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Sen. Thom Tillis may be heading for the exits, but he’s not leaving quietly.

The retiring Republican from North Carolina—who stunned the political world in June, when he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection—suggested to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that he regrets casting the deciding vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization,” Tillis said, pointing to Hegseth inadvertently sharing military attack plans with a journalist and, more recently, pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine without informing the White House.

“That’s just amateurish,” he added about the Ukraine pause. “That’s from somebody who doesn’t understand large organization dynamics.”

It’s the first time Tillis has spoken at length with the national media since his retirement announcement, which came just one day after President Donald Trump threatened to back a primary challenger over Tillis’ opposition to the bill carrying Trump’s domestic agenda.

Trump also threatened Tillis earlier this year. In January, Tillis reportedly worked behind the scenes to corroborate abuse allegations against Hegseth, and even urged Senate GOP leadership to pull the nomination. But after Trump floated backing a primary challenge, Tillis folded and voted “yes,” despite concerns about Hegseth’s alleged history of excessive drinking and alleged abuse of women.

Now that reelection’s off the table, Tillis admits he might’ve voted differently if the confirmation came up today.

“If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I’d certainly vote for him again,” he told CNN. “But now I have the information of him being a manager, and I don’t think his probationary period has been very positive.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears at budget hearing before a House Appropriations, Subcommittee at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears at House hearing on May 14.

Tillis also voiced regret about another Cabinet pick he supported—Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—but Tillis said he relied on the judgment of fellow Republicans in both instances. For Hegseth, it was the Armed Services Committee. For Kennedy, it was Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has a medical degree and chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

“The main reason I supported Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see how it plays out,” he said

Tillis also took a swipe at Trump’s new domestic policy law, which will slash Medicaid and food-assistance benefits to partially fund tax cuts and immigration enforcement. Only three Republican senators voted against it—Tillis among them.

“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore?” Tillis said in a scathing floor speech as the bill was going through Congress.

But even now Tillis avoids criticizing Trump directly, instead blaming the president’s inner circle.

“What the president needs to do is start really looking at the outcome of some of these policy decisions and ask himself, is he really getting the best professional advice?” he told CNN, adding, “But as somebody who's been in elected office for 20 years at the leadership level in the statehouse and doing all I can up here, I hope that [Trump] starts listening to more of us and fewer of those people who pretend like they're the president when he's out of the room.”

Tillis may be free to speak his mind now. But for those living with the fallout of his votes—especially the one that put Hegseth in charge—it’s too little, too late.

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's cost-cutting measures at the Federal Emergency Management Agency slowed search and rescue efforts in Texas by 72 hours, possibly costing some of the at least 120 lives lost in the devastating natural disaster, CNN reported.

According to CNN, Noem created a new policy that requires her to personally sign off on any costs greater than $100,000. The Urban Search and Rescue crews seeking to be deployed to the Texas Hill Country—where hundreds of people were swept away by the rapidly rising rivers after heavy rainstorms—met that criteria.

But CNN reported that Noem didn't approve the deployment of those search and rescue crews until Monday—three days after the floods swept through Texas.

From CNN’s report:

As central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.

In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.

But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.

DHS tried to deny that Noem’s incompetence hindered the search and rescue efforts. But their denial actually proved the CNN story.

DHS said in a post on X, “President Trump approved a Major Disaster Declaration, hours after Governor Greg Abbott’s request. By Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers, providing support and shelter for hundreds of people. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is reforming FEMA to prioritize state-led, locally executed disaster response, as Texas has exemplified.”

That means that CNN’s report was correct, that it took until Tuesday for FEMA to deploy the search and rescue teams.

Noem appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, where she was asked about the CNN report. But instead of providing evidence that she swiftly approved the search and rescue teams, she only attacked CNN—classic deflection that did not actually deny the report.

“CNN has a report accusing you of slowing the process in Texas,” one of the hosts asked Noem, to which she replied, “Well there you go. Fake news CNN is absolutely trash, what they are doing.”

Noem, for her part, has implemented the cost-cutting measures in DHS that hamstrung the search and rescue efforts in Texas even as she spends hundreds of millions galavanting around the country and globe cosplaying for PR stunts and visiting the torture camps she's gleefully sending immigrants to.

A Wall Street Journal report from April said Noem spent $9 million on a television ad advising immigrants to self-deport.

She also sported a $50,000 Rolex watch on a visit to the CECOT prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration illegally deported immigrants against court orders. Noem is also seeking a $50 million private jet to transport her to the stunts she's carrying out.

Turns out, Noem cares more about creating torture porn than she does about saving lives. 

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Posted by Blake Seidel

It's a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme - family yearns for a cat, the Cat Distribution System hears their cries, and then it delivers them a cat purrfectly suited for them. The CDS's methods are wide and varied. Sometimes the cat sneaks into your bag without you noticing, sometimes the cat just follows you home, and on occasion, the CDS has been known to employ doggos to deliver said kittens into your home and heart

This family's dog started barking outside at what seemed to be a tiny furball in the driveway. The dad went out to see what was going on, and realized that the tiny floof in the driveway was actually a tiny kitten! As if someone had heard their wishes (his wife and son were just talking about how they wanted a cat - what a coincidence!), the CDS sent this kitten straight to their doorstep. Now, her name is 'Mew' and she's loved by all family members, both two and four-legged!

Fluff. Chaos. Drama! Our weekly cat newsletter has it all -  subscribe here.

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Posted by Mariel Ruvinsky

One of the most meowgical and kind of hilarious things about the cat distribution system is that it often seems to choose people who want nothing to do with cats at all. We, cat people, sometimes wait decades to be chosen by a cat. Meanwhile, there goes another cat hater getting adopted. 

Countless times at this point, we have seen people who hate cat get adopted by them, people who never wanted a cat getting adopted by them. And now, add to the list someone who is terrified of cats getting adopted by one. Because that is what happened here. This person may not know it yet, but we do, and this cat does, and the fact that they are willing to sit outside with the cat for hours in the freezing cold just so the cat is not left alone… that's all the proof we need. You've been chosen. That is an honor that is not bestowed on everyone. 

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Stop Nurturing Old Stereotypes

Jul. 10th, 2025 04:00 pm
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Posted by Not Always Right

Read Stop Nurturing Old Stereotypes

Employee: "Uh… hey, would you mind just keeping an eye on him for a minute?"
Me: "I’m a stranger in a store. You’re all wearing name tags and earpieces. And I’m the best option because…?"
Employee: "You know. You seem... nurturing."

Read Stop Nurturing Old Stereotypes

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One of the most enduring conservative myths is that of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth, rural-dwelling American who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, wrestles a steer before breakfast, and builds his own house out of patriotism and chewing tobacco because, by god, they sure do love America! 

If that were ever true, it hasn’t been for a while. These days, rural America is largely dependent on the federal government it claims to hate. In fact, far from self-reliant, rural America is subsidized by blue states. And it’s not even close.

The Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization, has put together a map tracking the share of every county’s personal income that’s made up of government transfers, which include Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance, and veterans benefits—money specifically sent or spent on individuals. 

I circled some of the country’s largest metropolitan areas to highlight how stark the urban-rural disparity can be. The metros around Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco all show minimal (less than 15% of personal income) or moderate (15% to less than 25%) reliance on government transfers. Rural America, meanwhile, is a glowing sea of government-dependent yellow. The South in particular looks like it took a bath in it.

There are reasons for this. Rural regions have a big share of older people, given decades of young people fleeing for big cities. And while there is evidence of that trend reversing since 2020, due largely to the proliferation of remote work, rural areas still tend to be older than large metros. And more older people in a county means a bigger share of that country drawing Social Security and Medicare. And rural areas are more dependent on Medicaid.

Government benefits are a good thing, so none of this is inherently bad, per se.

But it does mean those rural areas are dependent on the very social safety net that Republicans are gleefully hacking apart with their cuts on Medicaid, food assistance, and the like. They’re also poorer than expensive urban regions, so they rely more on federal food assistance to eat. 

But hey, that’s what these voters asked for. Rural areas lean heavily Republican, and farming-dependent counties voted for Trump at an eye-popping average of 78%. Maybe they were just eager to get back to some serious bootstrap-pulling, or maybe they thought the government cheese tasted better if it came with a side of moral superiority and immigrant-blaming. And can anyone actually eat when a handful of trans girls might be playing high school sports? They sure had their priorities! 

And don’t worry, rural Republican voters: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, gets a tax cut. Which he definitely needed. For reasons. 

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Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the state legislature on Wednesday to demand the GOP-controlled body redraw the state's congressional districts, an effort to gerrymander the state to try to squeeze out more seats for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

Abbott called the special session because President Donald Trump wants Texas Republicans to rig the map for the GOP to try to offset potential Republican losses next November, when Republicans could lose control of their three-seat House majority. Political analysts say that under the current congressional maps, Democrats are favored to win control of the House in 2026.

Knowing that Democratic House control would end Trump’s legislative agenda and allow Democrats to investigate his corrupt business dealings and administration, Trump is desperately trying to prevent that from happening by getting Texas and Ohio to be "ruthless" and make their state congressional districts even more heavily Republican gerrymanders.

Texas was the first state to bite, after Abbott called the special session. Abbott cited a letter Trump’s Department of Justice sent purporting to say that several Democratic-held Texas congressional districts "constitute unconstitutional racial gerrymanders" and should be redrawn. But that's obviously just a ruse to give Republicans an excuse to redraw the congressional districts to give Republicans an edge.

The New York Times reported, however, that Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation are wary about redrawing districts, worried that they could inadvertently make GOP lawmakers more vulnerable if the 2026 midterms turn out to be a Democratic wave. By spreading out GOP voters in more districts, it could make Republicans more vulnerable if independents break Democrats' way next November.

People look through belongings on a camp trunk at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
People look through belongings at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area on July 6, in Hunt, Texas.

“The only way you make the state more competitive congressionally is you do it at their expense,” Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told the Times, referring to congressional Republicans. “I think the Republicans have already maximized their map, given the demographic changes in the state.”

Abbott called the special session as his state is reeling from a horrible natural disaster in which at least 120 people—many of them children attending summer camps—were swept away and killed by flash flooding. Nearly 200 more are still missing and likely presumed dead, as it has been days since the flooding.

Reports said that Texas state did not have adequate warning systems to prevent the tragedy, and that Trump’s cuts to federal disaster preparedness funding could make things even worse in future flood situations.

Democrats, for their part, are slamming Abbott's special session announcement, saying it is a craven political move that shows he is putting politics over saving lives.

“Hundreds of people have died or are missing as a result of the deadly flooding in the Texas Hill country. There are real questions about Governor Greg Abbott’s failed leadership, lack of preparation and the reckless decision not to bolster the early warning infrastructure in flood prone communities," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. "Instead of aggressively addressing the failures of his administration, Governor Abbott and shameless extremists are conspiring with Donald Trump and House Republicans to try to rig the election and disenfranchise millions of voters."

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene echoed those sentiments.

“It’s shameful that while Texans are still responding to the deadly and tragic floods, Governor Abbott, House Republicans, and Donald Trump are focusing their time and resources trying to push through new, rigged Congressional maps," she said in a statement. "Republicans are running scared because they know the American people will reject them next year for their broken promises and failed agenda. They also know they cannot win fair and square, so they are trying once again to rig the maps."

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Posted by Mariel Ruvinsky

Moving in together is a huge test to a relationship. Moving in together when there are pets involved somehow makes the whole thing even more difficult. You don't know which sides of your partner you're going to see when you are with them 24/7, and unfortunately, we have seen people break up once they moved in with each other and each other's pets. We've seen a man break up with his girlfriend of 9 years because she cuddles her cat at night. We've seen a woman break up with her boyfriend because he didn't get along with her cat. We've even seen a girlfriend be jealous of her boyfriend's affection toward his cat and him break up with her over that. 

It always feels unexpected. And it always hurts. And it hurt this time as well. Because in a two-year relationship, where things seemed to be going well, stable, this couple made a complete 180 after moving in together. 

Fluff. Chaos. Drama! Our weekly cat newsletter has it all -  subscribe here.

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President Donald Trump can’t seem to get enough of Africa—or at least its “beautiful” reporters. 

During a press briefing Wednesday, Trump scoured the media pool for his latest muse, African reporter Hariana Verás.

"Where is my reporter from Africa?” he asked with a sly smirk. “There you are. How are you? She's very famous in Africa."

Trump first crossed paths with Verás in the Oval Office late last month, when she recounted the suffering of citizens in the Congo. 

“I saw hope. They have hope now for a better day in Congo,” she said.

And while Verás’ impassioned speech lasted minutes, going over plenty of possible talking points for Trump, he still only managed to cling to her appearance

“That's so beautifully stated,” he began before diving into how "beautiful" Verás is.

“I'm not allowed to say that," he added. "You know that could be the end of my political career, but you are beautiful—and you’re beautiful inside. I wish I had more reporters like you.”

In another awkward exchange Wednesday, Trump showered Liberian President Joseph Boakai with compliments for his well-spoken English. 

"Such good English,” Trump said. “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?"  

And while Boakai accepted the compliment graciously, no one seemed to let Trump in on the fact that English is the official language of Liberia.

At least he didn’t go on a rant about Boakai’s looks.

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Toxic masculinity and idealized motherhood content are flooding social media feeds — forcing educators, students and parents to navigate the manosphere.

By Nadra Nittle and Mariel Padilla for The 19th


Aarush Santoshi struggled for words when a preteen boy approached him on a New Jersey street, shoved a phone in his face and asked: “What are your thoughts on Andrew Tate?”

The kid’s smirk and the fact he was recording rattled Santoshi, a high school junior at the time. Santoshi worried that the tween viewed Tate — an influencer accused of sexual assault and trafficking — as a joke to spring on strangers.

“This kid was engaging with content that promotes blatant misogyny, and he didn’t even realize how harmful it was,” said Santoshi, now 18 and the national political director of Feminist Generation, a youth-led organization that opposes authoritarianism. The encounter was a chilling sign of how deeply the “manosphere” — a network of online influencers promoting male supremacy and far-right ideologies — had infiltrated popular culture.


Related | Why men are a problem for Democrats—and what we can do about it


The manosphere and parallel trends like the tradwife (traditional wife) movement — led by influencers who idealize marriage, motherhood and domesticity — are impacting even socially conscious students who say it’s hard to avoid this content brimming with toxic messages about gender. Over a half-dozen students told The 19th that after the 2024 election, which saw the manosphere blamed for young men’s rightward shift, they noticed changes in their classmates’ behavior — an uptick in sexist remarks, a sense of entitlement to girls’ attention and schadenfreude that yet another woman lost the presidency.

Now, educators, parents and advocates are racing to counter the manosphere’s influence by addressing online gender dynamics with students — while youth themselves are pushing back through activism, their studies and debates with their peers.

Santoshi’s introduction to the manosphere came via YouTube. Fifty-two percent of young men ages 18 to 23 are on that platform, according to 2023 report “The State of American Men” by the nonprofit Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice. In eighth grade, Santoshi discovered YouTube’s Jubilee channel, which presents discussions between people with opposing political views.

“One of the topics was men’s rights activists versus feminists, and one person on the men’s rights activist side was a self-proclaimed incel,” Santoshi said, referring to the term used by men who resent being “involuntarily celibate” — many of whom have connected with likeminded individuals on platforms like Reddit. “He was saying all these objectively horrendous, terrible things about women, very infantilizing, very paternalistic.”

The manosphere — which dates back to the Y2K era, when anti-feminist men began to gather online — includes incels and men’s rights activists who feel disadvantaged by women’s social progress. Also involved are men going their own way (known by MGTOW), who have sworn off relationships with women; and pick-up artists who manipulate women into sex. The Equimundo report found that nearly half of young men trust at least one manosphere influencer. They have swallowed the “red pill” — a manosphere metaphor for embracing a reactionary and male supremacist worldview.

“Similar to white supremacy, male supremacy can be an extremist ideology or movement in and of itself, but it’s also sort of embedded in American society,” said Rachael Fugardi, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks extremism.

An outgrowth of male supremacy, the manosphere’s dangers are too often downplayed, said Santoshi, who credited growing up in an egalitarian household with preventing influencers from enthralling him. Recently, his philosophy class at Stanford University discussed the toxic masculinity of Elliot Rodger, an incel who died by suicide after his 2014 rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara, left six people dead and 14 injured.

“People think it’s just these influencers who are trying to sell patriarchy to young men,” Santoshi said of the manosphere. “Elliot Rodger was a case study for what happens when male entitlement, white supremacy and these different entitlement ideologies combine and actually result in political violence.”

The gateway drug to the manosphere: algorithms

The vast majority of young men stumble onto the manosphere through innocent online queries, and algorithms set the trap, explained Geoff Corey, director of Advocates for Youth’s sex education project AMAZE.

“They are looking to make friends, to look better, to win over girls or become better people,” Corey said. “Then, they discover that it seems like the only people creating content geared towards men are people who give them an easy answer for what they want, and that easy answer somehow leads to trickery, violence, unhealthy behaviors, bottling up emotions.”

A teen might watch “gym-bro” motivational content or videos on “looksmaxxing” to enhance his appearance, only to be steered toward posts about the pitfalls of being a weak “beta male” instead of a dominant “alpha male.” Before long, the algorithm offers more of the same, ensnaring him in the manosphere’s quagmire. Social isolation makes youth more likely to get bogged down, according to Equimundo’s report.  It found 65 percent of young men say no one knows them well.

Fugardi said that algorithms force-feed sexism to young people. “So much of this misogynistic content isn’t being searched out,” she said. Research from the United Kingdom revealed that 10 percent of boys ages 11 to 14 encountered harmful content, such as misogyny and violence, within 60 seconds of going online.

More than a particular political ideology, boys and young men are drawn to humor online, according to Corey. Comedic content creators may not peddle toxic rhetoric initially but simply behave in boneheaded ways that rack up page views. They go on to promote everything from extreme diets to polarizing politics.

Sam Dyer, a recent graduate of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, pointed to the viral fitness influencer Togi, a beefcake who recorded himself slapping a woman’s backside in one video and insulting WNBA fans in another. Dyer served as the fraternity caucus chair for It’s On Us, a nonprofit that fights campus sexual assault in stark contrast to the manosphere’s rape culture.

Togi’s content, which routinely mentions steroids and betting, is largely humorous, Dyer said, but that doesn’t mean the influencer’s fans view him as a joke. “He just constantly records his lifestyle, which seems to be a lot of drugs and a lot of gambling and drinking and working out,” Dyer said. Given the Pew Research Center’s finding that 43 percent of teenage boys feel pressure to be physically strong, it’s no mystery why fitness influencers resonate with them.

As a fan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which promotes mixed martial arts matches, Dyer is also familiar with Joe Rogan, a former commentator for the sport. Now host of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the podcaster is linked to the manosphere because he leans into gender essentialism and conspiracy theories, a focus of the movement. Rogan welcomed Donald Trump to his show in October but reportedly refused to make arrangements for Kamala Harris to appear, going on to endorse Trump for president.


Related | Why is MAGA fighting about accused rapist Andrew Tate's US return?


Arguably no manosphere leader is as polarizing as Tate, whose prominence on social media has made him hard to ignore, Dyer said. More young men ages 18 to 23 (20 percent) trust Tate than rival manosphere figures like Rogan and Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist, according to the Equimundo report. The often shirtless influencer’s misogynistic posts — referring to childfree women as “miserable stupid bitches” and suggesting that women must “take some degree of responsibility” to avert rape — have seen him banned on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Still, his content has spread like butter, finding fans in young viewers like the president’s son Barron Trump.

Tate emerged as a manosphere leader, Dyer contends, because his social media posts appealed to broad audiences. “He would gamble, he did kickboxing, so there were a variety of ways that he could interact with various people’s internet feeds,” Dyer said. “That became a way for people to get exposed to his more radical ideologies, especially towards women.”

Performance art or propaganda: the impact of tradwives

Just as young men wrestle with the manosphere, young women are confronted with male supremacy through the tradwife trend.

Tradwife influencers like Nara Smith, who films herself cooking in expertly applied makeup and flawlessly coiffed hair, insist they’re simply sharing their passion for homemaking. Many of Smith’s followers regard her content as performance art. Her meal-prep wardrobe features dreamy blues and cherry reds in sequins, chiffon and faux fur — all while she whips up snacks like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bread included, entirely from scratch.

Tradwife critics, meanwhile, argue that influencers like Smith, Hannah Neeleman and Estee Williams are anti-feminist since marrying young and having gaggles of children appear to be prerequisites to the lifestyle.

“Male supremacy appeals to women as well. And, of course, the white supremacist project demands the participation of White women in the production of White babies,” said Pasha Dashtgard, director of research at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. The tradwife movement “is for men,” he stressed. “It’s not for women. It’s cosplaying what men think would be the ideal woman.”


Related | Why conservatives are obsessed with phony masculinity


Tradwife and manosphere influencers communicate that marriage and children aren’t optional, according to their detractors and some of their impressionable teen viewers.

“The manosphere — I think that is just such nonsense,” said Sreshta Erravelli, 17, who recently finished 11th grade in New Albany, Ohio. “I can speak for so many girls I’ve talked to that it is really promoting just the worst culture ever for so many guys. Then, when you couple that with the whole tradwives trend, it’s definitely hard to reconcile both things at the same time.”

Boys learn to be rugged alpha males from the manosphere, while girls learn to cater to men from tradwives, Erravelli has observed. Rather than teach that rejection is a part of life, the manosphere links rejection to weakness, causing boys to lash out when girls don’t reciprocate their feelings, she said. “You’re calling girls weird names just because she didn’t give you her number the first 20 times you asked.”

During the rollout to the 2024 election, the gender divide among Erravelli’s classmates became clear. Some of them argued that a woman shouldn’t be president, an attitude that reflects the manosphere’s chauvinism.

“When it came down to kids who were in favor of Trump, I think that they were definitely a little too gleeful about the fact that it was a man winning over a woman, which is just so weird to say in 2025,” she said. “It was just a conversation of, ‘Why are you so happy that a woman lost?’”

While the manosphere elicits discomfort, she and her friends joke about Nara Smith whenever they cook. Threaded through their humor, though, is uncertainty concerning what tradwives signify about women’s roles in society.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, you don’t know how to make your own butter at home. How are you gonna run a house?’” Erravelli said. “It’s kind of funny to look at this all from the perspective of a teenage girl. You get told not everything you see on the internet is real, and that’s true. But when you see that these ‘trends’ are just totally affecting everyone you know, it’s kind of hard to believe that they’re not.”

The teacher helping students counter the internet’s gender cues

Some educators like Jessica Berg are helping students navigate toxic internet culture. Her gender studies class at Rock Ridge High School in Virginia covers everything from ancient civilizations to the present-day backlash against feminism to help students understand how patriarchy became the norm. As part of the course, students learn about digital misogyny and the tradwife trend.  

Berg launched the course after the 2016 election, when students kept asking her why Hillary Clinton, widely considered one of the most qualified presidential candidates in history, lost the race to a man who had never held public office. Since then, she’s seen a resurgence of sexism. Fifty-five percent of young men agree that “men have it harder than women” and just under half agree that feminism has bettered the nation, the Equimundo report found. Berg suspects the manosphere bears some responsibility for misogyny’s growth. After the 2024 election, far-right influencer Nick Fuentes’ post mocking women’s reproductive rights — “Your body, my choice” — spread among students. “Young males were texting that, DMing it, posting it to young women,” Berg said.

FILE - Nick Fuentes, far-right activist, holds a rally at the Lansing Capitol, in Lansing, Mich., Nov. 11, 2020. Former President Donald Trump had dinner Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, at his Mar-a-Lago club with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who is now known as Ye, as well as Nick Fuentes, who has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. (Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News via AP, File)
Nick Fuentes, far-right activist, holds a rally in Nov. 2020 in Lansing, Mich.

Her class teaches students, mostly girls, to challenge sexist messaging. Blessing Amuga, one of her students, confronted a male acquaintance who claimed women were “too emotional” to be president. “That doesn’t even make sense,” Amuga said of that sexist stereotype. She went on to point out how Trump, who has lost his cool in office on multiple occasions, supports policies that are actively harmful to women, including controlling women’s bodies. His policies reinforce “the idea that men should control what you do, what you eat, how you act,” Amuga told him.

Her classmate Isabella Hasbun noticed boys parroting Trump’s insults toward Kamala Harris, mirroring the manosphere’s misogyny. “Them seeing a White man calling a Black woman dumb and saying that she has no qualifications just enhances their own [preconceived] thoughts,” said Hasbun, a recent Rock Ridge graduate, like Amuga.

Hasbun has seen more tradwives on her TikTok feed than manosphere influencers. She questions anyone who suggests she should spend her time cooking at home. Of them, she wonders: “What are you doing with your life?”

Rianna Abdelhamid, who also took Berg’s class, said domestic life is fine for women who enjoy it. “But not everybody is like that,” she said. To those expecting her to be a tradwife, she offered three words: “No, thank you.”

It’s the manosphere, though, that Hasbun objects to most. “That is the worst type of man you will ever find,” she said of the trend’s followers. Post-election, she’s faced repeated harassment from boys, she said, recalling a group of them circling the car she and a friend were in at a drive-thru — “thinking that they had the privilege of actually talking to us.”

Being in Berg’s class has empowered Hasbun and her classmates to advocate for women, and, in turn, themselves. Abdelhamid now speaks up instead of staying silent when she’s concerned about sexism. Hasbun has grown more confident. When she has a disagreement related to gender, she trusts her perspective: “I’m well aware of what’s actually happening instead of just basing my opinion on what some random dude on TikTok said.”

Is there an antidote to the red pill?

Influenced by social media, young people may not only slip into the manosphere but become radicalized to the point of performing extremist acts. As research director at PERIL, Dashtgard designs tools, guides and resources to obstruct that pipeline using a public health approach.

“We work with all levels of civil society — teachers, parents, faith leaders, small business owners, any kind of trusted adult in the life of a child,” Dashtgard said. “We want to help understand the nature of radicalization and what they can do in order to disrupt that.”

PERIL, in partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center, released a guide last year called “Not Just a Joke.” The goal, Dashtgard said, is to arm the public with the knowledge needed to recognize radicalization before it occurs and engage youth without condemning or humiliating them. These resources, if distributed, can become a preventative model scalable in communities nationally.

Fugardi, of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said social media platforms could provide another avenue for solutions.

“We should be looking for social media companies to do more as they’ve grown in influence in our society,” she said. “We should have high expectations for them to not just enforce their own rules [around content moderation], but also to release transparency reports about how they’re protecting young people over prioritizing profit.”

The AMAZE project, which posts animated sex ed videos to YouTube and other platforms, presents youth with alternatives to the manosphere’s messaging about manhood — including its framing of issues like relationships and sexuality. Through Equimundo’s Link Up Lab — a hub that allows organizations to test different digital strategies to provide young men with healthy ways to pursue belonging — AMAZE consults with youth on the materials it develops for the web.

cartoon satirizing the idea that the Trump economy will enhance manhood

“We have videos on the stuff that a sex educator might cover in class, but we also try to answer a question that a young person is really searching for,” Corey said. “One of our most popular videos is ‘Does Penis Size Matter?’ That is not going to be in the health education curriculum, but it is what someone is searching for, and we create animated, funny content about that.” In the fall, AMAZE plans to release a video on looksmaxxing, a dangerous trend linked to steroid use and do-it-yourself body modification that feeds off teen boys’ insecurities about their physiques, jawlines and even their hair.

Julie Scelfo, founder of the grassroots group Mothers Against Media Addiction, urges caregivers to co-view content with kids. Check their browser history, and if they repeat sexist ideas, ask where they heard them.

“If your kid is exposed to Andrew Tate-type influencers, it’s critical to have conversations about who he is and what you think about the messages that he’s espousing,” she said.

Early discussions about toxic content are key. Once youth enter college, they’ve already absorbed gender constructs, Corey said.

“AMAZE is unique in the sex ed space in that we offer health education, relationship education, puberty education that is targeted towards adolescents because we think that’s when they actually start developing their opinions and their views on the world.”

So, for that kid who confronted Aarush Santoshi, there’s still time. Parents have more sway than influencers, Corey contends — if they act before harmful ideologies take root.

Wreck-A-Bye Baby

Jul. 10th, 2025 01:00 pm
[syndicated profile] cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

Sometimes I like to think this blog might have a positive influence on current baking trends. (Oh, stop laughing. A girl can dream.) So, what do you say we mosey on over to a few of our nation's baby showers and see how things are going?

Wonderful!


I mean, sure, "beby" is misspelled, and there's a giant funky headboard thing happening, and the doll is staring at me all creepy-like, but the baby itself is not edible. That's progress, people!

Hey, a lot of those letters are right.

 

In fact - and feel free to correct me here if I'm wrong - I think "cohgrautions" may be the Canadian spelling.

You might be wondering how many tracts of land they had to search to find these two peas in a pod, or why the baker didn't make the "peas" green. That said, it's not a pregnant torso cake.

 

Plus it makes me want to start singing "Keep Walking" by the French Peas, so that's a "win" all 'round.

This next one may cause a bit of a flap, but I'll have no truck with such negativity:

After all, nothing drives home the beauty of motherhood quite like a pregnant mudflap girl. Eh? Eh? Am I right?

 

Well, my friends, I think I've made my point: baby shower cakes are getting better! And all because of me! ME, I SAY!! BWAHAHAHAAA!!

AHAHAHAAAHAA!! 

BAHAHAHAA...

...huh?

AAAAAUUUGGHH!!

[blink blink]
 
Well.

Back to business as usual, then? 

Thanks to Sose K., Krista M., Susan M., Bob S., & Carly A. for dashing my dreams. You cruel, cruel wreckporters, you.

******

P.S. Watch me un-creepify this post by going from creepy baby cakes to baby beef cakes:

The Buff Baby Rattle

This is hilarious. And a real thing! Amazon helpfully suggested I pair it with the "Do You Even Lift?" baby onesie and now I wish I had a weightlifting friend with a baby to give this to.

*****

And from my other blog, Epbot:

Baldly Going

Jul. 10th, 2025 01:30 pm
[syndicated profile] notalwaysright_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

Read Baldly Going

I am wandering the pharmacy aisles, killing time while my prescription is being filled. I was stationary for a few minutes in the hair care aisle, using my phone to compare prices I was seeing with others online.
Older Man: *Loudly, and with annoyance.* "EXCUSE ME!"

Read Baldly Going

[syndicated profile] dailykos_feed

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Related | Trump's latest salvo in his war on science makes us all less safe


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Jul. 10th, 2025 12:15 pm
[syndicated profile] notalwaysright_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

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I believe in God, plain and simple. I don’t condemn people for not doing so, I don’t act like that intrinsically makes me better than someone else, and I don’t pick quotes out of a Bible and act like contradicting them is a problem; I just believe in God. I know that He has the […]

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