Following Charlie Kirk’s tragic assassination, a succession plan he had shared with Turning Point USA executives was swiftly enacted. This past Wednesday, Erika Kirk was unanimously elected as the new chief executive and chair of the board for the prominent conservative organization.
In her initial public statements after her husband’s passing, Mrs. Kirk vowed to not only uphold but strengthen the organization’s mission. She assured followers that the established campus tours, along with new ones, would continue, and that Mr. Kirk’s popular radio and podcast programs would also forge ahead.
“I promise,” she declared, “I’ll make Turning Point USA the biggest thing that this nation has ever seen.”
For many years, Erika Kirk stood beside her husband, consistently promoting marriage and motherhood as priorities above career aspirations. At a 2021 Turning Point event, she notably stated that “boss babe culture is completely antithetical to the gospel.” Just this past June, she shared a stage with her husband at a women’s leadership summit where he controversially suggested that every woman should “submit to a godly man.”
Erika Kirk is part of a growing cohort of conservative women carving out influential careers and public profiles, all while advocating a singular message: urging young women to prioritize marriage and family life over ambitious public careers. This message is clearly finding significant traction at political rallies, through popular partisan podcasts, and across large Instagram communities.
To many observers, this presents a fascinating paradox, almost an optical illusion in rhetoric. One moment, a clear political stance is presented, and the next, with a subtle shift, an entirely different narrative emerges.
American women have historically navigated this challenging dichotomy. Feminist writer Andrea Dworkin, in her book “Right-Wing Women,” detailed her experience at the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston amidst the intense battle over the Equal Rights Amendment. She noted that anti-feminist leader Phyllis Schlafly hosted a parallel convention nearby, describing Schlafly as a remarkable woman who, regardless of ideology, perceived herself as an equal among men.
Dworkin posited that Schlafly’s true ambition might have been to leverage women as a political base to gain access to the highest ranks of male conservative leadership. Dworkin’s works, incidentally, have seen a resurgence in popularity, finding a new audience among Gen Z readers following their reissue this year.
Schlafly, on the other hand, contended that feminist leaders were inadvertently cultivating a victim mentality in women, asserting that “self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.”
This “womanosphere”—a collective of right-leaning podcasts aimed at young women, mirroring the online “manosphere”—is now populated with numerous figures who echo Schlafly’s approach.
Prominent examples include Katie Miller, wife of former Trump aide Stephen Miller, who left her position as Elon Musk’s Washington operative to launch a podcast centered on wellness and parenting, largely sidestepping politics. Similarly, Jessica Reed Kraus transitioned her personal narratives on motherhood into a significant role within the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, a cause that has gained influence within the Trump administration through Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Brett Cooper, a newer presence on Fox News, shared at a June Turning Point USA event that she had deliberately reduced her popular YouTube show from ten episodes a week to just two. While acknowledging this decision capped her earning potential, it allowed her to prioritize the impending birth of her son—a sentiment met with an enthusiastic cheer from the audience. Cooper deftly navigates between championing a traditional wife lifestyle and critiquing it, encouraging her fanbase to pursue meaningful work while simultaneously suggesting that feminism had misled women by overemphasizing career above all else.
Cooper recounted her experiences meeting young women on tour: “I’ve had the opportunity to meet such incredible young girls—young women who at my age are stay-at-home moms and already have a couple of kids,” she told the gathering. She shared a recent anecdote: “A young woman told me just a couple days ago that she had dropped out of medical school so that she could prioritize finding a job and a career that would offer her the flexibility to have the family that she wanted.”
Echoing this sentiment, Alex Clark, host of Turning Point USA’s “Culture Apothecary” podcast, revealed in an interview that she would readily trade her impressive career accomplishments for marriage and children.
“I’m very proud of all my accomplishments—I’ve gotten to do some amazing things, testify at the Senate with R.F.K.,” stated Ms. Clark, whose podcast consistently ranks among the top health podcasts and whose public appearances draw crowds eager for selfies. She concluded, “I would give all this up tomorrow. If someone said, ‘Okay, here’s your choice: you can keep all this or have marriage and kids,’ I would say, ‘I’m taking marriage and kids, bye.'”
Erika Kirk is scheduled to deliver her inaugural public address as the new leader of the organization her husband founded, a poignant moment set to occur at Mr. Kirk’s funeral this Sunday, amidst the very circumstances that propelled her into this role.
Shortly after her husband’s death, she posted a defiant message to her six million Instagram followers: “They have no idea what they just ignited within this wife.”