The future is neither girl-boss nor online trad-wife, and it’s no coincidence that “Lead Like Jael” and the left’s blockbuster novel “Yesteryear” both ask “what’s next?”
As I explore in
@firstthingsmag, “But if the support doesn’t come from wise older women and strong godly husbands, government will increasingly step in.
Burke senses this, telling Lizzy Goodman of the New York Times, “We were all sold a bill of false goods, and that’s true for conservative women and it’s true for liberal women. . . . The point of the book is not that one wins.” When asked by Hanna Rosin on Radio Atlanticwhat comes next, Burke answered: “If you don’t wanna be a girlboss or a tradwife, what’s the option? And the option is Marxism.”
Zohran Mamdani’s Marxism, to be precise—the kind that attracted over 80 percent of the under-thirty female vote in the 2025 mayoral election.
Still, it strikes me that no political framework addresses the loneliness, pride, or spiritual vacancy that Natalie embodies so viscerally, and that so many readers recognize in themselves.”