It feels like we’ve been preparing for this one for years. We’ve talked about nap dresses and mom bodies. We’ve talked about the fear of losing your selfhood in motherhood. We’ve talked about egg-freezing and IVF. We’ve talked about the way that parenthood and non-parenthood are treated on both the left and the right. And now it’s time for all of these threads to merge together into a mega-discourse, thanks to Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman and Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance.

A preternaturally beautiful, homesteading momfluencer and an alt-right weirdo with the face of a socially-awkward 14-year-old (and an unsettling obsession with punishing childfree women) may seem like odd cultural bedfellows. But, as Claire put it, if Ballerina Farm is the trad honey trap who makes the pro-natalist lifestyle look romantic and joyful, JD Vance is the trad boot heel of the state who aspires to grind down upon all the childfree women in America until they’re barefoot and pregnant in their egg aprons.

Note: We recorded this episode last Wednesday, so some of the post-show updates we discuss may have evolved!

“Love Island USA” did its big one this season. (Like so much of “Love Island” lingo… if you know you know. Soul Ties is craaaaaazy!)

Emma was curious what was behind the show becoming such a mainstream phenomenon now, six seasons in. So she recruited “Love Island” aficianado and the author of the superb Nightcap newsletter, Laura Bassett, to school her on the show’s history, and analyze Leah and Rob’s star power, Serena and Kordell’s rom-com arc, and what made season 6 so special. Hope you enjoy!

“The Bear,” everyone’s favorite drama-with-just-enough-jokes-to-get-awards-nominations-as-a-comedy, which follows a tortured-genius chef who heads back to Chicago to take over his brother’s Italian beef sandwich shop, has released its third season. In this podcast, we discuss what happened (and didn’t) this season, the critical backlash, our own initial reactions to season 3, how the repetitiveness and stagnation of the season might serve a purpose in its artistic project, and where “The Bear” could go from here. And despite how this may sound, we had a lot of fun with this one! We hope you enjoy. xo

Emma and Adam are engaged! Claire interviews Emma all about the proposal, and then they both discuss the feelings on surprise proposals, traditional wedding traditions and how their feelings about marriage interact with their feminist values. (Bonus: Claire talks about her proposal story!)

Watching Netflix’s new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders docuseries, “America’s Sweethearts,” is like diving under the water to check out what a swan’s feet are doing as she glides elegantly across a glassy pond. The frantic but hidden exertion underneath, all in service of creating an apparently effortless movement forward, becomes suddenly, jarringly visible once you peer under the surface of the water. That’s the ultimate challenge of meeting the traditional high-feminine ideal: The work, no matter how demanding, must expand to include the work of making itself invisible. A Dallas Cowboys cheerleader is an elite athlete, a brand ambassador, a pageant-ready beauty, a sex symbol and an ever-ready helping hand. She works tirelessly and accepts the meager pay as an honor. She also makes it all look easy. It’s part of the job.

In this episode, we dug into the labor exploitation of it all, focusing on the devaluation of women’s work and the expectation that women will demonstrate their virtue through a willingness to donate time and effort. We also discuss the rigid beauty standards and casual objectification faced by the cheerleaders, and the upholding of a very specific feminine ideal through this brand. Hope you enjoy! xo

Reading the comments on The Cut’s Instagram page is not for the faint of heart. Things tend to get weird and heated and even more weird, but sometimes they also get interesting, like they did after writer Shannon Keating wrote an essay about her confused ambivalence about having children.

The piece ran with the e…

Dearest gentle readers, the end of Polin season is upon us at last, bringing with it relief from weepy eyes and gasping breaths. Colin and Penelope’s love story climaxes in several senses during these final four episodes: with a declaration of love, with a long-awaited sex scene featuring a mirror, with his discovery of Penelope’s nom de plume, and with his eventual acceptance of her full self. Oh, and they get married. (Details, details.)

But alongside the story of their friendship and love growing deeper and more complete, this season is telling another story: the story of how an intrepid gossip girlboss gaslights and gatekeeps her way to the top.

Bravo shows tend to be their most interesting and most depressing when we’re watching something dissolve, whether that’s a longterm relationship or the remaining space between reality TV cast members and their audience.

“The Valley,” “Summer House” and “Vanderpump Rules” all ended their seasons with something fundamental shatt…

The great rom-com stars make it look easy. Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore: When they fall in love on-screen, their charm pulls us in and the transparency of their emotions enables us to feel every moment of yearning and every thrill just as their characters do. But a rom-com lead can also, we recently discovered, turn in such a limp performance that it makes the sheer difficulty of being a rom-com lead obvious. Sydney Sweeney is a good actress, and she was surely trying to put in a rousing performance as the female lead ofthe recent film “Anyone But You.” It just doesn’t work.

Dearest gentle reader…

In the words of our dear gossip-monger Lady Whistledown, “Diamonds are not the only gems that sparkle.” On this season of “Bridgerton,” we are given an emerald, in the form of a no-longer-citrus-clad Penelope Featherington. The former wallflower is in full bloom, catching the eyes of both naturalist Lo…