‘A husband expects a yes’: wife schools and the Christian nationalist movement

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Today in Focus — The Guardian
Episode: “A husband expects a yes: wife schools and the Christian nationalist movement”
Date: June 1, 2026
Host: Annie Kelly
Guests: Elena Demopolis (Guardian features writer), Mariah Wellman (Michigan State University, social media/influencer researcher)

---

Episode Overview

This episode investigates the growing trend of “wife schools” run by Christian conservative influencers instructing women to be more submissive in their marriages. Through the story of Tilly Dillahay and her “wife school,” the Guardian explores how these online spaces push traditional gender roles, who is behind their amplification, and how this movement is tied into the broader Christian nationalist project—with consequences for women’s rights and the political landscape.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Wife School” Phenomenon

• Discovery & First Impressions

  • Guardian writer Elena Demopolis recounts coming across an ad for an online “wife school” while scrolling TikTok. The school is run by Tilly Dillahay, a pastor’s wife from Tennessee (01:05–01:45).
  • Dillahay’s approach is informal but purposeful, giving “womanly wisdom” that feels familiar but ultimately instructs women to submit to their husbands (01:58–02:40).
  • The course is pitched as a solution for wives seeking marital happiness, especially if their marriages have lost “the spark” or experienced infidelity (05:12).

• Core Teachings and Curriculum

  • Central message: If there’s a problem in your marriage, it’s your responsibility to change yourself to please your husband (06:12–07:45).
  • “Mastering the art of zipping it”—essentially, teaching women “how to shut up” and not challenge or contradict their husbands (06:35–06:55).
  • Women are discouraged from speaking for their husbands or correcting them, even in minor social situations (06:56).
  • Homework includes reframing complaints as positives—e.g., viewing a husband’s controlling behavior as “wanting to spend time” (08:07).

  “Everything kind of kept coming back to, if there is a problem in your marriage, it is because of you.”
  —Elena Demopolis (07:12)

  • “In the bedroom,” wives are told sex is a duty:

    “A husband expects a yes in the bedroom … even if you’re not feeling it, sometimes you just have to do it. She has this analogy that sex is like pizza. When it’s good, it’s really good, and even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.”
    —Elena Demopolis (08:51)

2. Underlying Dangers and Abuse

• The messaging leaves no room for negotiation or mutual counseling, instead prescribing submission—no matter the circumstances.

• Survivor testimony (Tia Levings) points to how this ideology provides cover for spousal abuse and marital rape (09:50).

  “It’s bastardizing language of the scripture to justify men being able to do whatever they want to women and sometimes in incredibly heinous ways.”
  —Elena Demopolis (10:18)

3. The Larger Network and Ideological Backers

• Tilly Dillahay’s Background and Ties

  • Dillahay is not just a grassroots figure—she is published and amplified by Canon Press, owned by Doug Wilson, a central Christian nationalist leader who opposes women’s suffrage (12:38–13:34).
  • Wilson has described the women’s vote as a mistake, arguing that decisions should belong to the head of the household—i.e., the husband (13:34).

• Influence and Political Connections

  • Doug Wilson is closely connected to US defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and his rhetoric on “holy war” influences contemporary right-wing politics (13:47–14:58).

• Strategic Amplification

  • Dillahay's teachings offer a “more palatable” female face for Christian nationalist messages that encourage women’s subordination, making overt misogyny appear more legitimate (16:18).

  “When you hear it coming from a woman, it can’t be misogynistic, because a woman is saying it…”
  —Elena Demopolis (16:58)

4. The Rise and Reach of Female Christian Conservative Influencers

• Mariah Wellman’s Research

  • Wellman outlines how Christian female influencers surged in prominence after COVID-19 by leveraging social media strategies and aligning with MAGA ideology (17:32–18:08).
  • These messages appeal to women’s desire for community and validation, and position conservative Christians as a persecuted group globally (18:31).

• Global and Subtle Spread

  • Wife schools and similar courses are growing outside the US, including the UK, using themes of victimhood and supposed loss to “marginalized others” (18:31–19:04).
  • Although couched in “wellness” or lifestyle language, the underlying narratives are anti-feminist and pro-male dominance (19:18–22:34).

• Household Voting and Anti-Suffrage Movements

  • The movement is increasingly explicit about rolling back women's rights, including calls for the repeal of women's suffrage and proposals for “household voting” (20:29–20:33).
  • Notable quote from Doug Wilson:

    “When women were granted the right to vote … we were, in fact, taking it away from families.” (13:34)

5. “Cuteservatives” and Political Power

• Key Players

  • Alex Clark (“Cuteservatives” and Culture Apothecary podcast), Erica Kirk, Katie Miller (Stephen Miller’s wife), and others are prominent “cuteservatives” repackaging traditionalism in non-threatening, relatable forms (21:02–21:38).
  • These influencers are adept at tailoring messages to different platforms and demographics (21:51–22:49).

• Political Impact

  • The hosts stress the real-world impact: even relatively small influencer communities (tens of thousands of followers) can decisively sway close elections (23:55–26:35).
  • The presence of women promoting regressive views “makes everyone else feel like these messages are okay,” normalizing this ideology online and offline (25:17).

  “If we don’t take them seriously, it may be too late.”
  —Mariah Wellman (26:30)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Marital Submission:

  “You have jumped on the back of a tandem bicycle, and he’s on the front of that bicycle because God put him there. And your job is to pedal with all of your might and to learn how to lean with him.”
  —Tilly Dillahay (05:45)

• On Disempowerment of Wives:

  “How to shut up. Basically. Yeah. How to shut up.”
  —Elena Demopolis (06:44–06:55)

• On Abuse and Scriptural Justification:

  “You just have these awful first person stories about full out spousal abuse, full out marital rape that is happening and it is justified because these women are taught … it’s your like godly duty as a wife.”
  —Elena Demopolis (09:50–10:18)

• On Rescinding Women’s Suffrage:

  “I would support that. And I’d support it on the basis that the atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.”
  —Doug Wilson (20:33)

• On Female Influencers’ Political Role:

  “If influencers had no power, they wouldn’t exist… a hundred thousand votes is somebody’s online audience. And so that matters.”
  —Mariah Wellman (23:55–25:17)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:58] — Tilly Dillahay introduces her “wife school”
• [01:14] — “Proactive submission” and pitching leadership to husbands
• [03:09] — Elena’s first red flag: “If you’re gonna suffer, suffer as a righteous woman”
• [05:45] — Dillahay’s tandem bike analogy for marriage roles
• [06:35] — The core of the curriculum: “mastering the art of zipping it”
• [08:07–08:48] — “Bedroom reset” and the expectation wives should always say yes to sex
• [09:50] — First-person stories of abuse justified by these teachings
• [13:34] — Doug Wilson’s opposition to women’s suffrage
• [16:18–16:58] — Why having female messengers is so powerful for the movement
• [18:31] — Global spread and perceived persecution narratives
• [19:18] — Connection to anti-abortion, “household voting,” and creeping policy influence
• [21:02–21:38] — Introduction of “cuteservatives”
• [22:34] — Alex Clark and the repackaging of anti-feminist rhetoric
• [25:17] — Why the mainstreaming of these ideas is so dangerous

---

Conclusion

This episode draws a direct line from seemingly soft, feminine influencer culture to hard-right Christian nationalist ideology, exposing how submission doctrines, attacks on women’s rights, and insular online communities are being mainstreamed via social media. Through in-depth interviews and real examples, the Guardian highlights both the personal and political stakes, warning of the growing influence—and real-world impact—of these “wife schools” and their figureheads.

---

For further reading: Find Elena Demopolis’s reporting at The Guardian website.

[End of content summary]

Transcript

[Annie Kelly]

This is the Guardian. Today. The rise of Christian conservative influencers Teaching women to be submissive.

[Mariah Wellman]

Today's markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Through Sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis,

[Alex Clark]

our leading experts analyze key market themes each week.

[Mariah Wellman]

So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp, stay brief. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tilly Dillahay]

I'm just your average little small town pastor's wife. We're reformed Baptist like we're, we're not

[Annie Kelly]

known for our One morning Guardian feature writer Elena Demopolis was drinking her coffee and scrolling through TikTok when something caught her eye.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Calling this proactive submission. This is where we're actually going to be pitching leadership opportunities to our husbands

[Elena Demopolis]

and giving and she is promising you that if you have lost your way in your marriage, if your husband isn't paying the attention that you want him to, she has the answer for you. And you will find it in the six week class that she is selling you.

[Annie Kelly]

It was an ad for an online school for wives. She was intrigued, so she paid the $17 and signed up.

[Elena Demopolis]

She's sitting on the ground and it's really informal like you would maybe be talking with a friend.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Oh, hi there. Let's talk about the honor of attention.

[Elena Demopolis]

This is a really easy. She speaks pretty softly. You get the sense that she has probably done this type of talk in a church somewhere with other wives in

[Tilly Dillahay]

real life and show them that you're listening, that you're glad to see them. This is the kind of thing you can do with your husband when he comes home or just when he walks into the room to tell you something.

[Annie Kelly]

The woman was called Tilly Dillehay, one of a raft of Christian conservative women building online businesses by promising women that they can find happiness if they would only follow a few simple rules.

[Elena Demopolis]

She has amazing eye contact with the camera, which might sound silly, but it's really, really easy to feel like she is giving you this kind of womanly wisdom that you get from your girlfriends, right?

[Annie Kelly]

And underneath the soft furnishings and the cozy girl talk, the rules are clear. Stay at home, submit to your husband.

[Elena Demopolis]

I think the first thing that really got me, and she says this pretty early on, is if you're gonna suffer, suffer as a righteous woman. And that I think was the first, the first sign that something here was off because she doesn't actually want to make women's lives better. She just wants to make women more palatable for their husbands and their church communities.

[Annie Kelly]

What kind of a world are these influencers helping to build and who will really benefit from the Guardian? I'm Annie Kelly. Today in Focus. The rise of the wife school and who is really behind them. Alana Demopolis, you are a features writer for the Guardian, based in New York. Welcome to Today in Focus.

[Elena Demopolis]

Thank you so much, Annie.

[Annie Kelly]

So we are here today to talk about your recent foray into the world of wife schools. So tell us, why did you sign up?

[Elena Demopolis]

I mean, how can you not be just intrigued by, by the idea of wife school? I'm a single woman. I don't have a husband, and I'm not trying to be a good wife. But I think that there is a lot happening right now in the conservative Christian womenosphere and, and how these influencers are, are speaking to women and trying to mold women into these kind of ideal, picture perfect, Stepford fundamentalist Christian wives. That is really intriguing to me. Just the idea of just teaching submission in this obvious of a way was really shocking to me and obviously very terrifying, but it definitely made me want to learn a little bit more. So I signed up for this class with Tilly Dillahay. I wanted to know what they were teaching women because I didn't know if it would literally be, you know, this is how you fold your laundry or something, or if it was more substantial than that.

[Annie Kelly]

And who was the course marketed to? Was it single women? Was it women who were still married?

[Elena Demopolis]

It was marketed to wives. And it's not going to teach you how to find a husband. It's assuming you already have a husband. It's assuming you have a husband, probably some kids, and it's assuming that the spark has gone from your marriage. It's never explicitly said, but I kind of got the assumption sometimes that she might be speaking to women who are dealing with, like, a recent infidelity with their husband. Because it's really kind of how to sort of, if. If your man has, you know, withdrawn, here's how to kind of grab him back.

[Tilly Dillahay]

And that is what being a woman married to a man is like. You have jumped on the back of a tandem bicycle, and he's on the front of that bicycle because God put him there. And your job is to pedal with all of your might and to learn how to lean with him.

[Annie Kelly]

Do you have any idea of how popular these courses are or how many women have been attending them?

[Elena Demopolis]

So according to Tilly Dillahay, 700 women have signed up for this class, 700 women, is not a ton, but it's also not nothing, especially considering Tilly Dillahy. Her reach is still somewhat small. She has around 11,000 followers on Instagram. So it's not nothing.

[Annie Kelly]

So tell us a bit about what you were taught at Tilly's wife school. Can you take us through her curriculum?

[Elena Demopolis]

Basically, very early on in the course, she says something about mastering the art of zipping it, which just means shutting up.

[Annie Kelly]

Wow.

[Elena Demopolis]

And that is kind of, if you don't take anything away from this class, that's the only thing. That's basically what this class is. It tells you how to shut up. Basically. Yeah. How to shut up.

[Annie Kelly]

Yeah.

[Elena Demopolis]

How to shut up.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Number two, speaking for him, this is interrupting the story about how you met because he's telling it wrong. Stereotype for a reason. Answering the waitress's question about his order. I don't know how many women actually do that, but if you do, if you're doing that, please stop. It's.

[Elena Demopolis]

I mean, she goes through a lot of different, you know, resets. She tells you how to reset in the way that you talk to your husband. You know, you're supposed to be building him up instead of nagging and complaining. Everything kind of kept coming back to, if there is a problem in your marriage, it is because of you. And if you want to fix something in your marriage, you have to change something about yourself. There's absolutely no negotiation. There's no kind of like counseling, you know, couples counseling to be found here. It's really teaching women just how to make themselves smaller and smaller and smaller.

[Annie Kelly]

You said that this was like a multi part course. Are women supposed to kind of go through this course and do one module and move on to the next? Is it a whole kind of experience of how, of how to be a better wife and a better person?

[Elena Demopolis]

So she sketches it out, suggesting that you take that there's six lessons. And she kind of says, do a lesson a week. And she gives you homework.

[Annie Kelly]

What was your homework?

[Elena Demopolis]

What my favorite favorite in scare quotes homework was if there's something that you don't like about your husband. Instead of saying, I don't like it when you blank, rephrase it. That says you do blank because you. And then make it a positive thing so you can say, I don't like it when he tells me that I can't go out with my girlfriends. But you're supposed to reframe it to be like, he tells me not to go out with my girlfriends because he wants to spend Time with me. She talks about resets in the bedroom, which is a really kind of awful part of the chorus where she is telling you that your husband expects sex and a yes for sex. And sometimes you just gotta do it, even if you don't want to.

[Annie Kelly]

Can you talk us through that? Because that sounds pretty, pretty dark.

[Elena Demopolis]

Yeah, it was. She says that a husband expects a yes in the bedroom if he asks you for sex. You kind of have to submit. She did tell me in an email she did not wanna speak to me over the phone, but she did email me and say, you know, obviously if a man is raping his wife, that's not good. But she, she basically says even if you're not feeling it, sometimes you just have to do it. She has this analogy that sex is like pizza. When it's good, it's really good, and even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. Which is not a great thing to tell a wife.

[Annie Kelly]

It kind of raises some troubling questions then, doesn't it, about how this message might translate to women in abusive relationships or this idea that if you give up your economic independence, you may not be able to leave a marriage. Has anyone been thinking about how that might affect the levels of abuse within these marriages?

[Elena Demopolis]

I spoke to one woman, Tia Levings, who is an ex fundamentalist Christian and now she's a writer and she also counsels women who are leaving that church. You just have these awful first person stories about full out spousal abuse, full out marital rape that is happening and it is justified because these women are taught, you know, you're, you're there for your husband, you're there to please him. This is your like godly duty as a wife. It's bastardizing language of like the scripture to justify men being able to do whatever they want to women and sometimes in incredibly heinous ways.

[Annie Kelly]

So let's talk about Tilly, Tilly Dillahay. What do we know about her? Who is she?

[Elena Demopolis]

Yeah, she's a, she's a millennial. She's in her mid-30s, she lives in Tennessee. She talks about, not necessarily in wife school, but on YouTube. She talks about growing up religious but kind of falling out with the faith. And then her husband is, who is a pastor, is the person who kind of brought her back into it. She's a full time mom, she homeschools her kids. She used to be a journalist. She worked at a small town newspaper before she was married. And she does reference that in wife school. She sort of says, you know, change Change the headlines of your life.

[Abigail Dodds]

Welcome to Home Fires. I'm Abigail Dodds, and I'm here with Tilly Dillahay, infamous Guardian article subject.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Oh, my goodness.

[Elena Demopolis]

Going right in there.

[Annie Kelly]

Yeah.

[Elena Demopolis]

Well, interestingly, Tilly Dillahay did go on her podcast to talk a little bit about how she felt about our wife school piece.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Just to have a clear moment where you're like, okay, the world really hates our life. Like, your life, my life, most. Like many of the people listening, the world hates what you do.

[Elena Demopolis]

But then she also said, I mean, again, another thing I maybe selfishly found sort of interesting was that she hoped that the piece's writer, being me, might kind of think, well, Tilly's very happy. Why is she happy?

[Abigail Dodds]

The writing is on the wall. Things aren't good. Like women are unhappy. If you achieve the feminist dream, you will be miserable. And I really just hope and pray that the woman who wrote it, or even people who read it, get curious. Why? Why did she seem happy? Like, what is that right?

[Elena Demopolis]

But I did find it kind of amusing that she hoped that was sort of her silver lining of what would happen.

[Annie Kelly]

So after your experience at Tilly Dillahaye's wife school, you started looking into her background, and can you tell me where that led you?

[Elena Demopolis]

So Tilly Dillahaye, she again, sort of presents herself as this independent creator, this stay at home mom, and this is sort of the side business for her. But she is actually signed to a publisher, Canon Press, which is owned by Doug Wilson, who is quite a major figure in conservative Christian circles in the

[Doug Wilson]

US So I'm willing to be a Christian nationalist because. Okay, because I prefer that phrase to the phrase I usually get called. What do you get?

[Elena Demopolis]

What do you usually get called?

[Doug Wilson]

White supremacist, white supremacist, slave advocate, racist.

[Elena Demopolis]

He has spent the past 50 years in a small town in Idaho trying to build this theocracy that is incredibly backwards. He has expressed pro Confederacy views. He does not believe that women should vote.

[Doug Wilson]

When women were granted the right to vote, the nation had already accepted the lie that a nation is nothing more than a collection of individuals. We were so muddled. We thought we were giving the franchise to women when we were, in fact, taking it away from families.

[Annie Kelly]

And just how politically influential is he?

[Elena Demopolis]

So Doug Wilson is the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth's pastor to include

[Podcast Narrator (99% Invisible)]

this service here in this place where many different things were worshiped for a very long time. So I just want to. Just.

[Elena Demopolis]

Pastor, I want to thank you for everything you've contributed. And in recent months, Hegseth has invited Doug to pray at the Pentagon.

[Doug Wilson]

Let's pray together again. Our Father and God, Lord of heaven and Earth, we pray to you.

[Elena Demopolis]

And that's drawn a lot of headlines because it is sort of a rather unorthodox move for a pastor of a secretary of defense to go speak at the Pentagon. There's been a lot of rhetoric from Hegseth sort of justifying its current conflicts in Iran and the Middle east sort of as like a holy war. And a lot of that rhetoric, it seems like, comes from Doug Wilson, who is a very Christian nationalist figure, sort of believes that the US should, quote, unquote, return to its roots as a Christian nation.

[Doug Wilson]

I'd like to see the town be a Christian town. Like to see this the state be a Christian state. I'd like to see the nation be a Christian nation. I'd like to see the world be a Christian world.

[Annie Kelly]

And how connected is he to Tilly Dillahay?

[Doug Wilson]

Well, it's good to have Tilly Dillehay here with us. Welcome to Moscow.

[Tilly Dillahay]

Thanks.

[Doug Wilson]

Welcome to this little video clip, whatever it is. Tilly is the author of Going on

[Elena Demopolis]

Three books, so he's sort of in the background. Tilly's done a few appearances on his

[Doug Wilson]

podcast, and this upcoming book that Cannon is going to be releasing, the working title is the Hemlock Letters, which sounds.

[Elena Demopolis]

But her connection to him isn't really broadcast out there. You kind of have to dig a little bit or be a little curious about who she is to find this out. So while she presents herself as this independent figure, he is promoting her through his publishing. I don't think he's throwing buckets of money at her, but her message and her books and her podcasts and wife school gain a larger audience because it is part of this platform that he owns and that has such a big audience through him.

[Annie Kelly]

And why. Why would Doug Wilson want to be helping Tilly Dillahay with her wife school? What's in it for him?

[Elena Demopolis]

She's someone who, in her very friendly, subtle way, is preaching, you know, that women should be submissive to their husband and that they should go along with the family unit and what their husbands want. And I think that's incredibly in line with the worldview that Doug Wilson has. You know, again, we said he doesn't believe women should vote. He believes that all of the decisions should be made by the head of the household, which means the man. So, you know, she is a more palatable person to present all of this. Information because she's this well spoken, very friendly, affable woman. And I think that also gives credence and legitimizes some of the misogyny, because when you hear it coming from a woman, it can't be misogynistic because a woman is saying it, as opposed to someone like Doug Wilson.

[Annie Kelly]

Mariah Wellman, you are an assistant professor at Michigan State University and also an expert in social media influences. I just wondered how much you have been charting the rise of these female conservative influencers in all of their many different forms.

[Mariah Wellman]

Thank you, Annie. It's a pleasure to be here.

[Elena Demopolis]

It's nice to meet you.

[Mariah Wellman]

I have been studying social media influencers for a decade now, but specifically the sort of Christian white woman influencer has really been something that I've been interested in in the last five to six years. So, you know, following Covid, we saw this large rise in the number of Christian women specifically related to make America Great again. And Donald Trump's push for his second term utilizing the COVID 19 pandemic as an opportunity to sort of increase their visibility, their popularity.

[Annie Kelly]

And I myself went into my own wife course here in the uk we seem to have a kind of growing surge of these online courses that are also popping up over here. And I just wonder if you seen the popularity of those kind of courses and that kind of message, like spread out from the MAGA movement, spread even outside the US into other countries and other kind of spheres as well.

[Mariah Wellman]

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, one of the primary messages of Christian nationalists today is that they are the ones who are persecuted and oppressed across the globe. Right. These white Christian women and men are ultimately the ones who are the victims of our contemporary society. And they are somehow losing as all of these other marginalized folks begin to win. Right. And so what ends up happening is these messages spread globally because this sort of idea goes well beyond the United States. And you can find these women within seconds.

[Annie Kelly]

And a lot of these women don't appear to be political at all. They don't have overtly political messages. But how is this movement playing into power and politics in the US at this particular moment in time?

[Mariah Wellman]

One of the, you know, most recent real life examples here in the United States is we're seeing this conversation again around household voting as a potential move forward. Right. So most of those folks who are in the sort of Christian nationalist community, they are all pro life, anti abortion, et cetera. They are also huge proponents of household voting, where every household gets one vote. And if you are already in agreement that your husband's opinion is what matters most. At the end of the day, that means it's your husband's vote. And if you are not married, that means it's your father's vote. And so the primary man in the household will be the one voting in the United States that will end up being majority white men having, you know, the say in every political election at the end of the day. And that is a real concern here in the United States.

[Annie Kelly]

It's kind of wild, isn't it, from the outside to see these incredibly regressive messages. And it's not just about household voting. Now got people coming out, men and women on mainstream TV channels calling for women's right to vote to be rescinded completely.

[Elena Demopolis]

There are some who have gone so far as to say that they want

[Tilly Dillahay]

the 19th amendment repealed.

[Doug Wilson]

I would support that. And I'd support it on the basis that the atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.

[Annie Kelly]

And how much do you think this new wave of very high profile conservative women, which I think have been called cuteservatives, I think in some circles in the states, spreading these really regressive views about women's rights and their own rights by default. Could you tell us who they are and who are the kind of main players in this movement?

[Mariah Wellman]

Conservatives, to my knowledge, was a term coined by one of the most popular women in this movement. Her name's Alex Clark. She's a member of Turning Point usa, which was founded by Charlie Kirk. She's a fantastic example when we're talking about how they spread these sort of regressive views in a way that is almost not too harsh and not at risk of alienating certain women who aren't sure what they believe.

[Alex Clark]

Growing up, all I heard as a girl was how much harder women have it in America. It's funny, I'm hearing one thing, but I'm seeing another. It's completely so.

[Mariah Wellman]

Alex Clark runs a podcast called Culture Apothecary.

[Alex Clark]

In fact, they don't want you to know this, but Christianity has the power to overcome toxic behavior in men and reconcile the sexes. An unexpected finding that has stood up to rigorous empirical testing. This week's guest has a lot.

[Mariah Wellman]

And what she does is she talks a lot about wellness and well being, which is very much in alignment with Make America Great Again, Make America Healthy Again, and Trump's sort of connection to our Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And so she is non threatening. She talks about topics in a really particular interesting way that again, Cues people into particular political values. Right. She is anti abortion, pro life, but she hardly ever talks about it outright. And also, these cute servatives, especially influencers like Alex Clark, are very smart and they understand who their audience is on every single platform. So she understands who listens to her podcast, she understands who's following her on Instagram.

[Alex Clark]

Our right to do what we want to our own body doesn't supersede another human being's right. The argument of it's my body, my choice ends when you harm someone else's life.

[Annie Kelly]

Coming up, just how much power do these cuteservatives have?

[Podcast Narrator (99% Invisible)]

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a brand new podcast from 99% Invisible in BBC Studios. Each week we're looking at a different object from across American history with a unique story to tell about who we've been, what we've built, and what we've allowed ourselves to forget. Some of these objects are well known, many are not. But all of them carry the story of how we got to this moment. Find a history of the United States and 100 objects on the 99% invisible feed. Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Annie Kelly]

You've got Alex Clark, but you've also got Erica Kirk, Katie Miller, Stephen Miller's wife. But how powerful are these women politically in the States at the moment?

[Mariah Wellman]

Yeah, they're incredibly powerful. I always like to tell people that if influencers had no power, they wouldn't exist. Right. And every vote matters from a political perspective. Never let yourself be in a position

[Elena Demopolis]

where you can't support yourself and don't rely on a man. Those that was ingrained in me. But this is how amazing God is. When you meet the right man, everything shifts, everything changes. When I met Charlie, that was it. I could care less about the career.

[Mariah Wellman]

And therefore, if 100,000 people are following somebody like Erica Kirk and they decide to vote in alignment with her, that can make an impact on our society, on our leadership, on the direction of our country. And so they are incredibly prolific. And it's not just a numbers game here. I think a lot of people like to play that game where they say, you know, well, they only have X amount of followers, so therefore they are not, you know, as valuable. I don't really believe in that. Right. I think there are more qualitative metrics we can use when we're talking about who these women are and the impact that they're having.

[Annie Kelly]

How important is it for the right, for the far right, to have women like this very publicly being shop fronts for Their messages.

[Mariah Wellman]

Yeah, it's. It's incredibly important for the far right to have these women who are willing to sort of lay themselves on the line and share these messages publicly. Because what it does is it makes everyone else feel like these messages are okay. And if somebody who is on social media sees Erica Kirk or Alex Clark or Ali Beth Stuckey make a particular comment online publicly, then they feel it's okay to make that same comment in their mom group or in line at school pickup. And that's how the messages begin to spread, right? The community, the word of mouth, both digitally and in your everyday lived experience. That has a lot of power. If we look at specifically in the United States the past three elections and how close those elections are, we're talking hundreds of thousands of votes in certain states, a hundred thousand votes is somebody's online audience. And so that matters, right? That matters. And so even if it seems trivial at the time, in my opinion, it is very much not. And I don't think that we can overplay or overstate the influence of many of these women. And we need to take it seriously, because if we don't take them seriously, it may be too late.

[Annie Kelly]

Mariah, thank you so much. Fascinating, if not slightly terrifying conversation. So thank you so much for your time today.

[Mariah Wellman]

Thank you, Annie.

[Elena Demopolis]

I appreciate it.

[Annie Kelly]

And that's it for today. My thanks to Elena Demopolis and Mariah Wellman and you can read all of Elena's [e-mail] this episode was produced by Hannah Aden and presented by me, Annie Kelly. Sound design was by Ross Burns and the executive producers were Elizabeth Casson and Homa Khalili. We'll be back later this afternoon with the latest. This is the Guardian.

[Podcast Narrator (99% Invisible)]

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a brand new podcast from 99% Invisible and BBC Studios. Each week we're looking at a different object from across American history with a unique story to tell about who we've been, what we've built, and what we've allowed ourselves to forget. Some of these objects are well known, many are not. But all of them carry the story of how we got to this moment. Find a history of the United States and 100 objects on the 99% invisible feed. Wherever you get your podcasts,