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Between Tradwife and Girlboss
CATEGORY: ECONOMICS (8 MIN READ)
Growing up, young girls receive all sorts of messages about what it means to be a woman and to balance work and family. Tradwife influencers urge girls to get married young and stay home full-time with their children, while the girlboss movement tells them to freeze their eggs and focus on their careers. But for many women, the most desirable path lies somewhere between these two extremes.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal [ [link removed] ], Rachel Wolfe and Paul Overberg highlight how young conservative women, in particular, are working to balance motherhood with careers in the 21st-century workforce. Wolfe and Overberg interviewed several conservative women who shared about their choices to have children young and build their careers around their families rather than the other way around. Thanks to remote work and other flexible arrangements, these women have found ways to be present with their children at home while still advancing in their careers.
Wolfe and Overberg point out that the prioritization of family and children is becoming a uniquely conservative characteristic. Fifteen years ago, liberal and conservative women between the ages of 18 and 35 had children at roughly the same rate—but in 2024, 75% of liberal women in that age range were childless, as compared with only 40% of conservative women.
Read the rest of Wolfe and Overberg’s article [ [link removed] ] (available via free email sign-up) to learn more.
COVID Cautious, Five Years Later
CATEGORY: CULTURE (6 MIN READ)
2025 marked five years since the COVID pandemic and lockdowns upended life in America. Although the extended shutdowns had lasting effects on our nation’s economy and educational systems, on the outside, life five years later appears much the same as before. Only a few relics of the COVID shutdowns remain: ignored social distancing signs, some extra hand sanitizer dispensers, and the occasional mask.
To a small yet vocal minority, this return to life as normal is nothing short of a moral failure. In an article for UnHerd [ [link removed] ], Ryan Zickgraf shines the spotlight on the Zero Covid community—a radical group of activists who are convinced that the pandemic never ended and are dedicated to shaming those who have moved on from the extreme masking requirements and gathering restrictions of the early pandemic days.
Zickgraf explores the psychological underpinnings of the movement: the Zero Covid community gathered vulnerable people together and “endowed their anxiety with moral weight,” telling them that they were saving lives by holding the line. Because their very identity is centered around the supposed emergency, the Covid cautious are left without an off-ramp into normal life in the real world. In the end, the ones who are hurt the most by this are the COVID-cautious themselves.
Read the rest of Zickgraf’s article here [ [link removed] ].
Compendium
Every article we feature here is available to read for free. Articles from paywalled publications are available through gift links.
Chris Rufo and Ryan Thorpe on how Minnesota’s welfare funds ended up in the hands of a terror group [ [link removed] ] in City Journal.
Michael W. Green on the reason why the middle class feels poor [ [link removed] ] in The Free Press.
Brad Wilcox and Grant Bailey on the “Midas Mindset” and decline of family formation among the left [ [link removed] ] in the Institute for Family Studies.
Sen. Eric Schmitt on how our entire [ [link removed] ]legal [ [link removed] ] immigration system is broken [ [link removed] ] in The American Mind.
Beth McMurtrie on the massive grade inflation among American universities [ [link removed] ] in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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This week, from ISI’s Digital Media:
What explains the growing divide between older and younger conservatives?
In the latest episode [ [link removed] ] of Modern Age with Dan McCarthy, Dan explores the ideological, cultural, and economic rifts between the Reagan-Buckley generation and Gen Z conservatives. Is this a generational clash or the start of a new conservative movement?
Subscribe to Modern Age with Dan McCarthy here [ [link removed] ].
This week, from the Collegiate Network:
ISI’s Collegiate Network [ [link removed] ] supports over 80 student-run publications across the country, empowering students to run independent college newspapers, magazines, and journals that report on important issues ignored by the mainstream media.
We Trained China’s AI Researchers. Now We Risk Being Surpassed in AI Innovation. [ [link removed] ] via The Stanford Review
We helped train China’s top AI talent, but now they’re turning the tables by publishing frontier research and threatening U.S. dominance.
Our Nixonian Moment [ [link removed] ] via The Washington and Lee Spectator
The prosecution of former FBI director James Comey is a clear and present danger to the Constitution.
Disaffected Democracy [ [link removed] ] via The Harper Review
When we treat big ideas like politics or religion as taboo, we risk slipping into apathy, authoritarianism, or even anarchy.
The DEI Dean Who Compared Trump to Hitler Is Now Shaping Curriculum at UT Austin [ [link removed] ] via The Texas Horn
UT’s dean once likened Trump to Hitler. Now, he’s calling the shots on the very curriculum students will be forced to learn.
Where Does All the Money Go? [ [link removed] ] via The Irish Rover
The Irish Rover investigates Notre Dame’s 1.7 billion-dollar annual budget following an announcement that the university’s expenditures will drastically change.
Visit our Student Journalism section [ [link removed] ] to read more from the Collegiate Network.
The Iron Lady
CATEGORY: HISTORY (15 MIN READ)
Just as the 1980s brought a sea of change to American politics through the election of conservative Ronald Reagan, so too did that decade reshape British politics with the ascendance of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The longest-tenured prime minister of the 20th century, Thatcher left an indelible impact on the United Kingdom.
For this week’s article from Modern Age [ [link removed] ], British author Christopher Sandford honors Thatcher, who would have turned 100 this October. Sandford details the economic woes haunting the UK during the 1970s. In fact, he notes that the winter of 1978–79 was called the “Winter of Discontent.” But out of that winter came Thatcher, who slashed inflation rates dramatically in her first term and gave financial power back to the private sector.
Besides economics, Sandford also mentions Thatcher’s foreign policy—her alliance with Ronald Reagan during the Cold War and her prescient doubt about Britain’s involvement in the European “superstate.” And Sandford eloquently describes Thatcher’s defense of the Falkland Islands after Argentina invaded. In sum, Sandford describes Thatcher as an “enigmatic colossus of postwar Western life” who maintained a remarkable “clarity of vision” throughout her time in office.
Read more about Thatcher in Sandford’s article here [ [link removed] ] on the Modern Age website.
Modern Age is ISI’s flagship publication. Visit modernagejournal.com [ [link removed] ] and subscribe to receive a free daily newsletter.
“Defeat? I do not recognise the meaning of the word.”
– Margaret Thatcher
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