Klein Low Rise Baggy Jeans, $90 Calvin Klein Denim Relaxed Trucker Jacket, $102 ASOS DESIGN Drop Waist Mini Shirt Dress with Pleated Skirt in Gray Stripe, $68 Hailee Steinfeld This woman needs no introduction, but we’ll give her one anyway. Hailee Steinfeld is an actress, singer and wife to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Best known for her roles in Pitch Perfect and Sinners , Steinfeld started dating Allen in 2023, and they tied the knot in Santa Barbara last year. Despite having her own busy schedule, Steinfeld regularly attends Allen’s games. Of their relationship, Steinfeld told Bustle , “It’s the greatest thing in the world… Life makes sense. Everything makes sense. I feel like I am stepping into the version that I’ve always dreamed of being, having so much to do with being with him.” Steinfeld’s style could be described as feminine glam with an edge, having worn everything from Tamara Ralph to Tom Ford. Shop her look: Bardot Veria Wrap Mesh Maxi Dress, $169 Bardot Odyssey Blazer, $127 8 Other Reasons Necklace, $68 Olivia Culpo Olivia Culpo is a model, actress and former Miss USA and Miss Universe, who also happens to be married to one of the NFL’s top running backs, San Francisco 49er Christian McCaffrey. Involved in everything from beauty pageants to restaurant ventures, Culpo has her hand in many pies, including those at home. She and McCaffrey are parents to 9-month-old daughter Colette, and Culpo has called motherhood the “best chapter yet.” Her style, as you would expect, includes everything from red carpet glam to easy mom-life looks; either way, she’s always polished and put-together. Seen at events in Jacquemus and Loewe, she’s also collaborated on capsule collections for Montce and Abercrombie & Fitch. Shop her look: Quince 100% Washable Silk Maxi Slip Dress, $110 Everlane The Oversized Blazer in Wool, $134 Levi's Cinch Wide-leg Women's Jeans, $110 JW PEI Yara Shoulder Bag, $139 Taylor Swift No current WAG list would be complete without the queen herself, Taylor Swift . Another woman who needs no introduction, Swift was a household name before becoming WAG to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, but it’s a title she wears with pride nonetheless. An obvious fixture at his games early in their relationship, Swift continues to attend and show her support, but in a much less visible way (due to the overwhelming attention she received early on). Swift is forever inspo both creatively and stylistically, but her eclectic aesthetic is harder to pin down. A bit of a chameleon style-wise, she has had her fair share of metamorphoses throughout her career. Some of our favorite looks include red-hot Vivenne Westwood and schoolgirl Miu Miu. Shop her look: Mavena & Co. Ruched Corset Mini Dress, $52 Free People Midnight Magic Mini Dress, $88 ASTR The Label Chantel Pleated Mini Skirt, $89 English Factory Madeline Check Pleated Mini Skort, $48 Comeback Queens The WAGs have been through a lot and, fortunately, in 2026, they’ve come out on top. A testament to their tenacity, the ladies of professional men’s sports have secured their spot as pop culture icons. Innovative use of social media, and capitalization on talents, has led to a shift in their public perception from opportunistic sidepiece, to equal partner in crime. WAGS are now seen as leaders in fashion, media and entertainment, and their influence isn’t waning anytime soon.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Style</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[NYC's Hottest New Club Is Catholic Mass]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/nycs-hottest-new-club-is-catholic-mass</link>
      <dc:creator>Brea O’Donnell</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[There's a new hot-spot taking over, and there’s no cover charge or VIP section in sight.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Walk into the right church this Easter, or any Sunday lately, and the scene might surprise you. Packed pews. Standing room only. 20-and-30-somethings and beyond in their prettiest spring dresses and young men in pressed collared shirts and button-downs, lingering long after the service ends to talk, laugh, and swap Instagram handles. It’s an energy that's warm and intoxicating… even without the bottomless mimosas. One viral tweet recently described a packed Sunday Mass in Manhattan as "the hottest club in NYC right now," and she wasn't exaggerating. Something major is happening across the country, in Catholic cathedrals and in all denominations and non-denominational services: young people are going to church. Gen Z, once labeled a godless generation—atheist at worst, agnostic at best—have come rushing back, fueled by their fire for the Church’s framework of femininity and masculinity, for truth, for God. Right now, Bible sales are at a 20-year high. “We’re witnessing a remarkable surge in Bible engagement,” said Bobby Gruenewald, YouVersion founder and CEO. The YouVersion Bible app recorded 150 million installs in 2025, up from 100 million in 2023. We’re seeing baptisms on college campuses. A hunger for reverence. And a return to Christianity like we’ve never seen before. And the best part is, they actually want to be there, they’re not going because their parents are dragging them. They’re all grown up now, setting their alarms, putting on real clothes and showing up entirely by their own will. And the energy in those rooms reflects it. This isn't just a niche phenomenon happening in one isolated city or parish. From Manhattan to Boston, Nashville to Palm Beach, Dallas to Los Angeles, churches that were once half-empty and struggling with declining attendance are suddenly seeing an overflow at the door on Sunday mornings. And the people filling those seats are noticeably younger than in years prior. Churches that were once half-empty and struggling with declining attendance are suddenly seeing an overflow at the door on Sunday mornings. New research from Barna Group revealed a historic shift: for the first time in decades, Gen-Z and Millennials are now the most regular churchgoers, outpacing older generations entirely. The typical Gen-Z churchgoer now attends nearly twice a month, up from once a month, if at all, in 2020. This data strongly suggests people aren't going out of mere obligation, but actively choosing to be there, and they’re doing it more and more. With Holy Week upon us, the momentum is only building. Easter services this year are expected to draw record numbers of young first-timers and returnees. People who are curious, people who felt nudged to go back, people who saw a friend post about it and thought, you know what, maybe I'll try it, or try it again, too. The chapel doors are wide open, and more young men and women than ever are walking through them. Organized religion got a really bad rap for a while there. Some of it was earned. But a lot of it came from a moment in time that managed to convince an entire generation that they could build a life of meaning and purpose entirely apart from God. That self-improvement, radical autonomy and a really good therapist were enough. But for a lot of us, they weren’t. Part of what we’re seeing now is a reaction, driven in part by voices like Charlie Kirk , who have pushed younger generations to reconsider the role of God, virtue, and responsibility in their lives. Church offers a moral framework for how to live, how to treat one another, how to make sense of our suffering rather than trying to manifest our way out of it. It offers guidance… reasoning… hope. A sense of purpose that extends far beyond our own personal goals of self-optimization. For a long time, the dominant idea in culture was that freedom meant the removal of all structure. No rules, no authority, no inherited belief systems telling you how to live. It sold us the idea that you could design your entire identity from scratch and shape your life entirely on your own terms. And for a while, that felt liberating. Until it didn’t. Because it turns out that total autonomy doesn’t actually give young people what they hoped it would. It gives you options, yes, but it fails to give you direction. It gives you freedom, but not meaning. It gives you endless choices , but with no clear sense of what is actually worth choosing. And at some point, it all became exhausting. People are disenchanted by the belief that re-inventing themselves and curating their lives around whatever the latest self-improvement influencer promises will finally bring them fulfillment. Because it hasn’t. And it won’t. Christianity offers something different. It tells you that meaning is something you find by stepping into it. That your existence on this Earth is not random. That your struggles are not pointless. That there is a way to live that is deeply meaningful and available to everyone, whether you choose to participate in it or not. For a generation raised by the internet, the realization of there being something greater than them to guide their steps is genuinely a relief. For years, everything was filtered through irony. You couldn’t be too earnest without fear of seeming uncool. Faith, in particular, was something people kept private and at an arm’s length, even if they were sincerely curious or excited about it. For a generation raised by the internet, the realization of there being something greater than them to guide their steps is genuinely a relief. Now more than ever, people are more willing to voice their beliefs. To admit they crave something deeper. To identify with their religion proudly. And it’s only becoming more apparent, despite those who bark about it being a fleeting fad. What’s beautiful about Christianity is that you can walk in exactly as you are. Skeptical, distracted, unsure… but the experience itself has a way of cutting through all of that. The stillness. The structure. The sense that you’ve just stepped in to something that pre-dates you and will continue long after you. It’s difficult to remain detached, and young people don’t want to anymore. What's particularly striking is where within Christianity this hunger is leading them. Gen Z isn't gravitating toward the casual, feel-good faith of their parents' generation: the Sunday-sometimes, hold-the-doctrine, skip-the-hard-parts version that dominated the 80s and 90s. They're going in the opposite direction entirely. The Traditional Latin Mass, Orthodox Christianity, and the more reverent, historically grounded expressions of Catholicism are seeing some of the sharpest growth. Incense and chant. Priests facing the altar. Prayers that predate your grandparents' grandparents. Beauty turns out to be an extraordinarily effective front door. The altar, the chant, the incense—none of it needs to be explained or sold. It simply moves people. For a generation that has been sold and re-sold every version of self-reinvention imaginable, a rite that hasn't changed in centuries isn't intimidating. It makes sense, then, that New York City would be ground zero for this moment. The city is home to some of the most architecturally breathtaking churches in the country: Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the Basilica of Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral in Nolita. These are spaces that stop you in your tracks before a single word is spoken. Influencers like Anthony Gross have gone viral for posting church-ranking series across Manhattan parishes, drawing millions of views and, more importantly, drawing curious young followers through the doors of churches they'd walked past a hundred times without ever pausing for. Part of what makes all of this so noteworthy is that church is functioning as something modern social spaces have failed to be. It’s one of the few places where people gather regularly, in person, without an agenda. You’re not there to perform or to show off. You’re not there to social climb or to take pictures for your feed. You’re just present. Ready to hear the good news and hoping a message will find you in it and resonate. It’s a simple concept, but it’s been missing. For a generation that talks endlessly about loneliness, going to Church has come to matter more than any bar hop ever has. A lot of what passes as community today is actually just proximity. People in the same space, but not really connected. And for a generation that talks endlessly about loneliness , going to Church has come to matter more than any bar hop ever has. One of the most unfortunate misconceptions about church is that you need to be ‘good enough’ to go. That you need to have your life together, your goals sorted out, your relationship with your parents in a better place. But most of the people showing up right now don’t. They’re dipping their toes in and figuring it all out in real time. Some of them haven’t been to any kind of Mass or service in years. Many are walking in for the very first time. And once they’re there, they tend to stay. If you've never stuck around after a service, you're missing one of the most wholesome parts. The smell of coffee and baked goods fill the air. Nobody’s rushing. People are smiling. Light introductions are made and conversations are struck up easily in the way they always are when a group of people have shared something meaningful together and are now standing around in their nicest clothes, feeling good. Coffee hour is social in a way that a lot of "social" events aren't anymore. Egos are checked at the door. Agendas are nowhere to be found. No one is performing for an audience. People are just... present. Talking to each other. In person. The way people used to do before we were all chronically online . The mix of people is also part of what makes it interesting. It's artists and accountants, people new to town, visitors, and people who've been going for years, different backgrounds and ages all sharing the same space. As Evie has covered before in our look at Gen Z's return to faith , the hunger for in-person community that actually means something has been building for a while. Church, it turns out, is one of the few places still delivering on it. In a society that applauds self-worship and beating to the sound of your own drum, the structure of tradition feels deeply gratifying. There is comfort to be found in the sameness. The same prayers, the same hymns, the same music that's moved people for centuries. It gives the week a shape. A beginning. A moment that's set apart from everything else, that belongs to something larger than your to-do list. People describe it as the one hour of the week that feels truly peaceful. And you don't have to have your beliefs all figured out to feel it. In a society that applauds self-worship and beating to the sound of your own drum, the structure of tradition feels deeply gratifying. Easter has always been one of the biggest Sundays of the year, but this year, there's a particular buzz around it. Spiritual curiosity among young people has been building steadily, and the cultural conversation has shifted in a way that's hard to ignore. Faith is showing up in sports, movies, music, and in the way public figures give thanks openly for their achievements in life. Hollywood has genuinely found God , with faith-forward films and shows drawing massive audiences and studios taking notice. Celebrities from Justin Bieber to Shia LaBeouf to Russell Brand have spoken openly about faith changing their lives, identifying a clear shift toward more spiritual storytelling, pointing to a generation that is clearly orienting toward meaning. Easter, the most hopeful Christian holiday of the year, is a natural on-ramp for anyone who's been curious but hasn't known where to start. You can walk in for the first time in a long time or maybe for the very first time ever, and the experience, the music, the flowers, the feeling in the room, is guaranteed to move you. Whatever you believe, or are still figuring out, what’s happening right now in how young people relate to faith and community is genuinely exciting to witness. The pews are full. The people are young and engaged and showing up in their best outfits . There’s an undeniable openness to the idea that something profound might be waiting on the other side of that door. Maybe the most significant place to be this Easter isn't the high-end restaurant with the two-hour wait. Maybe it's the church down the street that's been there the whole time, with a room full of friends you haven't met yet and a service that might just leave you feeling more hopeful than you expected. If you've been thinking about it, let this be your sign.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Male Idea Of Success Ruined Women]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-idea-of-success-ruined-women</link>
      <dc:creator>Andrea Huberwoman</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[There's a version of success older than any Forbes list—one that kept families together, homes livable, and people loved. We just stopped counting it.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[In love letters kept in drawers, in the sound of children laughing somewhere in the garden, in the stacking of empty plates after a comforting dinner. It’s made up of small, almost forgettable acts of love and selflessness that may easily go unnoticed, but go a long way in shaping the entire atmosphere of a home. These aren’t done for recognition. No one is handing out awards for remembering how someone takes their tea, or for creating a life that feels warm and steady and good to come home to. The reward was always built into the smiles, the ease, and the sense that the people you love are genuinely cared for. The male version of success is far easier to recognize. It’s more direct, more visible. Traditionally, a man’s role was to gather resources and provide, which in today’s world has translated pretty cleanly into money. And money, unlike a well-loved home and emotionally regulated children, is easy to count and display. You can see it in the house, the car, the watch, and the luxury vacations. More importantly, it comes with power and status. Over time, a life built on care and devotion became less revered and increasingly considered boring and uninspiring. Meanwhile, the kind of success men were chasing came with riches and visibility. Of course women started to want it, too. There’s no Forbes 30 Under 30 list for being a good mom and a loving wife. The Cost of Playing a Game You Didn't Design This is not to say that there's anything wrong with men’s idea of success. It makes sense for men to strive for this idea, as it's how they contribute to a family. This type of drive and competition is what makes them masculine and attractive to women. The attractive “rich man” fantasy exists for a reason. The problem arises when women strive for it too. Firstly, this puts them in competition with men. To be able to compete with men, you end up having to become more like them. Not physically, but emotionally. You have to adopt certain masculine traits and behaviors. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it comes at a cost most people don't talk about, because the same traits that make a man attractive often make a woman harder to be around, and harder to love. Take competitiveness, for example. In a male success model, being competitive is non-negotiable. You're expected to push, to outdo, to win. Someone else's success is, at least to some extent, your loss. It's what drives promotions, higher salaries, and in the end, more power. A trait that earns you a promotion doesn't clock out when you do. So women learned to do the same. To be sharper, “stronger” and a little less accommodating; and to see other women, in addition to men, less as allies and more as competition. And it works, at least on paper, when trying to build your career. But it can also be quietly corrosive. A trait that earns you a promotion doesn't clock out when you do. It spills into friendships, relationships, the way you show up at a dinner party. And before long, something that should feel warm and effortless starts to feel like an unspoken competition. The professional version of you has a way of becoming the only version. Men aren't attracted to partners who compete with them and it's not because they can't handle a capable woman, but because nobody wants to come home to someone still in game mode. Warmth, softness, and receptiveness aren't weaknesses. They're what make a woman someone a man wants to build a life with. And they're precisely the qualities that a decade of professional sharpening tends to sand down. That's why many women who appear "successful" on the outside still find themselves wondering why the thing they actually wanted keeps slipping out of reach. The One Thing a Promotion Can't Buy Back Another unfortunate consequence is the timing. Success, at least in the way we’ve come to define it, doesn’t happen overnight. It requires years, sometimes decades, of building a career. And that timeline just so happens to overlap almost perfectly with the years that make the most biological sense for having children. This is where things begin to diverge for men and women. Men have more time. Their biological clock is slower, less pressing, and their role in early childhood, while important, isn’t physically tied in the same way a mother’s is. For women, it’s different. Even with something like maternity leave, once you return to work, you're automatically a couple of months behind your coworkers. And so, whether anyone says it outright or not, children start to look like an impracticality. Something to plan around, delay, or fit in later if there’s still time. Many women who strive to be successful in the way men are delay or reject the idea of having children. Not necessarily because they don’t want children, but because it feels incompatible with staying competitive and being "successful." Although this may seem like the right choice in their late 20's while they’re putting in extra hours at the office and reaping the fruits of their six-figure salary, they can’t get their most fertile years back if they change their mind. Biological timelines are less forgiving than a corporate boss is. Fulfillment and achievement are not the same thing, and the gap between them has a way of widening over time. What's unraveling across a generation of millennial women right now is the realization that the trade was worse than advertised. Career success turned out to be less fulfilling than promised, and the things they delayed—marriage, children, a life built around people rather than output—don't always wait. The window doesn't stay open on principle. To be clear: the appeal is real. There’s something intoxicating and addicting about chasing that kind of success, especially as a woman in a man’s world. No one denies that career success can make you feel empowered. But fulfillment and achievement are not the same thing, and the gap between them has a way of widening over time. The riches are fun and flashy for a while, but a big, beautiful house is achingly lonely when the rooms are empty. The Sunk Cost of the Girlboss Era Here's something nobody says out loud: women are each other's most effective recruiters. If this path comes with trade-offs, why does it have so many enthusiastic advocates? Women insist they’re fulfilled, that this is what true empowerment looks like, that this is the life you should want. If you’ve built your entire life around work, independence, and chasing success, it’s only natural that you’d start to see that as the right way to live. It becomes your frame of reference. And if there are parts of it that feel off, or unfulfilling, you’re not exactly going to broadcast that. It’s much easier to lean into the narrative that this is fulfillment. Convincing other women that this is what’s meant to be empowering is convincing yourself that you have made the right choice. And when you repeat something often enough (to yourself and to other women), it starts to feel true. Another unspoken truth is the nature of female competition. One study found that women who scored higher in competitiveness were more likely to recommend that other women cut off more hair, even when the hair was healthy and the woman didn’t want much taken off, suggesting a subtle form of sabotage. It’s not usually calculated, but it exists. Women do compete with each other, especially when it comes to relationships, and it doesn’t always show up in obvious ways. Sometimes it’s just in what gets encouraged, what gets praised, what starts to feel like the “right” way to live. And it’s hard to ignore that some of the traits rewarded in this version of success (such as being hyper-independent or competitive) don’t always align with what men tend to look for long-term. Women weren’t wrong to want more. But in chasing a version of success that was never designed with them in mind, many ended up trading something they only realize the value of later.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-idea-of-success-ruined-women</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[9 Questions That Will Change How You Date, According To A Harvard Researcher]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/9-questions-that-will-change-how-you-date</link>
      <dc:creator>Anna Hugoboom</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[A Harvard behavioral scientist reframed the entire way I think about dating, and it comes down to nine questions most women have never thought to ask. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Modern dating has earned its reputation. Women are exhausted, confused, and often disheartened by a culture that seems to reward ambiguity over intention and chemistry over character. You hear it everywhere: “dating is toxic,” “there are no good men,” “the apps don’t work,” “guys never approach me,” “it’s impossible to find something real.” But what if part of the problem isn’t just who we’re dating, but how we’re dating? After listening to Logan Ury , a Harvard-trained behavioral scientist and Director of Relationship Science at Hinge, on The Mel Robbins Podcast episode “ Dating Expert: Why Dating Today Is Nearly Impossible & How To Find True Love, ” I realized something that refined my perspective: the most important questions to ask after a date aren't about him; they’re about you. That insight alone cuts through much of the noise. Because while we’ve been trained to evaluate men like resumes—his job, his confidence, his charm, and his looks—we often ignore the most telling data point: who we become in his presence. The most important questions to ask after a date aren't about him; they’re about you. Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is not a selfish mindset, either. It’s proactive, practical, and self-protective. And I've seen it hold true in my own dating life and in the lives of women around me. There are plenty of questions worth asking your date, and his character absolutely matters. But the questions we're talking about today aren't those. Today, we're asking the questions that reveal what being around him brings out in you. Self-awareness in dating is underrated, and these questions are where it starts. It’s time to give our inner voice the spotlight. Here are the nine questions Ury says every woman should ask herself after a date. 1. What side of me did he bring out? Did I feel like my best, most grounded self? Or did I feel insecure, self-conscious, like I was performing? Could I lean into my soft, feminine energy around him, or was I too busy managing the impression I was making? Too many women mistake anxiety for attraction. If you're overthinking every word, trying to impress him, or shrinking yourself to be liked, that's misalignment. I'll be honest: I've caught myself carrying an entire date on my own energy and walking away thinking, well, at least he'll want a second one. Which sounds confident until you realize what I was actually doing: performing for someone I wasn't even sure I liked yet. Dating is a two-way street, and effort matters, but there's a difference between showing up fully and auditioning. One feels good. The other is exhausting, and it tends to come from wanting to be the one who does the rejecting rather than the one who gets rejected. Most of us know that feeling. The standard isn't perfection; we all have room to grow, and bringing your best self to a date is always worth doing. But if he's not meeting you there, if he's not drawing out a version of you that feels alive and at ease, you don't have to manufacture the connection. You're not obligated to turn a project into a relationship just because you showed up. A man worth building a life with should make you feel more like yourself, not less. If you're leaving dates feeling like you just ran an audition, keep asking this question until the answer changes. 2. How did my body feel during the date? This may sound woo-woo, but it’s deeply important. Did you feel relaxed? At ease? Safe? Or were you tense, stiff, or slightly on edge? Did your shoulders drop at some point during the evening, or did you stay guarded the whole time without quite knowing why? Your nervous system picks up on things before your conscious mind catches up. Whether someone's energy feels safe, warm, and steady, or unpredictable, draining, and performative, your body registers it first. A tight chest, a low-grade restlessness, the feeling of being slightly "on" the whole time; these aren't nerves to push through. We've been taught to override that information. He's successful, he's attractive, he said all the right things, so we talk ourselves out of the discomfort and call it first-date jitters. Sometimes it is. But often, it's something more honest: a signal that something isn't quite right, even if you can't articulate what. On the other side of this, pay attention to what ease actually feels like in someone's presence. The dates where your body softens, where the conversation doesn't feel like work, where you're not monitoring yourself; those are worth noticing too. Ease is not the same as boredom. We often override our physical intuition because someone looks good on paper. But your body will register what your mind tries to rationalize away. Peace in your body is something to prioritize. 3. Do I feel energized or drained? After the date, before you open your phone or start replaying the conversation, take inventory. Do you feel lighter, more hopeful, more yourself? Is there an underlying excitement, not necessarily fireworks, but something that feels good and easy and real? Or do you feel emotionally tired, confused, or strangely hollow, like you gave a lot and came back with less? This distinction matters more than most women realize, because we've been sold a version of attraction that looks a lot like exhaustion. The push and pull. The uncertainty. The guy who leaves you anxious and overanalyzing at midnight. We mistake that charged, unsettled feeling for passion, when really it's just dysregulation: your nervous system responding to someone unpredictable. A man who is genuinely good for you will leave you feeling replenished, not depleted. The conversation will have felt easy enough that you didn't come home needing to decompress from it. You'll feel a little more alive, a little more settled, a little more like the version of yourself you actually like. It's also worth paying attention to the dates that leave you confused. Confusion after a date is almost never a sign that he's mysterious and intriguing. It's usually a sign that something wasn't consistent; that what he said and what you felt didn't quite line up. Clarity is underrated in early dating. The right person tends to produce more of it, not less. Not every good date will feel like fireworks, and that's fine. But a healthy connection should not leave you drained. Emotional steadiness, not intensity, is what sustains a relationship over time. Chemistry that costs you your peace isn't chemistry worth chasing. 4. Am I genuinely curious about him? Curiosity is one of the most overlooked green flags in modern dating, where instant chemistry is treated as the only thing worth chasing. But attraction without curiosity is just aesthetics, and aesthetics alone have a notoriously short shelf life. Ask yourself honestly: do I actually want to know more about him? Am I thinking about questions I'd like to ask him next time, or am I trying to talk myself into caring? There's a meaningful difference between genuine interest and the performance of it, and most women know which one they're doing. This is also where the "mysterious man" cliché does a lot of damage. We've romanticized the idea of a man who keeps us guessing; who reveals himself slowly, who's hard to read, who keeps us leaning in just to figure him out. And while a little intrigue is natural, there's a version of this that isn't mystery at all. It's just withholding. A man who is genuinely interesting gives you more to be curious about over time. The difference between depth and unavailability is one of the most important distinctions to learn in dating. Real curiosity compounds. It's what makes a three-hour conversation feel like thirty minutes. It's what has you remembering small things he mentioned and wanting to follow up. It's what makes you actually look forward to seeing him again; not because you're anxious about where things stand, but because you genuinely enjoy discovering who he is. Curiosity is what builds connection slowly and meaningfully. It's what turns a good man into a known man, and eventually, a trusted one. If you're not curious about him, you're not building toward anything. You're just passing time with someone attractive, and that's a different thing entirely. 5. Did he make me laugh? This one sounds simple, but don't breeze past it. Shared humor is one of the most reliable compatibility signals there is. When two people find the same things funny, they're seeing the world through a similar lens. Same values, same sense of what deserves to be taken seriously and what doesn't. That alignment runs deeper than it appears. Did you laugh naturally—the kind you didn't plan or perform? Did the conversation have a lightness to it, a back-and-forth that felt genuinely easy? Or did his jokes land flat, leaving you smiling politely and moving on? Also worth noticing: did he make you feel funny? A man who genuinely enjoys you will laugh at the things you say; not to flatter you, but because he actually finds you entertaining. Humor also tells you things about character that a resume never could. A man who can laugh at himself has humility. A man whose humor makes you feel included rather than tested knows how to make people feel safe. These aren't small things. They're the things that make a long marriage feel like a choice you'd make again. A shared sense of humor signals emotional ease, humility, and relational compatibility. Marry someone who makes you laugh. It matters more than almost anything else. 6. Did I feel heard? Did he ask thoughtful questions? Did he listen closely, or was he just waiting for his turn to talk? Did he follow up on something you mentioned earlier, or did the conversation move entirely on his terms? There's a particular kind of man who is very good at seeming engaged while actually just performing engagement. He makes eye contact, he nods, he says the right things, but the conversation always finds its way back to him. His stories, his opinions, his life. It can take a date or two to notice, but once you do, you can't unsee it. Many women are drawn to charismatic men who know how to talk, but not necessarily how to listen. These are not the same skill, and in a long-term relationship, listening is the one that actually matters. A man who truly listens is a man capable of understanding you, leading well, and loving you in ways that actually reach you. This matters more for women than people tend to acknowledge. We process externally . We need to talk things through and feel genuinely received on the other side. Girlfriends are wonderful for this, and we should never stop having them. But there is a specific kind of loneliness that comes from sharing a life with someone who doesn't really hear you. It's quiet and it's cumulative, and it's one of the most common things women describe when they talk about feeling alone in a marriage . A man who listens well on a first date isn't just being polite. He's showing you something about who he is and how he moves through the world. Pay attention to it. 7. Did I feel attractive in his presence? Not in the way that comes from a well-timed compliment or the relief of knowing someone finds you physically appealing. But genuinely, did you feel comfortable in your own skin around him? Relaxed, secure, naturally yourself? Some men, without saying a word, make you feel like you're always slightly falling short. Like you need to be a little more interesting, a little more beautiful, a little more low-maintenance to fully earn their attention. That feeling is information. Listen to it. It's also worth noticing the difference between a man who makes you feel attractive and a man who makes you feel like you've won something. The first is warm and steady. The second is addictive and unpredictable, and it tends to come from men whose attention is designed to keep you working for it. One is a green flag. The other is a pattern worth recognizing before you're too far in. The right man doesn't make you question your value. He reflects it back to you in a way that feels easy. 8. Did I feel captivated or just “fine”? This may be the most honest, and the most difficult, question on this list. Too many women settle into “it was fine.” Not bad enough to walk away from, not good enough to feel genuinely excited. He was nice. The conversation was okay. Nothing went wrong. And so they go on a second date, and a third, waiting to feel something they never quite feel, because "fine" has a way of staying exactly that. "Fine" is not the foundation of a lasting marriage. It's just comfort with ambiguity, which is a different thing entirely. That said, this question requires some honesty about what captivation actually looks like, because it doesn't always arrive as fireworks. A good man may not overwhelm you with intensity or leave you breathless after a first date. But he should engage you. He should make you think, make you laugh, make you want to show up to the next conversation. There should be something—a pull, a warmth, a genuine interest in seeing where this goes—that makes him feel distinct from everyone else you've sat across from lately. The question to sit with isn't "was he perfect?" It's "was there something there?" And if the honest answer is no, if you're talking yourself into enthusiasm you don't actually feel, that's worth paying attention to before you invest any more of your time or heart. 9. Would I want to introduce him to others in my life? This question isn't from the episode, but I think it belongs on the list. Would I feel comfortable, excited, proud, and happy to introduce him to my friends and family? Or would I feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, or find myself making excuses for him before he's even in the room? There's a difference between privacy and avoidance. If the thought of introducing him to the people who know you best produces something closer to dread than excitement—if you're already pre-explaining his quirks, or hoping the topic doesn't come up—that's worth sitting with. The people who love you tend to see things clearly, and some part of you knows that. Wanting to keep him away from that clarity is information in itself. The people in your life who know you well are one of your best resources in dating. A man you're proud of, excited about, and genuinely want to share with the world has already passed a test most women forget to give. The Habits That Are Keeping You Single Ury's broader point is that most women are unknowingly working against themselves in dating. The habits modern dating culture rewards are almost perfectly designed to keep you stuck. Prioritizing chemistry over character. Mistaking emotional intensity for compatibility. Keeping one foot out the door in case something better comes along. These habits don't lead to lasting love. The nine questions above are the antidote: a way of stepping out of the noise and back into your own instincts, where the real information has been sitting all along. If your goal is marriage, that standard goes even deeper. As a Christian woman, faith alignment is one of my clearest markers of long-term compatibility; not just in name, but in how he actually lives. Is there evidence of growth, discipline, and humility? Does his example make you want to be better? And here's the question that cuts through everything else for me: would I feel comfortable with him raising my children if I were gone? It sounds heavy, but it's clarifying in a way few questions are. It moves you from "do I like him" to "do I trust him," and trust is what marriage actually runs on. The Permission Slip You Didn't Know You Needed All of this comes down to one shift: stop asking "does he like me?" and start asking "how do I feel with him?" That reframe changes everything. You might go out with someone genuinely wonderful and still walk away knowing he's not the one for you, and that's okay. We're not looking for a good man in the abstract. We're looking for the good man who is good for you. The one who brings out your peace, not your anxiety. Whose values don't just look good on paper but show up in how he lives. When you find him, you'll know—not because he checked every box, but because you finally trusted what you felt.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/9-questions-that-will-change-how-you-date</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Relationships</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Karen Is Dead. Here's The New Woman The Internet Hates.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/karen-is-dead-heres-the-new-woman-the-internet-hates</link>
      <dc:creator>Zoomer Tea</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Every generation produces a woman the internet decides to hate, and the newest one has a very millennial name.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Karen was once just a name, popular among Gen X women, with no particular associations. However, the internet did what it does best, turning Karen into a moniker for a very specific type of white woman. And now, before the dust has even settled on that verdict, the internet has already moved on. Gen Z has nominated a successor: a new name for a new generation, carrying the same basic charge. But before we get to her, it’s worth asking whether we’ve been fair to the original. While some may not like to admit it, stereotyping is a natural human instinct, not merely a cultural habit. Like many other human traits, it has evolved to help us navigate a complex world by creating social categories, classifying people by age, gender, or race. Taking this one step further, we also tend to group people by personality traits. We’ve all heard of the “pick-me girl,” the “cool girl,” the “tomboy,” or the “popular girl,” and while these labels may feel harmless or even familiar, they do shape how we see ourselves and others. Social media has only heightened the ways in which humans attach stereotypes and labels to certain people. The Karen trend spawned from the “talk to the manager” haircut meme, the style being a side-swept bob in the front with spiky, much shorter hair in the back, famously seen on Kate Gosselin from the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 . The “Karen” woman is typically white, middle class, and middle-aged; her appearance and race are central to the stereotype, but it’s the behavior she’s characterized by that really sets her apart from other women. Karens are seen as entitled, prone to being demanding and unreasonable, particularly in public settings where they’re often caught on camera making supposedly unreasonable demands. In 2020, when woke politics really seemed to take hold of the world, “Karen” became more than just a funny stereotype and veered into a more pointed and racialized label aimed at white women. As Black Lives Matter and conversations around “systemic issues of racism” became central to a broader push for more equality, white women increasingly became a kind of cultural punching bag. What had started as a relatable eye-roll at an entitled customer evolved into a weapon—one that could be deployed against women with entirely legitimate grievances, reframing them as racist killjoys regardless of context. Journalist Wilfred Reilly examined a number of high-profile Karen cases and found that many of the accused women had been misrepresented entirely: videos stripped of context, accusations built on hearsay, and reputations destroyed before any facts could surface. By the time the record was corrected, the damage was already done. This raises the question of whether one form of stereotyping was being challenged, while another was quietly taking its place. It’s clear that no matter race, age, or gender, people have an impulse to stereotype that isn’t going away anytime soon. In Defense of Karen Before we write her off entirely, it’s worth asking: what exactly does society lose when we shame the Karen out of existence? We’ve all taken a swipe at the “Karen” prototype at some point, especially during our hospitality-industry years. But step back and look at what she’s actually doing. Karen sends her dish back when it was made wrong, which keeps restaurants accountable for their standards. She tells the off-leash dog owner to follow the park rules, which keeps public spaces functional for everyone. She reports transparently suspicious behavior in her neighborhood, which is precisely what neighborhood watch programs ask people to do. She does none of this for applause or recognition. She does it out of a sense of civic principle, because she understands that someone has to uphold standards for a community to remain livable. It flattened every assertive woman with a grievance into the same caricature, and that flattening had real consequences. The same culture that made it socially poisonous to speak up with a complaint is now surprised that no one speaks to the manager anymore. Restaurants have become ruder, service has declined, and yet the women who once held these institutions to account have been so thoroughly ridiculed that many have simply gone quiet. We mocked Karen into submission and then acted confused about what we lost. Of course, there’s a version of Karen who takes it too far—who makes a scene over nothing, who is genuinely rude to people who didn’t deserve it. But most people can tell the difference between a woman with a legitimate complaint and someone on a power trip. The problem is that the meme never really cared about that distinction. It flattened every assertive woman with a grievance into the same caricature, and that flattening had real consequences. Meet Jessica: Karen’s Millennial Successor So who is the internet’s pick to carry the torch? Her name is Jessica. And it makes a certain generational sense. While Karen peaked in 1965 as the third most popular girls’ name in the U.S. before slipping out of the top 100 by the 1990s , Jessica dominated the charts for a different era entirely, ranking as the most popular name for American girls from 1985 to 1989, and again from 1993 to 1995, according to the Social Security Administration . Karen was Gen X. Jessica is millennial. The meme has simply updated its casting. But how is Jessica different, if at all, from the stereotype she’s inheriting? Despite only being the generation after Gen X, millennials grew up in a very different world. The sexual revolution and liberalism were booming, shaping culture and expectations, with many more women disregarding traditions of the past and focusing on independence. At the same time, millennials were the first generation to grow up with mobile phones and the early days of social media, from MySpace to Facebook. Karen is known for complaining directly to the manager; however, Jessica is more likely to take to social media to rant about the infraction she suffered or leave online reviews. This suggests that where they show up is the biggest difference between Karen and Jessica. We’re yet to see any strong definition of Jessica’s appearance, suggesting that the stereotype is less about how she looks and more about how she behaves online. The Performance Problem Jessica being mostly an online phenomenon brings into question the authenticity of her caricature. Most, if not all, of the Karen lore feels rooted in seemingly authentic, unfiltered moments; not carefully curated for the camera, but captured as they happened. The meme didn’t come from performance so much as observation, from Karens simply living their lives and people noticing patterns in their behavior. Whereas Jessica, when she films rants online about her latest social breakdown or argues on Twitter about the latest “-ism,” it feels more self-aware; less like something being caught in the moment and more like something being performed for an audience. This is the logical extension of what happened to the Karen meme once it moved from honest observation to political weapon: it created a culture of performed grievance, where the point stopped being to fix the problem and started being to be seen fixing it. Jessica doesn’t speak to the manager. She posts a video about the manager, collects her sympathetic comments, and moves on. Whether anything actually changes is almost beside the point. Jessica doesn’t speak to the manager. She posts a video about the manager, collects her sympathetic comments, and moves on. Much of how Gen Z and millennials interact with the world and social media feels like a show, almost as if everything is being performed for an unseen audience. The question is whether that performance actually accomplishes anything, or whether it’s just the newer, more socially acceptable version of making a scene. Here's What All of This Is Really About This shift from Karen to Jessica isn’t just about names; it reflects a deeper change in how women are perceived, and how they present themselves, in an increasingly online world. Ever since the invention of smartphones, many people feel that there’s been a shift—where once people could be themselves without worrying about an embarrassing moment being shared for the whole world to see, now some, particularly millennials, willingly bring those moments online, turning private experiences into public content. The irony is that Karen and Jessica, for all their differences, share the same underlying charge: a woman who refuses to stay quiet. Karen was mocked for speaking up in person. Jessica is mocked for speaking up online. The venue has changed; the contempt hasn’t. Women today often have to contend with conflicting messages: on the one hand being told that we should be more assertive, while also being shamed if we have too strong or too loud of an opinion. Karen and Jessica represent women who are unafraid to use their voice, and both have been mocked relentlessly for it. The realistic target is somewhere in the middle: knowing when to speak up, but doing so with a level of calm and consideration. Staying silent isn’t always the better option. When no one says anything, it can allow poor behavior or unfair situations to continue unchecked. Perhaps the rise of Jessica as the “new Karen” also reflects something deeper about internet culture, where trends can feel increasingly inauthentic, driven more by the desire to go viral than by any real consideration of what’s actually good for society. At a time when many people are struggling, and young women in particular are feeling lost, maybe the focus should shift away from labeling and toward highlighting the positive qualities in one another—creating a culture that uplifts rather than tears down. The internet will always find a new woman to hate. The question is whether we'll eventually decide she deserved better.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/karen-is-dead-heres-the-new-woman-the-internet-hates</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Why Is Loving BTS "Embarrassing" But Worshipping A Football Team "Normal"?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/why-is-loving-bts-embarrassing-but-worshipping-a-football-team-normal</link>
      <dc:creator> Juliana Spivey</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Nobody calls a 40-year-old man with a fantasy football league and a shrine to Tom Brady "obsessed," but a woman with a poster of her favorite artist suddenly has a personality disorder.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[From Harry Potter and Gilmore Girls to K-pop and Taylor Swift, women have long built spaces that blend social connection, emotional expression, and collective action. These communities are more than entertainment; they're networks where members explore personal identity, practice leadership, and cultivate skills that extend far beyond fandom. Whether running fan-led charity initiatives, coordinating large-scale streaming projects, or creating art that reflects their passions, female fans consistently demonstrate the same dedication and strategic thinking credited only to male-led fandoms or professional organizations. So why does one get celebrated, and the other get mocked? BTS’s ARMY BTS's ARMY is perhaps the most visible example of this phenomenon today, but it is part of a larger trend: fandom as a space where women claim expertise, mobilize resources, and build social capital. The energy and organization ARMY demonstrates—coordinated streaming campaigns, philanthropic work, and advocacy—is mirrored in countless other female fan communities. What distinguishes these groups is not mere enthusiasm, but the way that passion is structured into meaningful action, creating shared purpose and real-world impact. Dismissing female fandom as frivolous misses the deeper cultural and social significance of these networks entirely. The moment James Corden called ARMY "screaming 15-year-olds" remains a favorite example of mainstream media's inability to understand fandom. Reducing a global community to the stereotype of "emotional teenage girls" completely ignores the lived experience of so many fans. The 80-year-old who still loves to jam to good tunes, the working professionals who decorate their badge with photocards of their bias, the hardworking college students who study hard to "make the boys proud." RM's response was measured, confident, and exactly right. He recognized the power his fans wield and made sure Corden understood it. Corden did eventually apologize and acknowledge ARMY's charity work, but the fact that he felt comfortable making the joke in the first place says plenty. What that moment also reveals is the mutual devotion at the heart of BTS and ARMY's relationship. Both sides show up for each other consistently, publicly, without hesitation. That level of loyalty isn't accidental; it's the result of years of intentional community-building. In an industry constantly chasing engagement metrics, there is something worth studying in what BTS and their fandom have built together. ARMY are well-known, even outside music spaces, for their collective action. We organize. We mobilize. We show up. Whether cleaning up after concerts, raising awareness for causes like autism and cancer research, or supporting releases through coordinated streaming and promotion, this fandom operates with both structure and heart. Like any large community, there are outliers, but the broader narrative consistently misses what ARMY actually is: a community defined by connection, creativity, and care. Many fans are professionals—people balancing careers, responsibilities, and full lives. Within this community alone, I've met a surgeon, a journalist, a realtor, a graduate student. Thoughtful, accomplished people who choose to invest their time and energy into something that brings them genuine joy and meaning. So what makes this connection different? At its core, BTS has built a relationship with their audience that feels reciprocal. Through their music, storytelling, and consistent communication, they create space for fans to feel seen, valued, and understood. The result is trust. That sense of mutual care transforms passive listeners into active participants; fans who amplify messages, support one another, and carry the values of the artists into the real world. Why are girls' interests treated as something to grow out of, while boys' are treated as a lifelong identity worth respecting? And yet, fandoms made up largely of women are routinely dismissed as frivolous or overly emotional. The same enthusiasm celebrated in sports culture gets criticized in communities like ARMY—a double standard that says far more about cultural bias than it does about the fans. A man can dedicate an entire room to his favorite football team and be called passionate. A woman puts up a poster of her favorite group and gets called obsessed. Why are girls' interests treated as something to grow out of, while boys' are treated as a lifelong identity worth respecting? Taylor Swift’s Swifties Another example of a fandom getting belittled and stereotyped is the Swiftie community. Taylor Swift has done something genuinely rare: she has given words to the experience of girlhood in a way that few artists ever have. She speaks to depression, anger, heartbreak, friendships, crushes, and family in such powerful, relatable terms that her music has functioned as a genuine lifeline for millions of women and girls, and yet her fans are labeled as emotional, toxic, or a cult. The numbers alone should settle the debate. The Eras Tour broke the record for highest-grossing concert tour in history , generating an estimated $4.6 billion in consumer spending and single-handedly boosting local economies in every city it touched, something economists actually studied and documented. Cities reported sold-out hotels, packed restaurants, and surging retail sales weeks in advance. The Federal Reserve mentioned her in official economic reports. And still, the "cool" thing to do was roll your eyes at it. The Super Bowl moment is a perfect case study. Taylor Swift attended games to support her boyfriend at the time, Travis Kelce, and his team, something any supportive partner might do. The backlash was immediate and disproportionate. Broadcasts cut to her in the crowd, as they do for any notable celebrity, and suddenly sports commentators, podcasters, and random men on the internet were declaring the NFL "ruined." Nobody asked why a woman showing up to cheer for her partner was treated as an act of cultural aggression. What both of these moments reveal is the same double standard running through the ARMY conversation: enthusiasm coded as female gets treated as a problem to be managed, while identical enthusiasm coded as male gets treated as a cultural institution worth protecting. Devoted fandom has always existed. The difference is who gets mocked for it. What is Fandom? Fandom is often dismissed as escapism, but the signs at concerts tell a different story. "Your music saved me." "I'm still here because of you." These aren't the words of people checked out from reality—they're the words of people who found something to hold onto inside it. That dimension of fandom is almost entirely absent from mainstream conversation. Fan communities like ARMY demonstrate what happens when audiences feel genuine belonging. They invest, advocate, and show up for the artists they love and for each other. The charitable work alone, from cancer research fundraisers to disaster relief campaigns, reflects a community oriented outward, not inward. At their core, fandoms are a celebration. A place to connect, to create, to express admiration for something that matters to you. The sports fan who paints his face and memorizes every stat gets called passionate. The music fan who does the equivalent gets called obsessed. Women and girls deserve a space to celebrate, admire, and rest surrounded by the things they love most without having to justify why those things are worth loving. Some of the best creative work on the internet today comes directly from fan communities. Where official merchandise often falls flat, fan artists fill the gap with something more personal, more inventive, and more alive. The sweatshirt, the sticker, the hand-lettered print—these are small but real acts of creativity, and they build something tangible inside a community that might otherwise exist only online. When we start seeing fans as people actively shaping culture rather than passively consuming it, the entire conversation shifts. The music industry would do well to pay attention, because the passion that fills those arenas, organizes those campaigns, and creates that art is not a byproduct of success. For a lot of artists, it is the success.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/why-is-loving-bts-embarrassing-but-worshipping-a-football-team-normal</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[15 Bridal Shower Gifts That Aren't Another Candle]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/bridal-shower-gifts-that-arent-another-candle</link>
      <dc:creator>Anna Hartman</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Because she’s already getting the monogrammed towels, the linen napkins, and the KitchenAid she registered for in a moment of domestic optimism.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[The bridal shower gift table is a very specific kind of chaos, and most of what’s on it she will use twice and forget about. Give her something she’ll actually keep. Something that lasts longer than the sprigs of eucalyptus in the centerpieces. Here are 15 ideas for exactly that. This article may contain affiliate links or paid partnerships. We may earn a commission or compensation at no extra cost to you. All products are chosen independently by our editorial team and reflect our genuine recommendations. 1. A Custom Perfume or Engraved Fragrance Bottle A custom fragrance or a beautiful bottle engraved with her new initials, her wedding date, or a phrase that means something to both of you, is the kind of gift that turns a daily ritual into something romantic. She’ll reach for it every morning and think of you, and more importantly, of this chapter in her life. Brands like Jo Malone and Dior make bottles beautiful enough to live on a vanity forever and offer custom engraving. Etsy also offers custom engraved perfume bottles if she already has a signature scent she (or you) can pour into it. Alternatively, if you just want to buy her a wedding-themed perfume, sans engraving, there are gorgeous options like Oscar de la Renta's Bella Blanca , KAYALI's The Wedding Silk Santal , and Anthropologie's ultra-affordable Nostalgia I Do Eau De Parfum . If you want to go the extra mile, some perfumers offer custom blending appointments. Book her one and go together! Shop: Custom Engraved Perfume Bottle: Wedding Keepsake, $60 Shop: Anthropologie Nostalgia I Do Eau De Parfum, $24 2. A Spa Gift Card Wedding planning is genuinely stressful. Book her an hour where she doesn’t have to think about florals or seating arrangements. Schedule a massage, a facial, or a day pass somewhere beautiful. This is the gift that makes her exhale. Bonus points if she can book it for the week before the wedding, when she’ll need it most. 3. evie Magazine: The Sex Issue This is the one to bring to the shower and tuck discreetly between the bottle of champagne and the Le Creuset. Not because it’s something to hide, but because it’s something to savor. It's an unapologetic celebration of love, desire, and connection for women who want a deeply intimate marriage, not just a beautiful wedding. Give it at the shower so she has time to actually read it before the vows. The registry can wait. This one’s for her. Pre-order: Evie Magazine: The Sex Issue, $49 4. A Sentimental Jewelry Piece Something she can wear beyond her wedding day. A delicate bracelet, a pearl piece, or a subtle everyday necklace. Bridal jewelry gets a lot of attention, but the stuff she reaches for every day after the wedding is just as meaningful. Think less “statement” and more “something borrowed, forever kept.” Shop: Uncommon James Pearl Drop Huggie Earrings, $48 Shop: Caitlyn Minimalist Venus Pearl Bracelet, $167 5. A Contribution to the Honeymoon Fund If she set one up, use it. Experiences are always the right gift. If she hasn’t, a card with a heartfelt note and a gift card to a restaurant in her honeymoon destination is a close second. It’s the kind of gift she’ll think about while she’s actually there, which makes it better than anything wrapped in tissue paper. 6. A Monogrammed Robe or Matching Pajama Set She's going to be photographed getting ready more times in the next twelve months than she has in her entire life. A beautiful monogrammed robe or a matching pajama set is practical, gorgeous, and something she’ll wear long after the wedding party has disbanded. Look for something white or a shade that works for her complexion. She’ll thank you every time she reaches for it. Shop: For Love & Lemons Audrey Robe, $198 Shop: Djerf Avenue Go Slow Short Robe Lilac Dreams, $130 Shop: Etsy Personalized Bridal Robe, $63 Shop: Show Me Your Mumu Touch Up Top, $54 and Shorts, $44 7. A Luxe Skincare Set Between engagement photos, bridal portraits, and the wedding itself, there's a ton of camera time between now and “I do.” A curated skincare set helps her glow through all of it. Think a vitamin C serum, a great moisturizer, and an eye mask she’ll actually remember to use. Go for a brand she’d consider a splurge on her own; this is the moment to justify it. Charlotte Tilbury, Sunday Riley, Tatcha, and La Mer all make sets that feel like an event to open. Shop: Charlotte Tilbury Charlotte's Iconic Magic Mini Skin Set, $46 Shop: Tatcha The Starter Ritual Hydrating & Plumping Value Set, $74 8. A Custom Illustration or Portrait Commission a small illustration of her and her fiancé getting engaged, the venue where they’re getting married, or even their pets. It’s personal in a way that nothing off a registry ever is, and it gives her something to hang on the wall that tells their story. Etsy is full of talented artists who can turn around a custom piece in a few weeks. Shop: Etsy Couple Proposal Portrait, $60 Shop: Etsy Custom Watercolor Venue Painting, $45 9. A Curated Date Night Experience Box After the wedding, after the honeymoon, and after life settles back into its rhythm, the couples who actually prioritize each other are the ones who keep showing up for each other on purpose. A curated date night experience box does exactly that. Gather a beautiful bottle of wine, a handwritten card, a restaurant gift card, and a game or prompt deck designed for couples. It’s a gift that keeps giving past the thank-you notes. Shop: The Adventure Challenge Game Couples Limited Edition at Target, $48 Shop: Friend of Mine Night Cap Cards, $38 10. A Handwritten Letter It's free, completely underestimated, and the thing she’ll pull out of a box in twenty years and read out loud to her husband. Write her something real: what you love about her, what you see in this relationship, what you’re wishing for her marriage. In a gift pile full of things she registered for and things well-meaning people thought she might like, a handwritten letter is the one thing no one else thought to bring. Slip it inside whatever else you’re giving her. It’s the part she’ll remember. 11. A Ring Dish Small, beautiful, and something she’ll use every single day. A ceramic ring dish gives her engagement ring a proper home and will become a fixture on her dresser for years. Look for something handmade on Etsy, a piece from a small ceramicist, or a tray that matches her bathroom aesthetic. It’s practical in the most lovely way possible, and it photographs beautifully for the “getting ready” moments on her photographer's shot list. Shop: Etsy Custom Engagement Ring Dish, $23 Shop: Kate Spade New York Take The Cake Ring Holder on Amazon, $36 Shop: Etsy Personalized Proposal Portrait Ring Dish, $20 12. A Diamond Cleaning Kit She just got an engagement ring she loves, and she’s going to be photographed in it constantly. Give her the tools to keep it looking exactly how it did the day he proposed. A good jewelry cleaning kit is the gift that sounds boring until she uses it and realizes she can’t live without it. Shop: Diamond Drunk Non-Toxic Fine Jewelry Cleaner The Starter Collection, $75 Shop: Kunphy Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner on Amazon, $25 13. A Subscription to Something She Loves A magazine subscription , a meal kit service for two , a wine club , a monthly flower delivery , a clothing service (perfect for the events surrounding her wedding and honeymoon), or whatever it is she’d never justify buying for herself. Subscriptions are the gift that keeps arriving long after the wedding chaos has settled, which makes them so brilliant. If you know her well enough to pick the right one, this is one of the most thoughtful things on this list. Shop: Nuuly Gift Card, $25-$1,500 Shop: The Bouqs Co. eGift Subscription: 3 Months of Flowers, $225 14. A Linen Spritz or Bedroom Fragrance Set This is what makes a bed feel like a hotel and a bedroom feel like a sanctuary. Brands like Aesop , Magnolia , Diptyque , and Flamingo Estate make room and linen sprays that are genuinely luxurious and completely unexpected as a bridal shower gift. Pair it with a set of silk pillowcases or a beautiful sleep mask and you’ve given her the foundation for a bedroom that actually feels like a retreat. Which, after the chaos of wedding planning, is exactly what she’ll need. Shop: Magnolia Linen Room Spray, $24 Shop: Diptyque Roses Room Spray, $84 Shop: Quince 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase, $45 Shop: Quince Mulberry Silk Beauty Sleep Mask, $20 15. A Keepsake Recipe Book One of the most meaningful gifts at a bridal shower used to be a recipe box filled with handwritten family recipes from every guest. That tradition deserves a comeback, but unless you're the MOH or the one throwing her bridal shower, it's not appropriate to ask all of her guests at the party to fill out their favorite recipes for her on the spot. Instead, you can just give her a beautiful blank cookbook and allow her to fill it in over time, building something that will become genuinely heirloom over the years. Shop: Etsy Personalized Recipe Box, $21 Shop: Cultiverre Artichoke Heirloom Recipe Tin, $38 Shop: Friend of Mine Recipe Journal, $36]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/bridal-shower-gifts-that-arent-another-candle</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[I Lived The Feminist Dream. I Want My Money Back.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-lived-the-feminist-dream-i-want-my-money-back</link>
      <dc:creator>Mari Feldberg</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[A feminist critique of feminism (unabridged). ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[I never thought I’d be here. I hate the idea of injecting a foreign toxin into my body. I don’t even wear makeup. But here I am seriously considering getting four different cosmetic procedures, none of which I really want… but unfortunately feel like now I need. And I’m resentful about it. I was never a model, sure, but that’s never bothered me. I’m pretty enough, but have so many other things like my above average intellect, which can keep up deep conversation like no 16-step-skincare-routine Instagram scarecrow could ever. Add to that my humor that seems to make most people remember me often when I don’t remember them, my ability to listen well, cook a perfect steak, and roll a perfect spliff. I felt confident that all of this evened the playing field so I’d still have as good a shot as any in the dating market. But wow was I wrong. There’s a new price of admission, and it ain’t cheap… or completely without risk of facial paralysis apparently, as the warning agreement stated. I don’t want any of this stuff. I actually like how I look naturally, but I'm torn because I also now recognize the reality of the current dating market, and to pretend like the game doesn’t exist only does me a disservice. So in order to participate, I’m forced, like a pouting child being shoved into a raincoat, to wear the uniform, i.e., what physical attributes men find attractive, evolutionarily, at a glance: fuller lips, perfect teeth, narrow jaw, protruding cheekbones, and zero signs of wrinkles. The face I once made fun of in the Venice Erewhon parking lot, I’m now about to surgically augment onto my own in this weird sci-fi scheme we’ve fashioned for ourselves through…. I bet you can’t guess it… feminism. What a curveball, right? The marketplace is made up only of your options. It’s a comparison, like grading on a curve. Just twenty years ago, your options (the market) was limited to those in your geographic vicinity, plus the occasional setup from a relative or camp friend. Now, the options have widened considerably due to dating apps and we're competing across hundreds, even thousands of options. On top of that, Instagram has widened the option pool even further, even though none of the men around me could realistically date any of these women, they exist constantly in their field of view, and thus are part of the sample size. Now stack on top of that that we're no longer competing within our age group; it has widened to include girls 10-20 years younger than us—and this is where feminism really screwed us. We are our own worst enemy, and the architects of our own demise. We were sold the lie to go after our careers, make money, and make our mark on the world first, and then go find a partner once we've accomplished A through C. We used to have a backstop against some of this—our biological clock ticking louder around our mid-thirties—but we did an end run around that too, with egg freezing. And the worst part of it is that we, women , did this to ourselves. Not a single man told us to do any of this. In fact, historically, they’ve been pretty petulant about the whole thing, but we pushed right through that sentiment by calling them all “toxic” and threatening them with cancellation if they didn’t comply. We are our own worst enemy, and the architects of our own demise. While we were busy climbing the corporate ladder, raising unheard of amounts of money, and optimizing ourselves in every possible way, the men in our cohort weren’t just waiting around for us to feel "ready" to settle down. They were dating, and as we aged up, still too busy self-actualizing for them, they continued to date twenty-year-olds (women in their fertile prime, because that’s what men are biologically programmed to find attractive). So we freeze our eggs, maybe buying us some additional time. Ten years go by. Surely, the men left in their forties are still single because they're looking for something real, something mature; a woman of substance. Wrong. They're still dating twenty-year-olds, just now with a hair transplant and an eye-rolling age gap. And it’s not really their fault; it’s mostly biology. Men have about the same fertility as they age until well into their sixties. Up until that point, they will be pursuing women in their fertile prime, as their biological directive is telling them to procreate, and with a mate with the highest likelihood of success to carry on the gene pool. Feminism forces us to reject biology, both on the male and female side. Feminism sold us the lie that being a well-rounded, articulate, and successful woman would up the value of our stock; the investment in ourselves was worth it. In reality, it does absolutely nothing to our market value and, actually in some cases, lowers it, as many men prefer to be more successful and smarter than their partners. Women date laterally and up, men date laterally (sometimes), but mostly down. Most men couldn’t care less if you're successful or incredible intelligent, or have any amount of self-knowledge you might have gleaned on your therapy journey. Sure, those things are “nice-to-haves,” but often they don’t even come into their assessments until after you’ve already been dating for a while. They have the ability to make a marginal difference, at best. Men, even when they say they want someone they can ‘talk to on their level,’ are kind of kidding themselves—they look mostly for biological markers of fertility and high estrogen (waist-to-hip ratio, full lips, heart-shaped face), and as far as talking goes… they just want someone to listen. It’s women who want someone to talk to on their level—another gross mis-assessment of feminism. Just to get to the point where other non-physical attributes come into consideration, you have to pass the first gate, which I’ll call the ‘visual fertility assessment.’ Imagine trying to compete in a track and field meet, but there’s a 6-foot height requirement just to sign up. Sure, once you’re in, you could collect points from various different events and still beat someone who won in other categories, but if you can’t meet the initial height requirement, you aren’t even on the field. Now, onto the topic of the ‘sexual revolution.’ "Explore your sexuality" they said, "women can also have satisfying sex lives." A noble quest for sure. This point is the hardest for me to make, because I do believe that a lot of good came out of this. I do think women were, for many years (and often still are), short-changed in the bedroom, mostly because they don’t take the time to learn what they like, or feel confident enough to ask for it, and much of that knowledge comes unfortunately only from experimentation. But, feminism’s call to “f*ck like men” was the wrong message. Its call for sexual freedom wasn’t ill-intentioned so much as ignorant of biology. "Do away with the archaic notions of the religious past, rooted in oppression, that chastity is a virtue. You do you girl, a real man won’t care.” Wrong again. Whether men know it or not, they are pre-disposed to prefer women with fewer partners. Back in cavemen times, a man’s biggest threat to the tribe survival was spending limited resources (food, energy, protection) on someone else’s child. So, to ensure likelihood of paternity, they’d mate with a woman with the fewest partners. Thousands of years of this hardwired it in, and no amount of pussy-hat marches is gonna re-wire those circuit boards. Most men I know aren’t even aware that they're screening for it. You can re-write culture in an instant, but biology takes millennia. I don't regret my sexual past. I'm lovingly referred to by my friends as “an orgasm waiting to happen.” Some of that is maybe due to a hormonal imbalance, but it mostly comes from knowing my body very well, and I probably have the sexual revolution to thank for that. But, I am also aware of how it negatively impacts me in the dating market. It happens constantly, and every time it makes me a little more sad, even hopeless, because I cannot change my past. It is what it is. The dating market doesn’t care that you’re brilliant—it only cares that you look fertile. Feminism told women to delay marriage and the dating market moved on without us. Feminism told women to delay marriage and the dating market moved on without us. Yes, there are some other factors at play: the advent of all-access porn taking a large amount of men out of the dating pool entirely. The creation of dating apps that widened the market of available women and shrunk the number of men feeling any need for commitment. The popularization of polyamory, which we’ve seen from the data has really just shaken out to be old fashioned polygamy: multiple women sharing 1 man. All of these factors though, compound toward the same conclusion: there are exponentially less available men. But those are things we didn’t really have control of. Listening to the well-intentioned but biologically illiterate third-wave feminists, however, was our choice. We chugged that Kool-Aid and took photos of our sloppy red stained faces with catchy hashtags like #thefutureisfemale. Is it really, though? It's not if we missed out on reproducing. Did anyone ever think of that? Perhaps, if we had started dating seriously for marriage in our early twenties, we might have had a fighting chance to adapt to the changing landscape, or at least pass that first gate without the help of a board certified plastic surgeon. Now, me and all my girlfriends in their thirties, each one more amazing and accomplished than the next, are all playing this game of high stakes musical chairs when we could have been lampin’ in the suburbs, getting the 7-year itch by now. So here we are, trying to trick the subconscious brain of men into registering us as a viable breeding option, or at least as viable as our twenty-year-old counterparts are—just to participate in a fundamental part of life. I can’t change my sexual history, or get back any of the years I lost girl-bossing away, so the only lever I have left is to increase my waist-to-hip ratio, and create a halloween mask out of my face. Now don’t get me wrong, feminism got a lot right: the right to vote, equal pay, the ability to have a job, and not be sexually harassed at that job, bodily autonomy, ability to open a bank account or just exist without a husband. It gave us options. But maybe, just maybe, it got this one thing wrong. I did everything feminism told me to do: I worked my ass off, made a shitload of money, and became one of the youngest female directors in my field. I broke the “glass ceiling.” But now I’m just lying here, covered in broken glass. Originally published on Substack.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-lived-the-feminist-dream-i-want-my-money-back</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Sheryl Sandberg's Feminist Empire Is Crumbling And She's Blaming Stay-At-Home Moms]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/sheryl-sandbergs-feminist-empire-is-crumbling-and-shes-blaming-stay-at-home-moms</link>
      <dc:creator>Lisa Britton</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[The movement that promised women freedom just declared war on women who used it.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[This week the Wall Street Journal dropped a quiet bombshell: Sandberg’s nonprofit, Lean In, has shed roughly a quarter of its staff over the past year. More than a dozen employees—some of them top-paid executives earning more than $290,000—are gone, either laid off or walking out the door. The organization that once boasted more than fifty staffers and burned through $10 million a year in salaries and benefits is now run by a 25-year-old former Meta product manager with zero nonprofit experience. Her big idea? Using AI to “help women harness the power of their careers.” And what is the new leaner Lean In focusing its remaining energy on? Not on helping women navigate real life. Not on maternity leave, or childcare costs, or the exhaustion so many mothers feel. No. They’re launching a full-scale war on the “manosphere” and the “tradwife” movement—the growing group of women who have looked at corporate feminism’s promises and said, politely but firmly, “No thank you.” Sandberg herself took to LinkedIn to warn that the “glamorization” of traditional womanhood risks “reviving the professional guilt women spent decades dismantling.” Let that sink in. The woman who wrote the 2013 feminist manifesto Lean In is now openly furious that some women are choosing the lives they want and she insists the wanting itself must be shamed out of us. Choice was never the goal. Direction was. Every time I see a story like this about girlboss feminism, I’m reminded of Simone de Beauvoir’s infamous line: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” There it is—the admission at the heart of modern feminism. Choice was never the goal. Direction was. The women’s movement sold us a sparkly lie: that a career was liberation and the nursery was oppression. Get the corner office, they told us. Outsource babies to daycare. Climb the ladder, lean in, and never, ever look back. If you felt a tug toward home life, that was just internalized patriarchy talking. If you wanted to rock your own baby instead of handing her off to a total stranger, you were betraying the sisterhood. Sandberg and her crew didn’t trust women to make the “right” decisions, so they tried to remove the wrong ones from the menu entirely. Now the reality is catching up to their ideology, and they’re panicking. The December 2025 Women in the Workplace report found something astonishing: for the first time, women are less interested in being promoted than men. The corporate ladder is losing its appeal. Young women are watching their older sisters burn out, divorce at record rates, and medicate their anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, a growing number of women are building beautiful, rooted lives around marriage and motherhood, and they’re not apologizing for it. Enter the tradwife. She’s not a monolith. Some bake bread and homeschool. Some run small businesses from their homes. Some simply decided that raising their own children full-time was worth more than another promotion. They’re not oppressed. They’re not brainwashed. They’re exercising the very choice feminists once claimed to champion, until too many actually chose it. That’s what has Sandberg and company rattled. Their entire project was built on the assumption that once women were “freed” from the home, they would never look back. But many did look back. And a lot of us liked what we saw. They’re exercising the very choice feminists once claimed to champion, until too many actually chose it. I’ve heard the counterarguments a thousand times. “Tradwives are just cosplaying privilege.” “It’s easy to stay home when your husband makes a lot of money.” Fair enough—some are. But the data doesn’t lie: women across income levels are reporting higher life satisfaction when they have the option to prioritize family. The real privilege isn’t the trust fund; it’s having the cultural permission to admit that careerism isn’t the highest good. For decades we were told the opposite. Now that women are taking this path, the movement that claimed to speak for us is calling it false consciousness. This is the same pattern we’ve seen for seventy years. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique about the “problem that has no name”—the quiet despair of suburban housewives—and concluded the only solution was to get every last one of them into the workforce. Never mind the women who found deep purpose in home and love. Never mind the children who thrived under their mothers’ daily care. Those stories were inconvenient to feminists. De Beauvoir was even more explicit. She didn’t want women to have the option of staying home because she knew what would happen if they did: too many would take it. The architects of second-wave feminism understood something about female nature: that given genuine freedom, a huge percentage of us would choose relationships, babies, and the domestic arts over climbing corporate hierarchies. So they set out to close that door. Sandberg’s Lean In was the corporate-friendly sequel. It dressed up the same ideology in PowerPoint slides and TED Talks. “You can have it all,” it whispered, “just lean in harder.” What it really meant was: You must want what we tell you to want. Now comes a desperate pivot to fighting online “misogynists” who dare to suggest that maybe, just maybe, a woman’s highest calling isn’t another Zoom meeting. The glamorization of homemaking isn’t the problem. The problem is that women are finally free enough to admit that careers are fine, but they were never meant to be our entire identity. I’m not saying every woman belongs at home. That would be just as tyrannical as saying none of us do. The entire point—the one feminists refuse to concede—is that we get to decide. Some women will thrive in the office. Some will find joy in teaching, medicine, entrepreneurship. And yes, some will light up at the thought of being there when their toddler takes her first steps, of teaching her ABCs, of building a home that feels like a sanctuary instead of a rest stop between work shifts. All of those are valid. All of them are feminine. None of them require the approval of Sheryl Sandberg. The real misogyny isn’t a man on the internet praising his wife’s cooking. It’s a multimillion-dollar feminist nonprofit that panics at the sight of women making choices it doesn’t like. The real misogyny isn’t a man on the internet praising his wife’s cooking. It’s a multimillion-dollar feminist nonprofit that panics at the sight of women making choices it doesn’t like. It’s telling your daughter that her desire to nurture is suspect. It’s spending $10 million a year in salaries to convince women that the ancient, beautiful work of motherhood is somehow beneath them. Lean In is shrinking because its message is shrinking. The culture is shifting not because of some right-wing conspiracy, but because women are exhausted from living someone else’s script. We tried the experiment. We leaned in until our backs broke. And now a growing number of us are standing up straight, looking around, and saying: “Actually, I’d rather lean into my family.” If that terrifies the old guard of feminism, good. It should. Because the women they claimed to liberate are finally, truly free. And many are choosing differently.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/sheryl-sandbergs-feminist-empire-is-crumbling-and-shes-blaming-stay-at-home-moms</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Magic Wand That Broke The Internet And The Girl Behind It]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-magic-wand-that-broke-the-internet-and-the-girl-behind-it</link>
      <dc:creator>Nicole Dominique</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Sarah De Leeuw's boyfriend made her a handmade magic wand with a credit card inside for her birthday, which, in 2026, is apparently grounds for a public execution. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[What is it about seeing someone else’s happiness that makes the internet lose its collective mind? If you’ve been on X or TikTok lately, you’ve likely seen the latest victim of the digital outrage cycle: a cute blonde girl, her pink magic wand, and a birthday shopping spree. Sounds terrible , right? Some people on the internet thought so. If you haven’t heard about it, allow me to fill you in on this insane discourse. The Magic Wand "Controversy" A stylish (and dare I say iconic) Canadian creator named Sarah De Leeuw posted a series of photos celebrating her birthday. The "crime,” at least in X users’ eyes, is that her boyfriend put his credit card inside a handmade pink magic wand and took her on a shopping spree. It was cute, creative, and, above all, a thoughtful gesture between two people who clearly love each other. But because this is the internet in 2026, we can’t have nice things. So Sarah was met with a tidal wave of vitriol that included users telling her she’s “mentally deficient,” that she and her boyfriend should live through hell. One person said that if they were the cashier, they’d think it was “some special education thing.” Another suggested the behavior was "odd, unless you have trauma from childhood and professionals have recommended that you 'age regress'." Despite the criticism Sarah got, the vitriol didn't land the way the trolls intended. When I reached out to Sarah, she wasn't defensive or angry; instead, she was remarkably grounded and kind. And I think that says a lot about her. "I think in a world with so much criticism towards women it’s truly important to know who you are," she told me. "I’ve received endless negative commentary over a birthday gift, but it ended up being a beautiful moment when I realized none of it affected me the way you’d think it would. There is nothing a stranger can say that will upset me because I know exactly who I am as a person.” However, the responses on X surprised Sarah, as the reactions in person were much more positive. The difference was staggering. “Every single cashier was obsessed, saying they’d seen the TikTok trend or they were going to tell their significant other they wanted this as a gift too!" she said. "At one point, an older lady stopped us to say how obsessed with my outfit she was. We chatted with her for 20 minutes, she loved my boots and jacket, and was inspired by the idea. Even when I posted on TikTok and Instagram, the responses were SO positive and endearing.” Her guess is that the hate stems from X’s algorithm, which seems to promote outrage over positive content. For whatever reason, these critics cannot comprehend that adults can have fun and like cute things. We’ve reached a point in digital culture where any expression of joy that feels "uncool" or "childlike" is immediately pathologized. If you aren't posting about your trauma, your burnout, or your latest "beige flag" about your partner, you're somehow doing it wrong. The biggest harm Sarah did, if you ask me, was accidentally holding up a mirror to a generation that has forgotten how to have harmless, uncurated fun. A generation that is too afraid to be themselves, who only know despair and are okay with the mundane. My fear is that the internet is trying to normalize this rigid, almost Victorian expectation of how adults should behave in public. Why does everyone want to be miserable, serious, and devoid of any "unnecessary" personality? Since when did becoming an adult become synonymous with being a joyless robot? It’s as if these critics believe that by being "mature" (which, in their eyes, just means being mean on the internet), they are somehow superior. In reality, it takes a lot more confidence to be unique and have fun. It takes more energy to walk into a store with a pink wand than it does to hide behind a faceless profile picture and type out a death wish. I reached out to Sarah to ask the questions we were all wondering—what her boyfriend thought, how she ignored the hate, and tips on how you can do the same. A Quick Word With Sarah De Leeuw: The Girl Behind the Wand Nicole Dominique: What did your boyfriend think of all the discourse? SDL: My boyfriend was so shocked by the discourse! We noticed people were just making things up and then getting mad over what they made up? So much so, strangers would comment on the post, “THIS is what people are mad over?” I think I’m very fortunate to have such a loving boyfriend, family, and friends, and you truly never know what someone else is going through. I think the mind copes with jealousy in strange ways, and I don’t fault anyone for their opinions, no matter how far off they may be. While I think this discourse has brought up a lot of important discussions, I also think it’s important we don’t water down these issues by grouping in nuanced situations that don’t necessarily apply. ND: Was the card unlimited? What are some of the things you got on your shopping spree? SDL: While he didn’t give me a limit, I really don’t need anything. I think it’s funny people were talking about how I could put him into debt, like, that’s my boyfriend! That would make me inherently in debt, too? In a relationship, you’re a team! I got two scented candles, a cute brass candlestick holder, some denim shorts, some scent sachets, and a restock of my favourite underwear from VS! For us, it was more the idea of it that was fun. My friend had seen it on TikTok and sent it to him, thinking it was just a cute idea, like granting a wish! ND: What’s the most thoughtful thing you’ve done for your boyfriend? SDL: I’m not sure if there’s any one thing. I think we spoil and treat each other every day, he’s my best friend! If you were to ask him it would be the beer tower I made him one birthday. It was accompanied with a surprise party of his closest friends and some childhood friends he hadn’t seen in a while. Decorations, a cake, and a dinner out beforehand while everyone snuck into the apartment! He’d never had a big surprise birthday party before and years later he still talks about it! I think it’s funny because even that had so much criticism for being cheap beer, but all in all I remember the beer, champagne, and vodka ringing up to like $400 CAD! I think I was 20, so at the time that felt like a million dollars. But honestly, the little things in a relationship are so much more important. Making each other coffee in the morning, bringing their favourite treat home, making them dinner, and cooking together. Those mean so much more to us than the grand gestures. ND: What advice would you give to women who want to put themselves out there, but are afraid of hate or trolls? SDL: Having people create a negative narrative in something inherently positive and uplifting can be confusing and jarring. Honestly, 99% of the time, it’s someone whose other posts and replies are all hateful, or a faceless account. I think haters are unfortunately part of putting yourself out there online, but how you feed into it matters more and ultimately says more about you! No one can hurt you or change your perception of yourself if you already know who you are as a person. End of the day, happy people don’t have faceless accounts that they leave hate comments on. I think it’s important to give these people grace. You might regret acting on emotion, but you’ll never regret showing someone kindness. They likely need it more than you do. Want to learn more about Sarah? Follow her on Instagram , TikTok , or X !]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-magic-wand-that-broke-the-internet-and-the-girl-behind-it</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Women's History Month Is A Scam]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/womens-history-month-is-a-scam</link>
      <dc:creator>Brooke Brandtjen</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[There, I said it. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[My mother taught me everything from how to tie my shoes to how to read court litigation documents. She taught me how to pray and she taught me how to hold an intelligent conversation. Although she was known throughout our community as a State Assemblywoman, she always insisted that her most important job was being my mother. My mom was the first in a long line of women who I was blessed to learn from and love. These women, from art teachers to neighbors to C-suite executives, are all living testimonies to the strength and grace of women. Which is exactly why it bothers me that Women’s History Month, as it currently exists, doesn’t actually celebrate them. A true celebration of women should be a celebration of femininity. A woman’s feminine attributes—grace, beauty, care—are distinct from masculine ones, and that distinction matters. Women possess unique abilities, from deep emotional intelligence to the capacity to create life itself. A real celebration would center those qualities. Women’s History Month does the opposite. It argues that women are great because they’re equivalent to men, erasing the very things that make womanhood worth honoring in the first place. To understand what Women’s History Month is actually doing, it helps to know where it came from. International Women’s Day, its predecessor, was established by socialists who chose March 8 to align with the start of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Several key architects of Women’s History celebrations in the U.S., including Gerda Lerner, were outspoken members of the Communist Party USA. When those origins proved inconvenient, advocates quietly rewrote the history to obscure the ideological roots. That pattern of obscuring intent behind celebration has continued ever since. When those origins proved inconvenient, advocates quietly rewrote the history to obscure the ideological roots. In the 1970s, the Women’s Action Alliance pushed to make Women’s History nationally recognized, partnering with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the Mattachine Society—a gay rights organization founded by a communist activist. The WAA’s publications encouraged women to work “across traditional boundaries of class, race, age, and ethnic group.” It was standard Marxist class-erasure language dressed up as empowerment. They also promoted “Non-sexist child rearing,” which called on parents to raise sons and daughters as though biology made no difference between them. The goal wasn’t to celebrate women. It was to dismantle the distinctions that define womanhood. Their lies worked. The WAA and affiliated organizations lobbied until Congress designated March as Women’s History Month in 1987. The Marxist talking points didn’t disappear, though. They just got a new coat of paint. Class erasure became “equity.” Dismantling gender distinctions became “empowerment.” The ideology was the same. The language was just softer. Marxism demands that women work and act like men, because in a classless society, any distinction between the sexes becomes a class division to be eliminated. We’ve seen what that looks like in practice. Women who lived under communist regimes described abandoning their families to work full-time jobs that wrecked their health. They felt overworked, depleted, and stripped of the roles that gave their lives meaning. Many in the USSR resisted by quietly returning home. When Women’s History Month insists that women and men are of the same class, it is recycling an ideology that has already proven itself harmful to the very women it claims to champion. The month is less about honoring women than about advancing a specific political vision of what women should be. The modern version of Women’s History Month makes the ideological agenda impossible to miss. Recent annual themes from the National Women’s History Alliance have centered DEI initiatives and climate change, which are political causes, not celebrations of womanhood. In workplaces, the month typically means gender equity panels. In classrooms, it means curated resources that memorialize the past in name while spotlighting contemporary left-wing figures like Stacey Abrams and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in practice. The month is less about honoring women than about advancing a specific political vision of what women should be. For a movement that claims to be pro-woman, Women’s History celebrations are remarkably selective about which women count. Women like Susie Wiles, the first female White House Chief of Staff, and Karoline Leavitt are routinely dismissed or slandered rather than celebrated. First Lady Melania Trump has used her platform to support foster families, aid disaster relief efforts, and fight nonconsensual AI-generated explicit imagery, and yet she is met with relentless ridicule. The pattern is consistent: women who embrace their femininity, hold conservative values, or prioritize family are excluded from the celebration. That’s not a movement that loves women. It’s a movement that loves compliance. This is the scam in its simplest form: Women’s History Month presents itself as a celebration while punishing women who don’t conform to its ideology. Mothers who leave careers to raise their children are mocked. Women who prioritize marriage and homemaking are treated as cautionary tales. If the movement genuinely celebrated women, it wouldn’t reserve its harshest treatment for the women living out the roles feminists claim to honor. The “celebration” comes with conditions. The founders of Women’s History Month were not interested in celebrating a woman’s unique biology. They wanted to neutralize it, and that intent has never changed. Only the packaging has. The pattern is consistent: women who embrace their femininity, hold conservative values, or prioritize family are excluded from the celebration. In 2026, the question of what it means to be a woman is more contested than ever. The ideology embedded in Women’s History Month has helped fuel that confusion—normalizing abortion, insisting that biological sex is irrelevant, and pushing the idea that men can become women. Equity, as defined by this movement, doesn’t elevate women. It erases them. Women’s History Month exists, in large part, to perpetuate that erasure under the cover of celebration. Words like “empowerment” and “equality” are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. They sound like celebration. But when the movement that uses them consistently diminishes marriage, devalues motherhood, and treats homemaking as a failure of ambition, the words stop meaning what they appear to mean. Call it what it is: a bait-and-switch. Women’s History Month is a scam, but it doesn’t have to be. We can reframe the conversation. For years it has been used to elevate figures like Margaret Sanger while ignoring the women who actually shaped the lives around them: the mothers, the teachers, the neighbors, the friends. A real celebration of women’s history would look like that. It would honor what women uniquely are, not insist they become something else. It would celebrate the families they build and the lives they transform. That’s a Women’s History Month worth having.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/womens-history-month-is-a-scam</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[I’m So Over the Home vs. Hospital Birth Debate]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/im-so-over-the-home-vs-hospital-birth-debate</link>
      <dc:creator>Gina Florio</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Somehow, the most intimate moment of a woman’s life became a debate for strangers to weigh in on.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Giving birth will always be one of the most vivid memories in a mother’s life. It’s a mixture of everything at once—pain, excitement, love, sacrifice, fear, even euphoria—and it’s an experience that connects most women at some point in their lives. When mommy blogs rose to popularity in the early years of the internet, it didn’t take long for women to create forums about their pregnancy and birth experiences. These virtual communities became the place where women could connect, commiserate, and support one another through some of the most transformative and meaningful moments of their lives. Social media only amplified this, resulting in countless influencers and pages dedicated to all things pregnancy and birth. One of the most talked-about topics in these corners of the internet is the never-ending battle between home births and hospital births. But let’s be honest: this isn’t the first time women have been pitted against each other over how they give birth. Before home birth became the flashpoint, it was the medicated versus unmedicated debate that had mothers drawing battle lines. Was getting an epidural a sign of weakness, or was forgoing one just performative suffering? Women were relitigating that question in mommy forums, parenting groups, and pediatrician waiting rooms long before anyone started talking about birth centers and midwives. The home versus hospital debate didn’t come from nowhere. It grew out of a culture that was already in the habit of turning one of the most personal decisions a woman can make into a referendum on her character. It grew out of a culture that was already in the habit of turning one of the most personal decisions a woman can make into a referendum on her character. Home births are still a small slice of U.S. deliveries, but they’ve grown meaningfully, especially since the start of the pandemic. According to CDC/NCHS final natality data, the share of U.S. births occurring at home rose from 1.03% (38,506 births) in 2019 to 1.26% (45,646) in 2020 (a 22% jump), then to 1.41% (51,642) in 2021 (another 12% increase). The most recent final report shows 55,266 home births in 2023—about 1.5% of all U.S. births. In other words, home birth rates climbed quickly in 2020–2021 and have remained elevated afterward, reaching the highest level in decades . If you run in the crunchy mom circles online, this number may seem low to you, and that’s because there's a large portion of home birth moms who love to talk about their experience in order to help educate other women about the benefits of it. They're often loud (I mean that in the best way possible), and they post often. They collaborate with one another and do tons of podcast appearances. They post YouTube videos. They sell courses and e-books, and they host communities behind paywalls. So even though it’s only roughly 1.5% of the population giving birth at home, they certainly take up more than 1.5% of the internet (and again, I mean that in the best way possible). Another part of what made home birth go from niche to dinner-table conversation was a shift in who was talking about it. For a long time, it was associated with a very specific type of woman: granola, off-grid, deeply countercultural. Then Kourtney Kardashian and other A-list celebrities came along and scrambled that image entirely. Through Kourtney's Poosh platform, her public rejection of IVF in favor of trusting her body and “God’s plan,” and her documented preference for natural, intervention-free pregnancy, Kourtney repositioned wellness-driven birth choices as something aspirational, even glamorous. She wasn’t a hippie. She was a Kardashian. Suddenly, Millennial women who had never thought twice about birth plans were paying attention. You didn’t have to be crunchy to be curious anymore. Most of this content started with good intentions. A lot of it still carries them. But somewhere along the way, the conversation curdled into something else entirely: two entrenched camps, pitted against each other. Sometimes it’s a heated debate. Fine. But too often it tips into something uglier; the kind of animosity that only comes from feeling morally superior. It can even devolve into women hurling insults at one another, completely demonizing all doctors, or accusing the other side of being egotistical or negligent of their babies’ well-being. Like most tribal arguments, it’s messier than either side wants to admit. The reductive version on one end is that hospital birth is riddled with unnecessary interventions and it’s unnecessary to deliver anywhere but at home because birth was never meant to be medicalized. On the other end, home birth is incredibly irresponsible and even dangerous, and it results in the death of babies (and sometimes mothers) far too often. Both sides have valid points. Both sides have understandable concerns. At some point, the anger stopped being directed at the system and started being directed at each other. So which side is right? That depends entirely on what “right” means to you—healthy mom and baby, low intervention, a satisfying experience, or rare outcomes like perinatal death. The research picture is also complicated because outcomes differ a lot based on who is “low risk,” whether the birth is truly planned, the credentialing/experience of the attendant, and how well the local system integrates midwifery with rapid hospital transfer when needed. Major medical guidance acknowledges this tradeoff: ACOG notes that planned home birth is associated with fewer maternal interventions but also reports an increased risk of perinatal death and neonatal neurologic complications compared with planned hospital birth (while emphasizing careful candidate selection and access to timely transport). AAFP similarly summarizes the evidence as fewer interventions but higher perinatal risks on average in U.S. data. At the same time, high-quality reviews often conclude that for low-risk pregnancies in settings with strong midwifery systems and backup, outcomes can be comparable. A 2023 Cochrane review found no strong randomized-trial evidence favoring planned hospital vs planned home birth (RCTs are rare here), and a large 2019 systematic review/meta-analysis examined perinatal/neonatal mortality among low-risk women intending home vs hospital birth. Meanwhile, some U.S.-based analyses argue neonatal mortality is higher for planned home births, highlighting that U.S. fragmentation and variable regulation may matter. The fairest takeaway is that the safety profile is most favorable when home birth is planned, low-risk, midwife-attended, and integrated with nearby hospital care—and less favorable when any of those pieces are missing. So why are more women choosing home birth? The pandemic clearly accelerated interest. Many families wanted to avoid hospital COVID exposure and visitor restrictions, and some wanted more control over who could be present and how labor was managed. Beyond COVID, women cite consistent motivations: a desire for greater autonomy, fewer routine interventions (like continuous monitoring, induction cascades, or a higher likelihood of cesarean delivery), a more personalized and less institutional environment, and negative prior hospital experiences. For some, broader distrust of the medical system—shaped by cost, rushed care, and well-documented maternal health disparities—pushes them to seek models of care they perceive as more respectful and continuous. Another essential piece is the absence of pressure to vaccinate your newborn baby when you give birth at home. Regardless of the data available to us about home birth vs. hospital birth, it’s just as important to ask why the debate has become so hostile. Women are going at each other online in ways that have nothing to do with birth outcomes and everything to do with identity and ego. Is any of it actually changing anyone’s mind? Or is it just noise? It’s hard to separate this conversation from what happened during COVID. Too many people were dismissed, coerced, or flatly lied to by institutions they were supposed to trust. When you understand how much of that happened, and how little accountability followed, it’s not hard to understand why some women don’t want those same institutions anywhere near one of the most important moments of their lives, and why they are so sensitive about it. The anger makes sense. The distrust makes sense. But at some point, the anger stopped being directed at the system and started being directed at each other. Too many mothers online have crossed from advocacy into arrogance, from sharing their experience to wielding it. Nobody can deny that something has shifted. Too many mothers online have crossed from advocacy into arrogance, from sharing their experience to wielding it. That’s why so many of us are exhausted. We're seeing the most beautiful thing in the world become reduced to a cheap tool for online bullying. There is a huge difference between advocating for autonomy and empowerment during birth and berating others who may have differing points of view. Pregnancy, mothers, and babies should never be used as tokens in petty internet fights, yet here we are. While I understand the circumstances that led us to this point, I like to believe there is still a way to rise above the animosity. Seeking mentorship and guidance from mothers who have paved the way before us is one of the most helpful ways for women, especially new moms, to decide what is best for them during birth. Not an algorithm-fed rabbit hole or a comment section primed for conflict, but genuine mentorship rooted in lived experience. The internet will always have an opinion on how you birth your baby. The women in your life—the ones who will show up when it matters—are a much better place to start.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/im-so-over-the-home-vs-hospital-birth-debate</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Health</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Curvy Girl's Spring Shopping Guide]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-curvy-girls-spring-shopping-guide</link>
      <dc:creator>Anna Hartman</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Something about spring makes you want to throw open your closet and start over. New palette, new silhouettes, new reason to actually enjoy getting dressed. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[If you've got curves, though, the seasonal refresh can feel more stressful than exciting, because finding pieces that fit right at the waist and the hip and everywhere else is genuinely its own project. The good news is that this season's biggest trends are working in your favor. If you fall into the curvy camp for body types, here's everything worth buying, and exactly how to style it. Let's Talk About Pants Most fast-fashion brands cut pants for a hip-to-waist ratio that doesn't exist on real bodies, and if you've got a 10-plus inch difference between your waist and hips, you already know exactly how that plays out in a fitting room. The good news: there's more than one way to dress a curvy figure, and the right approach depends entirely on what you want your outfit to say. If you want to balance your proportions The wide-leg and straight-leg argument goes like this: adding volume below creates a more even silhouette from top to bottom, so the hips read as less dramatic in proportion to the rest of the outfit. A high-rise, wide-leg jean does this by meeting the hips with equal width rather than gripping them. The key is that the rise has to actually be high (sitting at your natural waist, not below it) or you lose the balancing effect entirely and just end up with a gap in the back. Look for styles labeled "curvy fit" or "contoured waistband," which are cut with a higher back rise specifically for a 10-plus inch hip-to-waist difference. Pocket placement matters too: flat, shallow front pockets sit cleanly at the hip, while cargo or decorative pockets add bulk right where you don't want it. Trouser-style pants in linen or satin work on the same principle: they skim rather than cling, the high waist elongates, and they move beautifully. This is the approach if you want your outfit to feel relaxed and understated while still looking pulled together. If you want to celebrate your curves This is the Monica Bellucci school of dressing, and it's a completely different philosophy. Dolce & Gabbana built an entire aesthetic around it: fitted, structured, body-conscious pieces that treat curves as the main event rather than something to balance out. The Joan Holloway wardrobe in Mad Men is the perfect reference: almost no wide-leg anything, just tailored pencil trousers, structured high-waisted styles, and fits that show exactly where the waist is and celebrate everything else. For pants, this means fitted high-waisted trousers with a proper taper, straight-leg styles that skim the body rather than billowing away from it, or even a well-cut trouser with a slight flare at the ankle (enough to elongate without adding bulk.) The fit through the hip needs to be precise, which means you may need to size for your hips and have the waist taken in. A good tailor is less optional here than with the wide-leg approach. The result is an outfit that reads as intentional, polished, and unapologetically curvy, which is exactly what Bellucci and the D&G runway have always been about. The short version: wide-leg if you want proportion and ease, fitted trouser if you want to own the shape. Both work. Neither is more "correct." Pick the one that matches the energy you're going for. What to skip regardless of approach: low-rise and mid-rise cuts if you have a significant hip-to-waist difference. Neither philosophy is served by a waistband that sits below your narrowest point. And if you find a pair that fits your hips but gaps at the waist, take them to a tailor; a waistband alteration costs less than $20 at most places and completely changes the garment. Shop: Abercrombie & Fitch Curve Love High Rise Wide Leg Jean, $40 Shop: Madewell The Curvy Perfect Vintage Wide-Leg Jean, $70 Shop: PrettyLittleThing Cream Polka Dot Satin Wide Leg Trousers, $25 Shop: Abercrombie & Fitch Curve Love High Rise Dad Short, $70 Shop: Good American Always Fits Good Classic Slim Straight Jeans, $80 Shop: Spanxsupersmooth™ PerfectFitPonte Slim Straight Pant Shop: Zara High-Waisted Straight Leg Pant Set, $70 The Tops That Make Everything Work A good bottom is only half the outfit. The top is what ties the proportions together, and for a curvy figure, the right choice makes the difference between a look that feels pulled together and one that just feels like you got dressed. The ground rule is simple: fitted on top, balanced on bottom. When you’re wearing wide-leg pants or a full skirt, a fitted or cropped top keeps the silhouette from reading as too much volume everywhere. When you’re in something more structured on the bottom, you have more flexibility, but a tucked top still almost always looks better than an untucked one on a curvy frame. Bodysuits are genuinely the best thing that happened to curvy dressing. Because they snap or hook at the bottom, they stay tucked no matter what. There's no fabric pulling out mid-day, no bunching at the waist, and no adjusting. A square-neck or V-neck bodysuit in a stretch fabric paired with high-waisted jeans or a midi skirt is one of those outfits that photographs well, moves well, and requires zero effort to maintain. Fitted ribbed tanks are the workhorses of a curvy wardrobe. You can truly wear them tucked into everything. A V-neck ribbed tank in a spring color half-tucked into wide-leg trousers is one of the most effortless outfits you can put together. Cropped tops work on curvy figures when the crop hits at the right place: right at or just above the natural waist, not below it. A cropped knit top or fitted crop tee with high-waisted jeans shows the narrowest part of your torso, which is exactly what you want. Avoid crops that hit at the hip or lower as those add visual width rather than defining the waist. Button-downs are having a moment right now as well. The oversized drop-shoulder silhouette is giving way to something slightly more fitted and tailored for spring 2026. For curvy figures, a fitted button-down tucked into a high-waisted skirt or trouser is incredibly chic and puts the waist front and center. If you prefer something more relaxed, wear an oversized linen button-down open over a bodysuit. It functions like a layer rather than a top and works beautifully over curves without adding bulk. Shop: Aritzia Original Contour Manner Bodysuit, $58 Shop: Skims Body Unlined Plunge Thong Bodysuit, $88 Shop: Express Body Contour High Compression Notch Cap Sleeve Bodysuit, $35 Shop: Quince 100% European Linen Cropped Tank, $36 Shop: Old Navy Linen-Blend Loose Button-Down Shirt, $23 Shop: Madewell The Easy Shirt, $88 The Dress Edit The silhouettes dominating spring right now were practically designed for a curvy frame, which makes this the easiest category to shop. Wrap dresses are a perennial answer for a reason. The adjustable tie gives you control over how it fits at the waist, and the V-neckline and skirt do the rest: one pulls the eye up, the other skims your hips instead of gripping them. In chiffon or jersey for spring, it's as close to a no-brainer as dressing gets. Wear it with a strappy sandal and a gold hoop and prepare for double-takes wherever you go. Fit-and-flare and A-line styles are everywhere this season: floral midis, eyelet minis, tiered everything. For curves, these shapes deliver in a major way. They nip at the waist and flare out, creating balance without adding bulk. A mini or midi A-line with puff sleeves is one of the most feminine silhouettes of the season and it photographs beautifully on a curvy figure. For going out, a midi wrap or slit dress in jersey or satin is the move. A thigh slit adds visual length to the leg in a way that a standard knee-length hem often doesn't, which matters on a curvy build. Fabric is everything here: jersey and ponte move with you, stiff cotton works against you. When in doubt, reach for something with stretch. Shop: A&F Mila Midi Dress, $120 Shop: En Saison Rylee Long-Sleeve Belted Shirt Dress, $236 Shop: ASTR The Label Emmery Floral Wrap Midi Dress, $178 Shop: Anthropologie The Somerset Maxi Dress, $198 Shop: FashionNova Belle Satin Maxi Dress, $28 Skirts Worth Revisiting A satin or linen midi skirt in a spring color (butter yellow, cobalt, sage) paired with a fitted cropped top or tucked-in bodysuit is an outfit that looks deliberate without requiring much effort. Go for styles with a stretchy waistband and an A-line or flared silhouette, both of which sit well on curves and move beautifully. Mini skirts work when the proportions are balanced. A denim mini with a relaxed fitted tee and chunky loafers looks on-trend and like you actually thought about it, which is all anyone is going for. Avoid anything too tight or bodycon unless that's specifically the vibe you're after. A slight A-line flare is far more flattering and more stylish. Tiered and ruffle skirts are worth trying even if they've never been on your radar. The volume falls away from the body rather than clinging to it, which makes them surprisingly flattering on curves. Keep the top simple and fitted and the proportions take care of themselves. Shop: Abercrombie & Fitch Curve Love Mid Rise 5-Pocket Denim Mini Skirt, $27 Shop: H&M A-Line Denim Skirt, $40 Shop: Quince 100% Washable Silk Skirt, $70 Shop: Quince 100% Organic Cotton Poplin Tiered Maxi Skirt, $60 Shop: Altar'd State Evangeline Asymmetrical Tiered Maxi Skirt, $84 The Styling Notes That Matter More Than What You Buy Tuck your tops. A full tuck or French tuck into high-waisted bottoms defines the waist in a way nothing else does; not a belt, not a different cut, not layering. Lean into vertical lines. V-necklines, open-button shirts, long pendant necklaces, or anything that draws the eye up and down rather than across creates length and proportion without any real effort. Prioritize stretch fabrics like jersey, ponte, stretch denim, and satin. Anything with give moves with your body instead of fighting it. Don't size up just to fit your hips. If a pair of jeans fits your hips but gaps at the waist, either seek out curvy-fit styles or have them tailored at the waist. It's worth it. For color, deep saturated shades like cobalt, emerald, and burgundy are extremely flattering on curves, and warm neutrals like camel, ivory, and blush are just as strong. Both feel fresh for spring. Pastels work too, but pair them with relaxed silhouettes rather than clingy ones for the best result. Consider this your permission slip to stop settling for almost-fits. The right pieces exist. They just needed a proper introduction.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-curvy-girls-spring-shopping-guide</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Style</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[I Was Voted Off ANTM For Being Too Sexy. This Is My Story.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-was-voted-off-antm-for-being-too-sexy-this-is-my-story</link>
      <dc:creator>Sara Racey-Tabrizi</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[We’ve watered down the word “hate” so much it barely means anything anymore. So when people ask me, over and over, whether I hate my experience on "America’s Next Top Model," I understand why. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[It’s the word we reach for when something felt unfair, exploitative, or painful. But it’s not the word I’d use. After watching the episodes and the wave of docu-series that dropped all at once, many of which included me, I’ve sat with it long enough. It’s my turn to speak. The messages poured in from all over the world. “Do you hate that you were on America’s Next Top Model ?” “How much do you hate Tyra Banks?” Those two questions, more than any others, kept showing up. So let me be direct: I hate no one. Hello, my name is Sara Racey-Batraville , formerly Sara Racey-Tabrizi, and I was on Season 2 of the iconic show, America’s Next Top Model . I was the girl who was voted off for being too “sexy.” Tyra cried for me when I was eliminated, and she said some pretty life-changing things, including that I could stand next to her and Heidi Klum in a Victoria’s Secret ad and fit right in. She practically called me a supermodel, and I will absolutely take that! It feels surreal to say all of that while sitting in my sweatpants, folding my nine-year-old’s laundry. But it’s true, and it’s mine forever. It’s my turn to speak. Being chosen for that show was life-changing, for me, and for my mother. I was raised by a single mother. My father, God rest his soul, was an Iranian immigrant who immigrated to Los Angeles, to what they call “Little Tehran.” Being half-Persian was my “story” on ANTM , and yes, I had the daddy issues to match. My mother and I were unbelievably broke. I would say poor, but that’s a little too cliché. When she finally bought our first house, as I entered high school, it was a rickety old place in South Seattle that looked frozen in time. Broken windows. Vomit-green curtains hanging half off the rod. She told me later: “I was only able to buy that house because I was hit by a car.” My response: “You were hit by a car and this is all we could get?” Two months later, she lost her job. Our car broke down constantly, and when it did run, you could hear it coming from five miles away. One morning, I picked up a friend on the way to our all-girls’ Catholic high school and the car just died, right there in the street. Dead. A police officer happened to be nearby and drove us to the front door of school. God bless him. We were mortified. I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it so you understand what it meant to us when something like Top Model came along. To a family like ours, you didn’t question it. You called it a blessing and you showed up. And yes, I hear it constantly now: “But that should make you hate the show even more. You didn’t get paid. They used you. They exploited you!” Maybe so. But here’s my answer to that: I almost didn’t do the show. Not because I was afraid of New York or the cameras, but because I was afraid of letting my light shine. I was bullied relentlessly in elementary school and even more so in high school. In those early years, I was just a weird kid. Different clothes, a hat obsession, chose to be alone. The “cool kids” offered me a spot more than once, but the entry fee was conformity, and joining in on the bullying. I declined the invitation. For my first two years of high school, I was terrified to walk through the door. I was a quiet, competitive athlete, and there is always that girl, the one who zeroes in on you. Mine was two grades older. She and her crew didn’t like that I existed in their school, so the death threats started. When I finally told my mother, she went straight to the principal. She was not playing. Then came the local mall’s model scout competition. I made the cut. And there she was, that girl, sitting in the crowd, eyes narrowed, waiting on a spot on the same stage. I told my mother I wanted to leave. She took me home. That was how I handled anything that felt like success back then. Compliments, opportunities, praise—I deflected all of it. If I said no first, maybe I was safe. Maybe no one would notice me long enough to come for me. So when I found out I’d made the cut, out of thousands of women, for the most talked-about show on television, that same instinct kicked in. My mother looked at me with those piercing blue eyes and said: “You’re doing this. I don’t care what you say. Go be Sara.” And I did. With gratitude. The whole point was to entertain people and keep them watching. That’s the deal you make when you sign up. Let me say this clearly: Top Model was a television show. A highly produced, highly competitive television show going up against American Idol, Survivor, and The Real World at the time. Was it perfect? Not even close. It was September 2003, so think Survivor , but make it tall, hungry, and in couture. The whole point was to entertain people and keep them watching. That’s the deal you make when you sign up. Do I think it was necessary to dangle us 100 feet in the air in an abandoned warehouse for a couture shoot? Absolutely not. In my entire career as an actual working model in New York, I was never once suspended high enough to plummet to my death. But we survived. We’re fine. Do I feel that production should have grabbed that Italian man and yanked him out of the house before anything could have happened to Shandi? Regardless of who or what or how it all transpired? Hell yes. That was heartbreaking to watch. The pure pain Shandi felt gripped my heart. During filming in the city, only two years had passed since 9/11. Our individual interview segments—the talking-head clips where we’d narrate our day—were filmed on the top floor of the Millennium Hilton in lower Manhattan, directly across the street from where the Twin Towers had stood. The metal was still twisted. The rubble was still there. The dust hadn’t fully settled. I cried almost every time. It was captivating and horrific in equal measure. On September 11, 2003, the two-year anniversary, April and I were up there filming our interviews. I looked down from the window and saw thousands of people swarming ground zero. I was sobbing. Production told me to stop. “We can’t film if you’re crying.” I tried. Twenty minutes in, the fire alarm went off. We were on the top floor; the penthouse. We ignored it and kept filming. Then the intercom: evacuate. My heart stopped. It was September 11th, and our hotel was on fire. Production ran for the elevator. “Wait,” I said. “You don’t use the elevator in a fire.” Fifth-grade fire drill, people. We got in anyway. The elevator stopped mid-floor at 34. We pried ourselves out and took the stairs. Worth noting: I’d had three knee surgeries after tearing my ACL and meniscus. One flight was excruciating. We had 34. I held the rail with one hand and a PA’s hand with the other. By the time we reached the bottom, we could smell the smoke. A woman ahead of us opened the exit door and a massive plume of smoke swallowed us whole. Then, like something out of a movie, an FDNY firefighter came through the door, found April and me, and carried us out one by one, dropping us into the middle of the crowd that had gathered outside. April and I held onto each other and cried. Thirty minutes later, back in the production van, a PA turned to me and asked if I was ready to go back up and finish my interview. Broke and famous is its own particular kind of humiliating. The real reckoning came after the show ended, though, when I had to turn the dream into something actual. Coming off ANTM , I was recognized everywhere. Police escorts. Autographs. I was doing a local news spot once when Gabrielle Union spotted me, screamed my name, and ran over to hug me. I stood there with my jaw on the floor. It was surreal. But the first two years after the show were brutal. Broke and famous is its own particular kind of humiliating. A waiter asks for your autograph while you’re quietly praying your debit card doesn’t get declined. I was angry sometimes. I won’t pretend otherwise. But New York has a way of hazing you, and if you can survive that, you come out the other side knowing you’re going to be okay. Eventually, something shifted. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Stopped asking “why me.” I dug my heels in, no pun intended, and decided: I came here for a reason, with or without Top Model , and I’m not leaving until I’ve done what I came to do. I went back to my faith. I accepted that no contract, no amount of anger, no reality TV credit was going to build the life I wanted. That was on me. I could write an entire book about the real modeling world in New York, where you’re not competing with 11 girls in a house but 11,000 from around the world, all vying for the same job. That’s the actual horror film. But I digress. Once I got out of my own way, things started to move. I left my boutique agency and signed with Ford Models New York. Ford Models wanted me. I’m still a little giddy about that. From there, I signed with Innovative Artists and got my SAG card. The clients followed: Revlon, L’Oréal, Tony & Guy, Proenza Schouler, Anne Taylor Loft, Target, Converse. Commercials, films, projects I’m genuinely proud of. I went from not being able to pay my bills to building a career I built myself. I earned it, with integrity. ANTM gave me exactly what I needed—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tyra herself connected me with Diane Smith at Sports Illustrated, the magazine I’d been obsessed with since I was twelve. I had my own apartment. I was launching my own companies. The girl who almost said no, who spent years shrinking herself to stay safe, was done dimming her light. Every woman who was on that show has her own story—her own journey, her own weight to carry. I honor all of it. I love all of them. But I refuse to hate my experience. I don’t hate Tyra. I don’t hate the judges. I don’t even hate the mascara running down my face when I was eliminated. To hate something is to let it own you; to hand it power over your heart. I’m not interested in that. Over the years, I’ve received message after message from Persian women and men telling me I inspired them to pursue their dreams. That’s what made all of it worthwhile. Why would I hate something that lit a fire in someone else? That experience made me a better mother, a better wife, a better business owner. It led me to create The Urban Catholic apparel line and our Saints And The City Podcast . I built something real out of it. ANTM gave me exactly what I needed—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Without it, I wouldn’t be who I am. And I happen to really like who I am.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-was-voted-off-antm-for-being-too-sexy-this-is-my-story</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The War On Motherhood]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-war-on-motherhood</link>
      <dc:creator>Lisa Britton</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[How did something as natural, sacred, and beautiful as motherhood become ‘the enemy’?]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[We’ve grown up in a culture that whispers: your body is yours alone, your time is better spent climbing ladders, and your deepest calling—to nurture life—is somehow regressive. We’ve experienced or watched friends delay motherhood for “the right moment” that never arrives, only to confront the hollow regret of empty arms and unfulfilled hearts. We’ve scrolled past feeds where career success and solo travel are celebrated while rocking a newborn in the dark goes unmentioned. The numbers tell a sad story. In 2024, America’s total fertility rate hit a historic low of 1.63 births per woman, down sharply from the 2.12 peak in 2007. Globally, the rate hovers near 2.2 and is projected to fall below replacement level (2.1) by 2050, setting the stage for population contraction. Entire societies face aging populations, strained economies, and the slow erasure of cultural memory passed through generations of mothers. This is the result of a deliberate, multi-decade war on motherhood waged by the most powerful people at the top: government agencies, cultural elites, corporations, and ideological architects who view the family as an obstacle to control, consumption, and “progress.” This isn’t a conspiracy theory. A 2021 Biden-era intelligence assessment explicitly flags “motherhood” and “homemaking” as indicators of potential “white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism” (REMVE). The smoking gun came to light recently through documents unearthed by America First Legal and spotlighted by researcher Mike Benz. On actual CIA letterheads, a 2021 Biden-era intelligence assessment titled “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment” explicitly flags “motherhood” and “homemaking” as indicators of potential “white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism” (REMVE). Women who create blogs or videos under the “guise” of cooking tutorials or lifestyle content—discussing organic food, family values, or the idea that motherhood is a woman’s highest honor—are portrayed as radicalizing agents . The agency even slapped on a trigger warning, as if celebrating womanhood is somehow a national security threat. These are official assessments from the highest levels of intelligence, treating traditional womanhood as extremism. For decades, powerful institutions have systematically undermined the family. Media empires glorify the child-free “boss babe” while depicting stay-at-home mothers as trapped or uneducated . Academia pushes gender theory that severs women from their biology. Corporations flood the market with birth control, endless distractions, and economic pressures that make raising children feel like financial ruin and a loss of the freedom to do “fun things” and takes away from the ultimate goal: being self focused. Abortion is framed as liberation and empowerment rather than loss and trauma. And government policy—tax codes that punish large families, no-fault divorce laws that destabilize homes, and now intelligence reports that pathologize homemaking—completes the assault. The message from the top is clear: motherhood is not a noble path and experience; it’s a threat to the new order. This war is profoundly anti-nature. A woman’s body is literally designed for motherhood. From the moment of conception, her physiology transforms in awesome ways—hormones like oxytocin and prolactin flood her system, forging unbreakable bonds with her child. Breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, the very shape of her hips and breasts: every detail speaks of nurture and life-giving power. The message from the top is clear: motherhood is not a noble path and experience; it’s a threat to the new order. Studies consistently show that women who embrace motherhood report higher long-term life satisfaction than those who prioritize career alone. Married mothers are the happiest women out there according to the Institute for Family Studies. Yet the elite narrative insists biology is optional, that pregnancy is a burden, and that “empowerment” means outsourcing our natural role to nannies, daycares, and the state. To reject motherhood is to reject the very architecture of female existence. It’s a war against our bodies, our instincts, and the delicate balance of human ecology. It is also anti-God. Across faith traditions—most powerfully in the Judeo-Christian heritage that shaped the West—motherhood is holy ground. The family is the first church, the first government, the cradle of virtue and civilization. When powerful forces label homemaking as extremism, they’re rebelling against the divine order. They replace God’s design with man-made ideologies that promise utopia but deliver spiritual barrenness and division. They’ve fueled a gender war, pitting men and women against each other, which is a root cause of many of our societal issues. Motherhood connects us to eternity through the children we birth, raise, and send into the world carrying faith, values, and legacy. To wage war on it is to declare war on the universe’s blueprint for humanity. Most heartbreakingly, this war is anti-women. Feminism sold us the lie that we could “have it all” without sacrifice , but the data reveals the cost: skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness among women who traded family for boardrooms. Countless high-achieving women in their late 30s and 40s now speak openly of the grief that no promotion can heal: their empty nest because they put off love and family for too long. To reject motherhood is to reject the very architecture of female existence. Motherhood, by contrast, anchors women. It channels our nurturing gifts into purpose. It forces growth, humility, and fierce love. The women we speak to in our circles—the ones quietly rejecting the lies—report deeper joy, stronger marriages, and a profound sense of being exactly where they belong. The war on motherhood robs us of our greatest source of fulfillment. So where is humanity headed if this war continues unchecked? Toward a sterile, aging dystopia. Nations already face shrinking workforces, overburdened pension systems, and elder-care that strain the young. Culture becomes broken when fewer mothers are present to instill values, stories, and faith. In the West, we risk demographic suicide while elites import populations to fill the void. Look further ahead, and the picture darkens: a world of artificial wombs, state-run child-rearing, and transhumanist experiments where technology takes power away from women’s bodies. Without loving mothers, societies lose their soul. We become efficient cogs in a machine: productive, atomized, and ultimately empty. Exactly how the elites want us. Easy to control worker bees. The powerful at the top believe they can engineer society without the family. They’re wrong. History proves that civilizations rise and fall on the strength of mothers. Rome didn’t collapse because of armies alone; it crumbled when family bonds frayed. We stand at a similar precipice. But here’s the truth we must say loudly to every woman reading this: we can win this war. The tide is already turning. More young women are rejecting the “have it all” myth, embracing the idea of motherhood, and choosing love, romance and life. Communities of like-minded mothers are rising, online and in real life, supporting one another through pregnancy, postpartum, and the beautiful chaos of raising children. Churches and faith-based groups are rediscovering the beauty of large families. Policy wins are possible: tax credits for parents, school choice, paid family leave done right, and bipartisan cultural pushback against the extremes of gender ideology that have weaponized compassion and inclusion. History proves that civilizations rise and fall on the strength of mothers. Ladies, the war is real, but so is our power. We were created for this. Our wombs, our intuition, our fierce protective love—these are our superpowers. Start small: speak the truth in your circles. Support mothers in your community. Reject the shame around homemaking. Marry young if you find the one. Have the children your heart desires . Build parallel institutions—schools, businesses, media—that celebrate rather than denigrate motherhood. Vote for leaders who value families. Most importantly, live unapologetically feminine lives rooted in nature and faith. Let your joy be contagious. The powerful may control the institutions for now, but they can’t control a woman’s heart longing for meaning. Motherhood is that meaning in our reality, and humanity’s future depends on us taking it. We’re not victims in this war. We are the victors waiting to be woken up. The war on motherhood will not define our generation. We will. By choosing love and life, by nurturing the next generation with purpose and pride, we’ll rebuild what they tried to destroy. The future belongs to the men and women who refuse to surrender. And love and family will win.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-war-on-motherhood</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Relationships</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Language We Use For Miscarriage Is Failing Women]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-language-we-use-for-miscarriage-is-failing-women</link>
      <dc:creator>Greta Waldon</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[If we hear about miscarriage at all, it’s usually in hushed tones or euphemisms. For a loss this profound and physical, the words we use matter, for women’s safety and the dignity of both mothers and babies. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[According to the Mayo Clinic , about 10–20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. The number may be closer to 30% if very early or otherwise undetected losses are included. Even though this loss is so common, it’s typically not something most women talk openly about. The traditional rule for when to announce a pregnancy acknowledges this: don’t tell anyone you’re pregnant until the second trimester unless you’d also be willing to tell them you had a miscarriage. There are many reasons for this, but grief is certainly high among them. Typically, we share our deepest grief only with our most intimate circles, no matter the loss. But the particular loss of miscarriage can feel like a social taboo. It can be hard for those who have never experienced miscarriage themselves to understand the depth of the loss, especially since they never got to see the baby that the mother already cherished in her heart. This leaves us in a situation where, unless a close friend, sister, or other loved one has experienced miscarriage and invited others into her grief—not only sharing that it happened, but what it was actually like—most women of childbearing age have little firsthand knowledge of what miscarriage really looks and feels like. For many women, it isn’t until it happens to them that they learn much about it at all. Then, when they do begin to learn more, it’s often through their health care provider or official healthcare resources online, which tend to use a uniform way of speaking about miscarriage with common terminology for all of its aspects. As many women’s first point of reference, these trusted voices make a crucial impact on how women prepare for and make decisions about miscarriage and how they process their own experience afterward. The Clinical Language of Miscarriage This fall when I was 11 weeks pregnant, I had the heartbreaking experience of learning that our unborn baby no longer had a heartbeat. It was the first time the word miscarriage meant anything more to me than someone else’s loss. Because everything unfolded so quickly, the only information I received from my provider was a single sheet of paper outlining my options: wait for a natural miscarriage at home, take medication to start the miscarriage, or opt for surgical removal of the tissue through a D&C. The sheet described the symptoms of natural miscarriage as period-like cramping and bleeding. The sheet described the symptoms of natural miscarriage as period-like cramping and bleeding. This is the same language you will find if you search for miscarriage online. WebMD describes miscarriage as “pain in your lower belly that feels like really bad menstrual cramps.” UC Davis’s health website lists “passage of tissue through the vagina” as a symptom of miscarriage, and England’s NHS website cites “vaginal bleeding” as the most common sign of miscarriage. As someone who has been through over forty-eight hours of unmedicated labor in my life, and who is no stranger to intense periods, this didn’t sound too terrible. My heart was broken, yes, but physically, I thought I could get through it. Real Women Online Tell a Different Story In the hours between my ultrasound and my miscarriage, I spent a lot of time scouring the internet for more information. I wanted to know what it might actually look like to miscarry at home rather than going to the hospital for surgery. I wanted to hear firsthand stories, since up until then I’d only heard of acquaintances’ miscarriages in passing. One woman on Reddit described the incredible amount of blood she lost during her natural miscarriage, saying that her bedroom looked like a murder scene. A piece by a fellow writer for Evie Magazine , meanwhile, helped emphasize the fact that “miscarrying naturally is a mini labor and delivery,” not simply a bad period. Other women online describe their natural miscarriage as “the most painful and traumatic thing they’ve ever been through,” saying that they wish someone had prepared them for what it would really be like. These stories made me wonder if I should go to the hospital for a D&C after all. Unfortunately, everything unfolded before I could make that decision, and it turned out to be even worse than any of the stories I’d been reading online. My Own Miscarriage Forget period cramps—I experienced the intense pain of laboring to give birth to an actual, though no longer living, baby. It was almost worse than my two previous labors because the pain didn’t come in waves. It came in one deepening crescendo that didn’t stop until I felt my baby leave my body. I thought the worst was over. But I soon lost so much blood that everything began to darken around me. I knew I was going to faint. As I tried to stay conscious waiting for the paramedics, I felt like I could be dying. I came to with my husband telling me he was calling an ambulance. I told him my two front teeth were broken. It’s not an exaggeration to say that as I tried to stay conscious waiting for the paramedics, I felt like I could be dying. The ambulance took me to the hospital, where the ER doctor removed the shards of my teeth from my bottom lip and stitched it closed. Then I received a D&C to remove any remaining tissue or clots from my uterus and to help prevent further blood loss. They monitored my hemoglobin levels until they were rising again, and then they sent us home. Language Matters Although my story may be on the more traumatic side, it is not entirely unique. As anyone can see in online forums or on social media, I am not the first woman to experience excruciating pain, heavy blood loss, and even fainting during natural or medicated miscarriage. What disturbs me most about what I went through is that, like other women before me, the clinical language surrounding miscarriage did not prepare me for the reality of the experience. We hear “period cramps,” “soaking a pad,” and “passing tissue,” when we should be hearing words like “labor pain and contractions,” “hemorrhaging,” and “delivering a baby.” Why is this? Why is the language around miscarriage so euphemized and misleading, and why do women often learn what it is really like only from other women online rather than from their own healthcare providers? Are we more concerned about the feelings of women seeking abortion than about the health and safety of women miscarrying? Could it be because we don’t all agree that what we lose in miscarriage is, in fact, a baby? When the same medications and procedures can also be used intentionally to end a pregnancy, do we sterilize the language so that those choices feel more comfortable? Are we more concerned about the feelings of women seeking abortion than about the health and safety of women miscarrying? Who knows whether my story would have unfolded differently if the clinical language available to me had been more true to most women’s actual experiences of miscarriage. I hemorrhaged after delivering both of my living children, so perhaps I would have known I was at risk of hemorrhaging with this delivery as well. Maybe I would have known to seek help instead of trying to tough it out at home. While I still wouldn’t have my baby, perhaps I would still have my front teeth. Two Final Words: Mothers and Babies Part of preparing emotionally for miscarriage is preparing for what you’re going to see. Blood, yes, of course. But beyond that, what I saw wasn’t something any of the medical resources I found were describing. I didn’t see “tissue.” I saw a miracle—a tiny head, a tiny body, the beginnings of arms and legs. I saw my baby. There are brave mothers on platforms like TikTok who have shared not only their miscarriage stories, but footage of their own tiny miscarried babies, helping others to recognize the humanity of the child that they lost. These visuals we otherwise wouldn’t see, while admittedly graphic and intense, beg for a much-needed shift in the way we talk about miscarriage: the babies we lose this early still deserve dignity. Whether that’s a proper burial, a name, or some other memorial, treating the baby as the person that it is can help with grieving and closure for the mother. Because that’s what she is: a mother. Whether she gets to actively mother that specific child or not, she was its mother. And that language matters immensely, too. If we believe in advocating for women’s health, we must advocate for more accuracy, honesty, and clarity in the language we use when we speak about miscarriage. The safety of mothers, and the dignity of both mothers and babies, demand it.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Health</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Man Who Built OnlyFans Is Dead. The Damage He Left Behind Isn't.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-man-who-built-onlyfans-is-dead-the-damage-he-left-behind-isnt</link>
      <dc:creator>Brooke Brandtjen</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[The owner of OnlyFans, Leonid Radvinsky, passed away this week at the age of 43 following a long battle with cancer.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Although we never celebrate death, there is an important conversation to be had about what kind of impact we make on our society. Conservatives spend a considerable amount of time discussing the failure of modern culture, yet they are often afraid to address one of the greatest threats to Western civilization: The normalization of pornography. Pornography is a problem of the human heart much more than it is a problem of a singular civilization. It has appeared throughout the world, poisoning the hearts and minds of people from ancient Greece to 20th century Great Britain. In the United States, it began as small, illegal printed materials that were typically passed around between soldiers and men’s groups. As censorship laws were steadily repealed, underground circuits distributed more printed materials, until the 1970s saw it evolve into a primarily theatrical experience. Exclusive television channels further normalized it into the 20th century, changing it from being incredibly taboo into something that was being broadcast into millions of Americans’ homes. The final frontier for pornography’s cultural infestation was the internet. As home computers, cell phones, and social media dominated the 21st century, access to pornography became increasingly available. The estimated rates of consumption by the population changed from 7.7 percent in 2004 to 25.1 percent in 2016. The availability of porn has also changed how it is perceived, with young people in particular not seeing it as a moral issue. 57 percent of young adults seek out porn at least once a month, and as many as 37 percent of teenagers do as well. A UK Children’s Commissioner survey found that 10 percent of children had been exposed to pornography by the age of 9, and 27 percent had been exposed by age 11. That same survey also found that the average age of first exposure was around 13 years old. The average age of first exposure was around 13 years old. The introduction of OnlyFans has made the problem significantly worse. It was first launched in 2016, after Tim Stokely had attempted to launch other similar websites in previous years, such as ‘Customs4U’ and ‘GlamWorship’. In 2017, OnlyFans lifted its ban on pornographic content, turning it into a platform that could cater directly to the perverted whims of subscribers. In 2018, Radvinsky acquired OnlyFans from Stokely and became the majority shareholder. Under his ownership, OnlyFans experienced massive growth, including during the COVID pandemic where it saw a surge in popularity. User signups boomed, with as many as 200,000 new users joining the platform every day. Celebrities such as Bella Thorne and Cardi B made accounts, incentivizing fans to seek out explicit content. As the boredom of the post-pandemic world set in, many young women had a difficult time resisting the allure of OnlyFans. Setting up an account is easy, requiring just a handful of steps for age verification and bank details. Afterwards, producing content is remarkably easy as well, as all users need is their smartphone camera. Content creators can instantly start generating revenue, and well established influencers can make millions of dollars in a day. OnlyFans encourages people to be sexual deviants under the promise of popularity and financial gain. It’s no secret that pornography use negatively impacts people. Its constant access has allowed pornography addictions to rise, has destroyed relationships, and has normalized increasingly explicit, violent content. Its content creators have also exposed themselves to stalkers, doxxing, and serious mental and physical health problems . With a user base of over 120 million people and over 2 million content creators, OnlyFans is impacting more of our population than many people realize. Countless statistics and data sets show the dangerous effects of pornography on a society. But all of that data seems insignificant when we are discussing a desperate and declining civilization. OnlyFans has reduced its users down to animalistic beings, minimizing their personhood. It has destroyed families and marriages. It has turned women into objects and men into monsters. It has destroyed how men and women interact with each other. With a user base of over 120 million people and over 2 million content creators, OnlyFans is impacting more of our population than many people realize. If we truly want to restore western civilization and to build a worthwhile legacy, we have to speak out against pornographic websites like OnlyFans. America can’t build a healthy new generation if their brothers and sisters are routinely being exposed to pornography by the time they are 13. Every state should implement age-verification laws to limit minors from accessing websites with explicit content. Currently, many states only require users to click a box that states “Yes, I am 18+”. Families should be extremely cautious about their children’s internet usage. Conservatives need to tell young women that they are worth more than their body and tell young men that engaging with explicit content is dangerous. If we let pornography invade our culture, what kind of legacy have we left behind?]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-man-who-built-onlyfans-is-dead-the-damage-he-left-behind-isnt</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>News</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[What Happens When The Laws Women Fought For Stop Protecting Them?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/what-happens-when-the-laws-women-fought-for-stop-protecting-them</link>
      <dc:creator>Payton McNabb</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[In 1776, Abigail Adams, the wife of future president John Adams, wrote to her husband as he was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Abigail pleaded with her husband to “remember the ladies” and be “more generous and favorable” to them than their ancestors. She even went as far as to say that the ladies would create a rebellion against more tyrannical governments that didn’t honor their place in society. This year, as our nation celebrates 250 years of independence from England, we celebrate those who had the courage to declare freedom from tyranny. But America’s story of liberty was not finished in 1776. In fact, many of the Founding Fathers chose to view this nation as an “ experiment .” They knew that true freedom would have to be fought for long after the bayonets were relinquished. For centuries, American women have fought to be recognized as equal participants in this republic, not as an afterthought, but as citizens. That fight shaped the ballot box, the workplace, and the classroom. And today, it shapes the court where I once competed. As a high school girl, I was brutally injured by a male competing on the girls’ volleyball team. You may have read about my story in the news or have seen the advocacy work that I have tirelessly committed myself to ever since that day. But what happened to me is not just about one game or one injury. It is about whether the hard-fought protections women secured over centuries will be honored, or hollowed out. As a high school girl, I was brutally injured by a male competing on the girls’ volleyball team. In most scenarios, women between the years of 1700-1900 were not universally accepted as “equals” to men, at least politically, around the world. The United States experimented on the state level with women’s suffrage in places like New Jersey and New York. In New Jersey, women were allowed to vote from 1776-1807 under property-based rules, but then the right was taken away. Similarly in New York, an act passed called “New York’s 1848 Married Women’s Property Act” that allowed married women to finally hold property in their own name. During the late 19th century, New Zealand and South Australia were two of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, while countries like Britain and the United States did not gain this right until after World War I. The modern women’s suffrage movement as we know it became mainstream during the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, when Quaker Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first-of-its-kind women’s convention in New York. During this time period, she and other brave American women fought for the ideals of equality for not only women, but for the abolition of slavery as well. In 1920, with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, this paved the way for women to legally have the right to vote “on account of sex.” While there was still work to be done allowing non-white women to vote in America, this was a foundational expansion of political equality after decades of organizing, petitioning, and protesting. Building on this win, over 40 years later, women finally got equal protection under federal law. In 1964, lawmakers passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act , making it illegal for employers to discriminate “on the basis of sex.” That meant women could no longer be denied jobs, promotions, or pay simply for being female. It was a turning point; not because it gave women special treatment, but because it affirmed that we deserved equal opportunity in the workplace. Title VII was foundational to the next pivotal act in Congress: Title IX. Title VII established that women could not be pushed out of the workforce simply for being women. But equality doesn’t just start at your first job. It begins long before that: classrooms, college admissions offices, athletic fields, and other school facilities. That’s why, in 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments . Title IX extended the same principle of equal opportunity into education and athletics, making it illegal for federally funded schools to discriminate on the basis of sex. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legal work in the early 1970s helped lay the constitutional groundwork that made sex-equality protections more enforceable. Her first Supreme Court victory, Reed v. Reed (1971) , marked the very first time the Court struck down a law because it discriminated based on sex. Through a careful litigation strategy, Ginsburg helped persuade courts that sex discrimination was incompatible with equal protection principles. This ultimately strengthened the legal environment in which Title IX would operate and later be defended. When Title IX became law, it opened doors for young women to participate in athletics like never before. Before its passage, only about 300,000 girls were engaged in high-school athletics. Now, the number exceeds 3 million girls. This issue expands beyond high schools though—affecting colleges, the Olympics, professional sports and more. Title IX allowed females to have a space to challenge themselves, learn about teamwork and sisterhood, and learn life-long lessons that carry far into adulthood. Title IX allowed females to have a space to challenge themselves, learn about teamwork and sisterhood, and learn life-long lessons that carry far into adulthood. Sports shaped me into the woman I am. It made me feel confident, be quick on my feet, and learn new disciplines. Now, in the year 2026, all of this is in jeopardy for millions of girls. Today, I am fighting for the 3-million-plus girls who find purpose and joy in their sports. I am fighting for the women who wake up at the crack of dawn to train and who dream of being on the podium one day. I am fighting for the girls who have lost opportunities, medals, and scholarships. And I will not stop until we finally put an end to this dangerous ideology. Women did not fight for the right to vote so that our voices could be dismissed. We did not fight for property rights so that our autonomy could be redefined. We did not pass Title VII and Title IX so that the word “sex” could be untethered from biological reality. They were guardrails—built through persistence, sacrifice, and courage—to ensure women had equal opportunity under the law. The law recognized something that is biologically wired into every human being: males and females compete on different levels. Separate female athletic categories were not created to diminish women, but to ensure that women could fairly compete and excel at the sports they love. For 250 years, American women have stepped up when the country tested them. We organized when we were excluded. We led when we were sidelined. We demanded fairness when it was unpopular to do so. And now, once again, we find ourselves defending the very protections earlier generations fought to secure. Do not let our blood, sweat, and persistence die in vain to an ideology that has no basis in reality. This year, two landmark Supreme Court cases— West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little vs Hecox —represent a defining moment for the future of women’s sports . The heart of these cases is simple: biological men should not be able to erase what biological women fought for over generations, long before we created the absurd idea that you could switch your sex. In 1776, Abigail Adams asked her husband to remember the ladies. In 2026, my plea to our government is the same. Do not let our blood, sweat, and persistence die in vain to an ideology that has no basis in reality. Remember the ladies, because the promise of equality cannot survive if it forgets us. Payton McNabb is a sports ambassador for Independent Women and former three-sport high school athlete who turned tragedy into triumph after a traumatic brain injury ended her athletic future.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/what-happens-when-the-laws-women-fought-for-stop-protecting-them</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[I Paid Off $69K In Student Debt On Less Than $20 An Hour: Here's Exactly How I Did It]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-paid-off-dollar69k-in-student-debt-on-less-than-dollar20-an-hour</link>
      <dc:creator>Anna Livia Brady</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I was once told I’d be paying off my student debt for the rest of my life. That turned out to be completely wrong, but getting to that point wasn’t glamorous. It was built on a series of very unsexy decisions.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[I've always been naturally frugal. I was the kid who saved over a hundred dollars in my piggy bank, only to try to give it all away at eleven years old. Generous? Sure. Wise? Not exactly. I didn't understand why my teacher gave the money back to my parents—couldn't the school use it somehow? Looking back, it was one of my first lessons in stewardship, something I wouldn't fully understand until much later. As the oldest of seven, avoiding student loans wasn't really an option. I took them out, and I quickly picked up on the unspoken stigma around it; the assumption that borrowing money for school was something to be embarrassed about. But debt, when used wisely, is just a tool. Student loans are different from consumer debt. They can open doors, but they come with strings attached. You can justify them, normalize them, even joke about them. Eventually, though, you have to deal with them. Still, in five and a half years, I (mostly) made less than $20/hour, took time off to attend culinary school at a community college, and paid off a total of $69K in under six years. It didn’t happen perfectly, and it definitely didn’t happen overnight. But it did happen. Here’s how. I Started Paying Off During The Grace Period Most student loans come with a six-month grace period after graduation. Instead of waiting, I started paying immediately. I graduated in August 2020, landed a full-time job by November, and began making payments as soon as I could. I worked at the front desk of an urgent care center. It definitely was not the glamorous rom-com job I had imagined. I saw blood, stress, and long hours, but I’m still grateful for that job because it taught me how to work. Like, really work. It taught me consistency, patience, and how to show up even when I didn’t feel like it. But let's get back to the debt. Because I had that job, instead of paying once a month, I paid twice. My minimum was over $500, so I aimed for about $1,000 monthly. It wasn’t easy, especially at the beginning when my income felt tight, but it helped chip away at the principal faster and gave me momentum early on. More than anything though, it changed my mindset. I wasn’t avoiding my debt; I was actively doing something about it. I Lived At Home Rent-Free Living at home was one of the biggest financial advantages I’ve been blessed with. My parents didn’t have to let me stay, but they did. And that gave me a huge head start. Of course, I still wanted independence. I bought a cute little HRV, went out with friends, and lived a normal life within boundaries. But I also knew it wouldn’t be right to waste what I’d been given. I remember thinking: if I were living in a small apartment with roommates, I’d easily be spending $1,000 to $1,500 a month on rent. So instead of pretending that money didn’t exist, I redirected it right into my student loans. It wasn’t always fun. There were moments when I felt behind or wished I had my own space sooner. But in the long run, that decision accelerated everything in a way that would’ve been really hard to recreate otherwise. I Gave Every Extra Penny I Had To Those Loans This was the hardest part. After covering basic expenses, every extra dollar went straight to my loans, sometimes close to $2,000 at a time. Ouch. There’s no real way to make that feel good in the moment. Sending large chunks of money away when you could be using it for something more exciting takes discipline and a bit of insanity. I’d like to think I had both. But over time, something shifted. Watching the numbers drop from -$60K to -$50K, and eventually into the single digits, was incredibly motivating. It made the sacrifice feel tangible, like I wasn’t just working hard, I was actually getting somewhere. And once that money was gone, it was gone. No take-backs, no impulse spending. That built discipline in a way nothing else really could. I Surrendered The Idea of International Travel Social media constantly pushes the idea of travel, especially big, international trips. And while I understand that desire, I had to be honest with myself: I couldn’t prioritize both luxury travel and aggressive debt payoff at the same time. I skipped big trips, even when I had the savings. At one point, I considered going to Spain. I had the money, I had the time, and it would’ve been an amazing experience. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized I’d feel better putting that money toward my loans. That decision wouldn't be for everyone, but it was right for me. My financial peace required those sacrifices, and looking back, I can say it was worth it. I Ignored The Lingo About “Debt Forgiveness” It’s no secret that the country has a student loan crisis. And in the early 2020s, there was a lot of talk about student loan forgiveness. While that may have helped ease the anxiety and urgency for some people, I chose not to rely on it. That decision was about predictability. Policies change, timelines shift, and nothing is guaranteed. The only thing I knew for sure was that if I kept making payments, my balance would eventually hit zero. Plus, my loans were private. Waiting around for something that didn’t actually apply to me and hoping that someday it might would’ve only slowed me down and added unnecessary frustration. Instead of focusing on what might happen, I focused on what I could control. I Looked Into Refinancing Options This is something I wish I had understood earlier. Refinancing your loans can be a really helpful tool if your financial situation has improved. Essentially, if you’ve built up your credit score and shown consistent payment history, another lender may offer you a lower interest rate and take over your loan. In simple terms, a new company pays off your original loan, and you now make payments to them, ideally at a better rate. For me, this meant less money could go towards interest, and more could go towards the actual balance. It didn’t erase the debt, but it made it more manageable and a little less frustrating. A general rule of thumb I’ve heard is to aim for an interest rate below 7% , since that’s around what long-term investments might return. So if you’re sitting at 10% and can refinance closer to 6%, it’s at least worth exploring. Of course, refinancing isn’t the right move for everyone, especially if you have federal loans with protections. But it’s one of those “unsexy” financial decisions that can make a big difference over time. I Lived A Life Well Balanced While paying off debt was a priority, it wasn’t my entire life, and I didn’t want it to be. I still showed up for people. I paid my share when going out, bought gifts for friends, and treated my siblings when I could. Those moments mattered, and I didn’t want to sacrifice relationships in the name of financial goals. I also didn’t follow extreme financial rules. I respect financial experts, but their methods aren’t one-size-fits-all. I didn’t cut up my credit cards; I used them responsibly. I didn’t avoid restaurants entirely; I just made smarter choices. Life doesn’t pause while you’re paying off debt, and it shouldn’t. There’s a happy ending for the little girl who once saved her money, only to give it away without hesitation. As an adult, I learned that paying off debt is really just about being a good steward of what you have. If you’re feeling buried under debt, don’t lose hope. Your journey might look different than mine, but with consistent, wise choices, those small, unsexy decisions can lead to a kind of freedom that’s worth every sacrifice.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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