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        <title>Evie Magazine</title>
        <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com</link>
        <description>
          Focusing on women and celebrating what makes them so unique, Evie Magazine helps women seek truth and find beauty...the kind that really matters.
        </description>
        <language>en-us</language>
        <copyright>© 2021 Evie Magazine</copyright>
        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:09:05 GMT</pubDate>
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          <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com</link>
          <title>Evie Magazine</title>
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      <title><![CDATA[Why Is the Media So Obsessed With Seeing Beautiful Women Fail?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/why-is-the-media-so-obsessed-with-seeing-beautiful-women-fail</link>
      <dc:creator>Jaimee Marshall</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Each decade has a distinct aesthetic, feel, and philosophy that pretty predictably swings for the opposite ethos of the preceding decade. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Carl Jung called this tendency for extremes to eventually turn into their opposite over time, “ enantiodromia ,” a way of restoring balance. We see this constantly throughout fashion, aesthetic, culture, politics, and social views. If thin is in today, thick will be in tomorrow, and so it goes with just about everything. If the 2010s were a heyday for girlboss feminism, sex positivity, and celebrating girl power, then the 2020s have lived up to their expected corrective forces of antagonism, with a return to sex negativity, renewed interest in traditional gender roles, and a media that delights in tearing women down. Not just any women, though; ones that are beautiful, successful, and affluent. You know, the ones who had it coming. The Reckoning Perhaps the biggest Easter egg of what was to come (a news cycle dominated almost exclusively by “The Woman We Hate This Week” headlines) was 2019’s admissions scandal nicknamed “ Varsity Blues ,” with influencer Olivia Jade at the center of it all. News had broken that Jade, daughter of Full House star Lori Loughlin and Mossimo founder Mossimo Giannulli, had cheated her way into an Ivy League college with the help of her bribing parents. Jade was a nepo baby, an influencer worth millions of dollars, a young, beautiful girl who, on top of all of this, received a full ride to the University of Southern California based on athletic lies, while rubbing in how little she actually valued her education. In a since-deleted YouTube video posted shortly before the scandal broke, Jade boasted about going to Fiji during her first week of school. "I don't know how much of school I'm gonna attend,” she said to her then 2 million subscribers, “But I'm gonna go in and talk to my deans and everyone, and hope that I can try and balance it all. But I do want the experience of, like, game days, partying; I don't really care about school, as you guys all know." The internet, scandalized by the lack of gratitude for an opportunity stolen from qualified candidates, only to make a public mockery of her education, swarmed Jade’s family like sharks out for blood. Ethically, it wasn’t great. Optically, it was a disaster. But was this really the most scandalous news to come out of 2019? Was a 19-year-old taking advantage of nepotism really the most morally dubious act the media portrayed it to be? Attempting to scam college admissions offices is basically part and parcel of the application process, so there was nothing unique about this story. The real reason Olivia Jade’s name is, to this day, a nepo baby punchline and a cautionary tale about forsaking your own privilege is because the 2020s have been a decade of comeuppance. In the face of income inequality, social media comparison, the death of monoculture, and the loss of institutional trust, something has been quietly stewing among the masses, and is about to bubble over. Our cultural schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortune of others) is so palpable, we’re spiritually headed for our own French Revolution. In fact, a recent viral tweet said as much, when, in response to Kylie Jenner running a series of ads for Meta Glasses, someone tweeted , “they got marie-antoinette for less.” The Schadenfreude of Humbling Women Sure enough, we’ve witnessed a bloodlust in recent years which has hardly spared male victims, and if anything, has doled out even greater consequences. For women, conditions are a little different. Being a woman comes with a unique social currency. Our bodies, more closely tied to reproduction and "mate value" than men's, women have, throughout history and across cultures, placed greater importance on beauty practices. There are women who never experience pretty privilege who resent women who derive social capital from their appearance. This "pressure," "expectation," or "beauty standard," whatever you want to call it, has translated into a greater capacity to trade on youth and beauty and inspires a proportionate amount of morbid curiosity, if not resentment, in those who do not possess it. There are women who never experience pretty privilege who resent women who derive social capital from their appearance. Just as well, there are men who resent how easy women seem to have it, how they can float up hierarchies without having to do much work, or so it seems. Take, for example, this journalist, who feels so entitled to even the playing field between herself and more glamorous women, that she feels no sense of shame in writing publicly that while reading The Little House on the Prairie , “it was hard not to feel, on behalf of energetic plain girls everywhere, that there was some justice in pretty, good girl Mary going blind after Measles.” Mary, who is based on a real woman, has committed no crime other than being a threat to another woman’s self-esteem. The punishment of going blind seems hardly proportionate to the crime of being a “pretty, good girl,” but it’s fitting that this journalist’s envy should manifest in a desire to remove her field of sight entirely. To rob her of the faculties that reap her privilege. There are two prevailing ideas about beauty which pose an apparent contradiction. The first is the phenomenon that “ what is beautiful is good .” Studies have established that being more attractive is, by and large, a significant privilege that translates into a myriad of material benefits. The second, called the “ beauty is beastly ” effect, suggests there is a threshold beyond which beauty becomes a liability. Need I even mention this is specific to women? Notably, when beautiful women applied for traditionally masculine roles, where masculine traits were required or valued, they were more likely to be perceived as incompetent and were discriminated against. So, we’ve established at least one way beauty functions as a double-edged sword . You find interesting paradoxes in a society that supposedly reveres, for one minute, the archetypal girlboss, only to delight in the crumbling of her empire , the next. This fate seems to befall a specific kind of woman, too. While there is no shortage of women deemed frumpy, mid, and annoying, and society’s lack of patience with such women tends to rear its ugly head rather early, it does not look like the passionate settling of scores, the justice-seeking, the venomous, vicious sadism that it does for the beautiful woman who just seems to have it all. These women come in all stripes: ethical, unethical, innocent, malevolent, meek, and arrogant. Some get caught in the crosshairs of major scandals because they truly did something wrong, whether it’s allegedly cookie stuffing to improperly claim affiliate commissions (most recently, Phoebe Gates), fostering a toxic work culture, or being found guilty of defamation . Genuinely problematic stuff. But there’s no question that the societal glance that turns into a fixed gaze, like a car crash you can’t look away from even though you know your pause to take in the scenery is backing up traffic all the way up I-95, has more to do with schadenfreude than anything else. When women seem to have it all: fame, fortune, beauty, influence, society derives pleasure from their misfortune. Sydney Sweeney saying she has “ good genes ” in a jean ad turned into concern trolling about promoting white supremacy and eugenics, as well as accusations that she was oversexualizing herself, conspicuously right around the time men around the world crowned her the modern sex symbol. Despite presenting a remarkably consistent persona over the years, it was only after she reached this status of beloved, beautiful, sexy, and unashamed of her popularity with men that women, in particular, seemed eager to take her down a peg. Or Brooke Schofield , a once-beloved influencer and co-host of the Cancelled podcast, whose leaked “problematic” tweets from when she was a teenager turned her entire audience against her right around the time she seemed untouchable: physically glowing up, rising in popularity and wealth. Ever since, if she posts about undergoing an aesthetic optimization procedure like blepharoplasty, people concern troll her, telling her that it “actually looks terrible,” that she “ruined her face” and is “promoting unrealistic beauty standards” to her female followers. The trend is clear. When women seem to have it all (fame, fortune, beauty, influence), society derives pleasure from their misfortune. The Danger of Envy In a 2013 review paper investigating the relationship between stereotypes, envy, schadenfreude, and harm, psychologists Mina Cikara and Susan T. Fiske found that stereotypes alone (rather than a personal relationship or having been victimized by the person) were enough to predict who participants would empathize with and who they secretly enjoyed seeing fail or experience misfortune. Per the review, “A potent predictor of schadenfreude is envy, which, according to the stereotype content model, is elicited by high-status, competitive targets.” As background, the review explains there are several conditions which predict schadenfreude: when misfortune benefits the observers, when the misfortune seems deserved, and when the misfortune befalls an envied target. The last condition is the most malicious motivator, as the envied target's suffering doesn’t translate into any tangible benefits for the observer, nor does it serve any greater justice. Humans are highly social creatures who are comparing themselves to others all the time. This allows us to assess where we rank in social hierarchies. This means we tend to form ingroups and outgroups and are less likely to empathize with outgroups. Sometimes, something more sinister is afoot: not mere apathy or an absence of empathy, but outright pleasure at witnessing an outgroup member’s pain. Not all outgroup members are made equal, however, and this review points us to the stereotype content model, a framework that organizes all group stereotypes along two fundamental dimensions: warmth and competence. Warmth is assessed based on whether people are perceived to be cooperative or competitive, while competence is judged on an assessment of high or low status. On a scale that maps warmth and competence, there are four broad stereotype categories and associated prejudices. Researchers found that groups perceived as warm and competent produce feelings of pride. People in this category include students and the middle class. Groups who seem neither warm nor competent elicit disgust, so these might be people who are homeless or addicted to drugs. Remaining groups produced more ambivalent emotions. Incompetent but warm groups like the elderly and disabled elicit pity, while competent but cold groups like successful business professionals elicit envy, the latter of which is the most likely to produce schadenfreude. Participants were asked to take part in four different experiments, the first of which paired photographs of individuals (drug addict, elderly woman, a man in a business suit) with everyday positive, negative, and neutral events presented as statements like "won a $5 bet," "got soaked by a taxi," and "went to the bathroom," and participants were told to report how good or bad they felt. The participants reported feeling happiest when good things happened to warm groups, saddest when bad things happened to warm groups, and least bad when bad things happened to stereotypically envied groups. Interestingly, even when participants didn’t admit to feeling happy when bad things happened to stereotypically envied groups, their facial expressions betrayed a secret joy, producing disproportionate smiles. In the second experiment, researchers wanted to see whether this emotional reaction carried over into behavior, so the participants were presented with a game-show scenario in which they could choose the fate of the game’s players. Since they had “won a challenge,” they were exempt from the punishment faced by the rest. The participants were asked to decide whether to deploy a mild electric shock to all five players or a stronger shock to one player, sparing the other four. Participants engaging in the thought experiment were more willing to shock (and implicitly, cause harm to and sacrifice) the envied targets than the pitied, admired, or disgusted targets. Even when participants didn’t admit to feeling happy when bad things happened to stereotypically envied groups, their facial expressions betrayed a secret joy. In the third experiment, researchers wanted to see if they could reverse the effects by modifying perceptions of status and competitiveness. By providing participants with counterstereotypic information about investment bankers, which was the stereotypically envied group, the investment bankers were portrayed as more cooperative or struggling rather than high status and competitive. This caused the participants to report greater sympathy and less schadenfreude because they were less envious, suggesting that schadenfreude has less to do with any particular group as people and more to do with whether they pose a salient threat to our self-esteem by presenting as high status, competent, and competitive. In the final experiment, researchers used fMRI brain scans to study Red Sox and Yankees fans, notorious rivals, as they watched baseball plays depicting the successes and failures of their own team and their rival’s teams. Schadenfreude literally showed up in brain scans. Witnessing the rival team fail increased activation in the ventral striatum, a brain region associated with reward processing. Those who exhibited greater ventral striatum activation reported a greater willingness to antagonize (heckle, insult, threaten, or even hit) fans of the rival team than participants who showed weaker neural responses. The Implications of Schadenfreude for Women Conventionally attractive influencers like Brooke Monk receive outsized levels of hate , with attempts to humble her for her appearance or being ‘uglier’ than her boyfriend, clearly out of envy, and bizarrely, seem to largely come from men. This seems counterintuitive at first, but makes sense when you think about it for a moment. The people who seem to leave these comments are men glazing Monk’s boyfriend while devaluing Monk’s appearance, accusing her of fraud for “needing pounds of makeup” to become her boyfriend’s “looksmatch” (someone of equal attractiveness to their partner). These are angry, resentful, and lonely men who have overdosed on dating discourse and read too many anecdotes about women’s “unrealistic standards.” (See: her perceived unwillingness to give them, specifically, a chance.) Most importantly, it’s consistent with research findings that schadenfreude is most palpable and malicious toward targets that threaten our self-esteem by representing high status or competitive opponents, even if only through stereotypes. While these men don’t know nor have they been harmed personally by Monk, she represents something bigger, more personal, and touchy for them: insecurity about their own value; a paranoia that they are unlovable, and that her levity about her good fortune (she jokes about punching above her weight in the dating market, insisting, modestly, that her boyfriend is more naturally attractive than her) is taking for granted the power they so desperately wish they had. That insecurity is being reflected back at them through their projections onto Monk. She is not just a young girl with a conventionally attractive boyfriend. She is a popular influencer who has amassed a following (seemingly in large part) because she is young and beautiful. She is openly “gloating” about how she punched above her weight in the dating market, and admits (more like is overly modest) that her beauty is largely an illusion made possible with makeup tricks. These men feel threatened by her because she represents what they most want but are powerless to get. The only remaining option to preserve their sense of self-worth is to devalue her. In other words, envy is strongly predictive of schadenfreude. Though people may have no personal connection to the person they are enjoying witnessing suffer, and may have never been personally victimized by them, their mere belonging to a stereotypically envied group (notably, wealthy and successful people), the less empathy we have for them, and the more pleasure we get from seeing them failing, in pain, or being humiliated. Worst of all is how invisible this can all be. People tend not to admit to antisocial behavior like schadenfreude unless it's in a socially acceptable context, like competitive sports, but physiological testing reveals its neurological presence, even when people don't fess up to it. From one particular experiment, experiencing schadenfreude was predictive of willingness to harm the person they envied. Not only are people delighting in your failures, but they're more likely to kick you while you're down. Not only are people delighting in your failures, but they're more likely to kick you while you're down. It's curious that schadenfreude was modifiable when people's perceptions of envied targets changed, suggesting it’s not a fixed outcome, but dependent on someone’s status feeling threatening to you. When that person is perceived as having more warmth or lower status, schadenfreude reduces. This could explain our cultural obsession with building women up only to tear them down once they “get too big.” Being a beautiful woman is one of the most precarious high-status, envy-inducing positions you can occupy in society. It’s why it was always so commonplace to regard models as anorexic airheads with nothing interesting to say, and perhaps why inviting those models into our living rooms every day with shows like America’s Next Top Model had something to do with the change in public perception of models. We saw them at their lowest (contradicting high status) and got to know them as people, seeing how personable they could be (a signal of warmth), which has been shown to reduce schadenfreude in stereotypically envied people. The next time you’re about to project onto a beautiful, successful woman or delight in her downfall, ask yourself if she actually did anything wrong. Maybe the answer is yes, but maybe, just maybe, you’re projecting.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/why-is-the-media-so-obsessed-with-seeing-beautiful-women-fail</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Taking Out My Breast Implants Made Me Feel More Feminine]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/taking-out-my-breast-implants-made-me-feel-more-feminine</link>
      <dc:creator>Veronica Hoffman</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I was nineteen when a surgeon gave me breast implants I never needed. Fifteen years and one rupture later, here's what I wish every insecure girl knew about what we are really putting in our bodies. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[The first time I learned to be self-conscious about my chest, I was a schoolgirl in a PE changing room. It was not cruel, and I was not a victim. I was a popular girl, the girls teasing me were my friends, and the joke was light: someone landed on ice cream cones, everyone giggled, I giggled too, and we got on with the lesson. That is the part nobody warns you about. It does not take cruelty to plant an insecurity that outlives school. A little light, salted teasing found a soft spot and lodged there, and settled something about me that I would spend years trying to undo. My body was a problem to be solved. I carried that verdict for more than a decade, and I want to tell you what I did with it, because this month I'm finally undoing it. I'm having my breast implants removed, fifteen years after a surgeon put them in. The story of how they got there, and what they have cost me since, is one I think every woman deserves before she ever books the consultation. What I had actually bought was a foreign object my body would spend the next fifteen years fighting. I was nineteen. I had just lost a great deal of weight in a short time, close to eighteen kilograms in a couple of months, the way you only can when you are young and punishing and cutting away enormous amounts of food. I know better now. Starvation is not discipline, it's a stress state, and the body always sends the bill. My chest, already my oldest insecurity, deflated along with the rest of me. I looked in the mirror and I was back in that changing room. So I went to a surgeon and asked him to fix me. What I needed, if anything, was a modest lift. What I left with was implants. He should never have put them into a teenager who had walked in carrying an old insecurity rather than a considered choice. But this was before the internet as we know it, before women were talking to one another about any of this, and I had no way to research what I was agreeing to. I was a girl who trusted that the man in the white coat knew better than she did. I signed the form. For a while I believed I had bought confidence. What I had actually bought was a foreign object my body would spend the next fifteen years fighting. The symptoms that women describe with breast implants come on so slowly that few ever think to blame the surgery. The tiredness that sleep does not touch. Brain fog. Joints that ache as though you were decades older than you are. A low hum of anxiety under everything. Hair in the shower drain. They get reported one at a time, to different doctors, and each visit hands over a separate label and a separate prescription while nobody stands far enough back to see the shape of the whole. An implant doesn’t have to be the whole fire to be worth carrying out of the room. I want to be honest with you, because I have never hidden this online: I have a history of an eating disorder, and I have starved myself, on and off, since I was twenty. So I’m not going to blame the implant for every tired morning or every strand of hair I’ve lost. I handed my body plenty of other reasons for those, and pretending otherwise would insult your intelligence and mine. What I can say is that every one of those symptoms is documented in women with implants , and that a foreign object my body spent fifteen years fighting was one more tax on a metabolism I had already pushed deep into debt. An implant doesn’t have to be the whole fire to be worth carrying out of the room. Then mine ruptured. I found out almost by accident, and I still remember the cold drop in my stomach. How long had it been torn? Weeks? Years? A silicone shell that had rested against my tissue for over a decade had failed, and I had no way of knowing how much had already leaked. That was the moment I stopped looking past it and set out to understand what I had been carrying all this time. Here is what I learned, said as plainly as I wish someone had said it to me. Your body was never designed to turn on itself. Place a permanent foreign object inside it and your immune system knows at once that the thing does not belong. It cannot break it down and it cannot expel it, so it does the only thing left to it: it builds a wall of scar tissue around the implant and stays on guard. Surgeons call that wall a capsule. When it tightens and hardens, they call it capsular contracture. I call it a wound the body is never allowed to finish healing. A rupture only widens the door. Silicone does not always stay where it is put: it can travel to the lymph nodes under the arm, where the body walls it into granulomas and the glands swell. Doctors call it silicone lymphadenopathy , and it shows up even in women whose implants never tore, because a shell can weep traces of silicone while it sits intact. The shells are also cured with heavy metals, platinum among them, and over the years their surface is colonized by bacteria and fungi in a slippery film called a biofilm , tucked in a place the immune system struggles to reach. When a shell fails, all of it gains freer passage into you, and a body that was already standing guard simply escalates. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that breast implant illness is “a real, multifactorial clinical entity involving immune dysregulation, chronic inflammation, and microbial biofilms.” The cost of a wound that never closes is a metabolic one. Constant immune activation means constantly raised stress hormones, and raised stress hormones suppress the thyroid, the master regulator of your entire energy system. When the thyroid slows, everything downstream slows with it. Your cells make less energy. Your liver clears estrogen less efficiently, and estrogen, which is inflammatory and not the gentle female hormone we were sold, begins to dominate. Fatigue, brain fog, aching joints, thinning hair, low mood, weight that will not shift, autoimmune flares. Not nine separate illnesses. One suppressed metabolism wearing nine masks. For years this was waved away as women imagining things. It is being waved away no longer. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysi s of more than six thousand women, published in the journal Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, concluded that breast implant illness is “a real, multifactorial clinical entity involving immune dysregulation, chronic inflammation, and microbial biofilms.” Across those studies, an average of 82 percent of women reported their symptoms improving once the implants were removed, and in many of them the figure climbed past 90 percent. The most common complaints were fatigue, joint pain, and muscle pain: the same everyday symptoms women are usually handed a dozen separate explanations for. The regulators are edging the same way. In 2021 the FDA placed its strongest boxed warning on breast implants and required surgeons to take patients through a checklist of risks before agreeing to operate. Two years earlier it had recalled an entire line of textured implants after they were tied to a cancer of the immune system, and it is now tracking a second implant-associated cancer . The official line still stops short of saying implants cause systemic illness. But the women knew first, the way women so often do, and the science is finally catching up to the changing room. I'm not writing this to shame any woman who has implants or wants them. I'm writing it because I was nineteen and insecure, and an industry that runs on female insecurity handed me a permanent medical device as though it were a new haircut. More than four hundred thousand women receive breast implants in the United States every year, and nobody in that supply chain profits when a nineteen-year-old is gently talked out of surgery. The advertising, the discounted makeovers, the surgeon who reaches for implants when a girl needed only reassurance: the machine is built to turn shame into a sale. The least we owe the next girl is a consultation that begins with the truth. The machine is built to turn shame into a sale. Because this is what nobody told me at nineteen, and what I would give anything to go back and tell her in that changing room. Real beauty was never volume. It is a warm, well-fed body that is not at war with itself: a working thyroid, a calm nervous system, hormones sitting in their right proportion, energy to spare. Those are the things that make a woman look alive, and no implant has ever produced a single one of them. I'm getting smaller, and I've never felt more like myself. What has come back is harder to photograph than a cup size: a warmth, an ease, the feeling of living in a body that is soft and mine again instead of one that is always bracing around something it never asked for. If you are weighing this up, if you are the girl who laughed along and never quite forgot the joke, all I ask is that you sit with it a little longer before you let anyone persuade you that the answer is a foreign object you will spend the rest of your life defending. You were never the problem. You never were.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Health</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[10 Habits To Copy From Women Who Have Their Lives Together]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/10-habits-to-copy-from-women-who-have-their-lives-together</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[The women who seem to have it all figured out rarely have a secret. They just kept a handful of small, unglamorous habits long enough that the results looked like luck to everyone else. Here's what they are. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[One account, ModernMoneySystem, shared a Threads post titled, "Habits I Stole From Women Who Actually Have Their Life Together." Instead of promising a complete life transformation or insisting you wake up at 4 a.m. (who wants to do that?), the creator shared a list of practical habits: deep cleaning your room , finally opening your banking app instead of avoiding it, deleting thousands of unnecessary photos, writing down everything you've been putting off, moving your body every day, and staying off your phone for the first hour after waking. The post also encouraged readers to identify what they're actually stressed about instead of settling for the vague feeling of "I'm overwhelmed," choose only a few meaningful goals each month, forgive themselves for old mistakes, and build simple routines they can realistically stick to. We loved the list. It reminded us that women who seem like they "have it all together" usually aren't relying on one giant secret. More often than not, they've just stayed consistent and built small habits that eventually shaped their lives. That said, we thought we'd add a few habits of our own below. Always Look A Little More Put Together Than The Occasion Requires Obviously this doesn't mean showing up in a ball gown to brunch or spending hours getting ready for the grocery store. It means taking a few extra minutes to brush your hair, steam your outfit, put on a little jewelry, or wear the perfume you love. Looking polished is means you're treating yourself like someone worth taking care of. Your energy is different when you feel like the best version of yourself, and people often respond to that confidence before they notice anything else. Prioritize Your Sleep There is no skincare routine, supplement, or expensive coffee order that can consistently replace good sleep. Protecting your bedtime pays you back in clearer thinking, steadier emotions, better skin, more patience, and the energy to actually enjoy your day. Women who seem consistently calm usually aren't squeezing five hours of sleep into every night and hoping for the best. Stop Complaining About The Same Problem Everyone needs to vent once in a while. The habit worth breaking is telling the same story over and over without changing anything about it. If you've been complaining about your job, relationship, finances, or schedule for months, ask yourself what one small step would move you closer to a solution. Talking about a problem can feel productive, but solving it feels even better. Learn How To Calm Your Nervous System Life will always throw unexpected situations your way. The women who seem the most grounded aren't necessarily dealing with fewer problems, it doesn't mean their life is perfect. They've just learned not to let every inconvenience steal their peace. Maybe it's prayer, journaling, breathing exercises, stretching, a walk around the neighborhood, or ten quiet minutes without your phone. Find something that brings you back to yourself before reacting emotionally. Set Boundaries Before You Feel Burned Out Don't get it twisted: boundaries isn't about cutting off everyone in your life . It's more so about protecting your time, energy, finances, and peace. Saying no to plans you don't want to attend, declining work that doesn't fit your priorities, or refusing to lend money you can't afford to lose often earns more respect than constantly saying yes. People learn how to treat you by watching what you're willing to tolerate. Read Something That Wasn't Picked By An Algorithm Social media can introduce you to interesting ideas, but it shouldn't become your only source of information. Read books . Read essays. Learn about history, nutrition, finance, relationships, philosophy, or a hobby you've always wanted to understand. Absolutely anything before the age of AI. The more you expand your knowledge beyond your daily feed, the more interesting (and thoughtful) you become. Build It First. Perfect It Later. Perfectionism has delayed more dreams than failure ever has. Start the business before the logo is perfect and apply for the job before you meet every qualification. Write the first draft before worrying whether it's good enough. Momentum creates confidence, but waiting for confidence usually creates idleness. Keep Your Kitchen Stocked With Food One of the easiest ways to make healthy choices is to make them convenient. Keep fruit washed, protein ready to grab, leftovers you'll actually eat, and simple meals you can throw together after a long day. When nourishing food is already waiting for you, you're far less likely to rely on whatever's quickest in the drive-thru. Fix Your Posture It sounds almost too simple, but posture changes the way you move through the world. Standing tall, relaxing your shoulders, and looking people in the eye quietly communicates confidence. It also reminds you not to shrink yourself, physically or emotionally. Sometimes the smallest adjustments say the most before you've spoken a single word. Pay Attention To Your Thoughts You don't have to believe every thought that crosses your mind . If your inner voice constantly tells you that you're behind, incapable, awkward, or destined to fail, eventually you'll begin living as though it's true. Imagine you want to apply for a new job, start a business, or finally try that hobby you've been putting off, but your first thought is, "I'm probably going to fail." Instead of accepting that as fact, catch it. Replace it with something more honest: "Maybe I will, but I'll never know unless I try," or "There's no guarantee I'll fail, so I might as well do my best and enjoy the process." Recognize that your mind is constantly telling you stories, and you get to decide which ones deserve to be believed. That simple habit can change the decisions you make, the risks you're willing to take, and ultimately the life you build.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/10-habits-to-copy-from-women-who-have-their-lives-together</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Olivia Culpo Says Her First Year Of Motherhood Inspired Her New Target Baby Collection ]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/olivia-culpo-says-her-first-year-of-motherhood-inspired-her-new-target-baby-colle</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[From silent diaper fasteners to a bag with a compartment for practically everything, Olivia Culpo says every detail of her newest project comes from her own experience as a first-time mom.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Just over a year after welcoming Olivia Culpo’s daughter, Colette, with husband Christian McCaffrey, the former Miss Universe is preparing for baby number two. Looking back on that first year, she's channeling those experiences into products she hopes will make life a little easier for other parents. On July 26, she's launching Picolette, an exclusive baby collection at Target inspired by Colette's first year. The line includes 60 baby and toddler items ranging from clothing and keepsakes to feeding essentials and a diaper bag that Culpo designed around the small frustrations she experienced as a first-time mom. According to Target, Picolette combines piccola (the Italian word for "small") with her daughter's name, Colette. For Culpo, the idea of the collection began during one of the biggest identity shifts of her life. "I remember during that time, someone said to me, 'Motherhood is the most creative thing you'll ever do,' and that is something that I take with me in everything that I do as a mom because I am a creative person in my job ," she told Parents . "Picolette was inspired by the first year of motherhood." "Picolette was inspired by the first year of motherhood and basically everything that I celebrated as a first-time mom, and even the parts that were difficult and overwhelming," she said. "Bringing a little part of that to families everywhere with Target is the most exciting part of the whole project." The collection launches online and in approximately 1,400 Target stores, with most items priced at $18 or less. Parents can expect baby clothing in prints like gingham, toile, florals, and even a football-print overall set, along with plush toys, milestone pieces, feeding accessories, books, and gifts. There are also first birthday items like sweaters, tutus, a keepsake book, and a birthday crown with interchangeable numbers that can be reused through a child's first three birthdays. The details, though, are what Culpo seems most proud of. After spending countless nights trying not to wake a sleeping baby, she said she wanted to design clothing that solved a problem nearly every parent knows too well. "There's nothing worse than having a baby asleep and then you have to change them and you know you're gonna wake them up," Culpo said. "You really won't wake your baby up with this magic closure because there's no sound." The collection also includes silent closures, simplified fasteners, and in-seam zippers for easier diaper changes and dressing. Her diaper bag features dedicated compartments for bottles, wipes, pacifiers, and a washable changing pad based on what she found herself reaching for most often during Colette's first year. Although the aesthetic leans feminine, classic, and nostalgic, Culpo said she never wanted the pieces to feel too delicate to actually use. "I wanted Picolette to live in that middle place: pieces that feel special enough for memories, photos, gifting, and firsts, but easy enough for everyday life," she said. "I love the idea that these items could be pulled out of a bin 20 or 30 years from now and passed down." Culpo said her first year of motherhood was both exciting and overwhelming, and credits her large family with helping her through postpartum life . As one of five siblings, she spent years watching her brothers and sisters become parents before welcoming a child of her own. "It truly does take a village, and I've always known that because I come from such a big family," Culpo said. "I feel like in a way my village started before I even had children because of the privilege of being able to watch my siblings parent and see what works, what doesn't work... getting just a little bit of training in as you watch your siblings go through it." Her biggest piece of advice for new parents is to remember that every difficult stage eventually passes. "It's so easy to feel overwhelmed when there are difficult moments," she said. "If they are teething, if there's regression, if it's four in the morning and they haven't slept yet, just really remember that every single phase with your baby will pass, and you will look back on them and miss them, believe it or not, every single one." She continued, "I really try to parent with that in the forefront because I know how fast it can go, and I also know how overwhelming it can feel if you don't remind yourself that these are the times that one day you'll miss the most." Culpo will soon be living those early newborn days all over again . She admitted that when she first found out she was expecting her second child, she briefly questioned whether she could do it all again. "I would be lying if I didn't say at the beginning, I was like, 'Oh my God, can I do this?'" Culpo said. "But now that it's all settled in, I'm very excited... I'm just so grateful that I'm having another baby, that I can have another baby, that they will be close in age. I really can't imagine wanting to do anything different with my time." "I would never choose my job or career over the job of being a mom." As Picolette prepares to hit Target shelves, Culpo said motherhood has also changed how she views ambition. She still wants to build her career, but not at the expense of being present for her children. "Being a mom is such a full-time job; everything is a balance and there are parameters that you need to make so that you can do the best that you can in both avenues," she said. "At the end of the day, I just know for myself, I would never choose my job or career over the job of being a mom. " She also hopes other mothers give themselves the same grace she's learning to practice. "I see it with women where they do want to do it all," Culpo said. "It's important for all of us as moms to remember you don't have to put that pressure on yourself."]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>News</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[I Risked Everything to Say What the Court Just Confirmed]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-risked-everything-to-say-what-the-court-just-confirmed</link>
      <dc:creator>Riley Gaines</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[When the Supreme Court ruled to protect women's sports, it settled something bigger than athletics: whether objective reality still has a place in American law.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[At its core, the case asked a simple question: Can states recognize the biological differences between men and women when those differences matter most? The Court answered yes. That answer should not have been controversial. For most of human history, it would have been met with a straightforward “duh.” Yet in recent years, stating this obvious truth has required extraordinary courage. For more than fifty years, Title IX stood as one of America's most successful civil rights laws. Passed in 1972, it opened doors for generations of women and girls denied equal opportunities in education and athletics. My grandmother never had the opportunity to compete because there was effectively no such thing as women's athletics. Her generation fought to create those opportunities. Now, in her same lifetime, we've watched many of those hard-won gains threatened, all under the guise of “progress.” A law designed to protect women was being interpreted in ways that undermined the very category it was created to safeguard. The unraveling of Title IX is not explicitly because the law changed, but because its meaning was rewritten through bureaucratic interpretation. Congress never voted to redefine the word “sex.” The American people were never asked. Yet federal agencies, universities, athletic organizations, and corporations increasingly treated the recognition of biological sex itself as discrimination. The result was a contradiction that would be almost comical if it hadn't carried such serious consequences. A law designed to protect women was being interpreted in ways that undermined the very category it was created to safeguard. Sports expose reality in ways few other areas of society can. A stopwatch doesn't care about ideology. A scoreboard doesn't respond to preferred pronouns. Victory is determined by measurable differences in strength, speed, power, and endurance. These are differences rooted in biology, not identity or feelings. That is why athletic competition has categories in the first place. Women's sports do not exist because women are less capable. They exist because men and women are physically different, and without separate divisions, equal opportunity disappears. We recognize this principle everywhere else in sports. We separate competitors by age, weight, and ability because fairness requires relevant distinctions. No one argues it is discriminatory to prevent a thirty-year-old man from playing tee-ball against six-year-olds, or that it's fatphobic to not let a 280-pound boxer get in the ring with someone weighing in at 180. Are we an inherently ableist society because we have the Paralympics separate from the Olympics? Of course not. Without those categories, equal opportunity is impossible. This is not an abstract debate. Female athletes lost roster spots, championships, records, scholarships, and privacy in locker rooms. The contradiction became impossible to ignore precisely because sports are measurable. The Supreme Court's decision did not invent a new principle. It simply reaffirmed an old one: men and women are not similarly situated in athletic competition, and states have legitimate reasons for preserving women's categories. In doing so, the Court addressed a deeper question that has haunted our institutions for years. Do words still have meaning? Can civil rights laws protect women if we cannot define what a woman is? Can fairness exist if we refuse to acknowledge the very differences that make fairness necessary? Do a man's feelings matter more than the physical safety of all girls? Those questions extend far beyond sports. The contradiction became impossible to ignore precisely because sports are measurable. Every civil rights law depends on stable definitions. Protected classes only exist if they can actually be identified. When objective categories become subjective, legal protections become impossible to enforce. Women's sports exposed this movement for what it truly is, and did so first, because the evidence is impossible to hide. Times, scores, records, and physical performance do not bend to political slogans. The ridiculously obvious visual of the 6-foot-4 man with an Adam's apple standing next to the 5-foot-5 woman did a number on the gender ideology movement. I believe gender ideology has always been a house of cards, and protecting women's sports is the card that will make it all crumble. That's why this SCOTUS ruling is significant. The highest court indirectly declared that “trans women” are men. The same principle should apply in all realms of life: in prisons, shelters, dormitories, sororities, locker rooms, and countless other spaces where sex-based distinctions exist for reasons of privacy, dignity, or safety. The women who refused to stay silent deserve the greatest credit. Long before the Court weighed in, ordinary athletes, parents, and coaches faced real costs for speaking up. They lost opportunities, braved harassment, were uninvited from family functions, and faced professional repercussions. They testified before legislatures, filed lawsuits, and defended common sense when doing so carried enormous consequences. I know because I was one of them . The Court validated what these women had been saying all along. Women's sports survived because enough people refused to cave when it was convenient to do so. This ruling is a major victory, but it is not the end of the fight. The Court held that states may protect women's sports. It did not require every state to do so. The responsibility now shifts back to legislatures, athletic associations, school boards, and ultimately Congress, which still has the opportunity to restore Title IX according to its original purpose and ensure meaningful enforcement against institutions that refuse to comply. Women's sports survived because enough people refused to cave when it was convenient to do so. The women and girls who fought for these protections were never asking for special treatment. They were asking for equal treatment on a level playing field. For a time, that promise was undermined by those who attempted to redefine both biology and the law. The Supreme Court has begun to correct course. After years of confusion, the law is catching up with what most Americans have always known: Women deserve a sports category of their own. Truth still matters. Our daughters matter. And defending both is worth the fight. Riley Gaines is a 12-time NCAA All-American who competed for the University of Kentucky NCAA swim team before retiring from competition and focusing on political activism. Riley is host of "The Riley Gaines Show" podcast. Watch "The Riley Gaines Show" on YouTube , or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere you get your podcasts. New episodes drop Wednesdays and Fridays.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/i-risked-everything-to-say-what-the-court-just-confirmed</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Odyssey: Christopher Nolan’s Grand but Hollow Epic]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-odyssey-christopher-nolans-grand-but-hollow-epic</link>
      <dc:creator>Lauren Chen</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Christopher Nolan has never been one to shy away from ambition. With "The Odyssey," he tackles one of Western civilization’s foundational stories: Homer’s tale of a hero’s long, perilous journey home after the Trojan War.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Shot entirely on IMAX film across real locations and practical sets, the film boasts sweeping vistas, a committed A-list cast, and technical bravura that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. It’s imposing, often visually stunning, and yet, for all its scale, the film is… strangely unsatisfying. In an age starved for stories that grapple with home, loyalty, and the human cost of hubris, The Odyssey had the potential to resonate deeply. Instead, Nolan’s adaptation often feels like a surface-level spectacle that prioritizes technical feats over character depth and emotional truth. Nolan may excel as a director, but this film's weakest point is its script, penned by Nolan himself, which fails to do justice to either the mythic source material or the talented cast assembled. The Good: A Vast, Visceral World Where The Odyssey succeeds most is in its sense of scope. The sea stretches endlessly, mirroring Odysseus’s profound sense of dislocation and longing for Ithaca. Nolan’s commitment to practical filmmaking (real boats on real water, on-location shooting) grounds the epic in a tangible grit that modern CGI blockbusters often lack. There’s a weight and texture to the environments that makes the journey feel arduous rather than glossy, as is the case with far too many green-screen Marvel-era films. The score, composed by Ludwig Göransson, also stands out as a thoughtful achievement. Eschewing a conventional orchestra, Göransson draws on ancient instruments like gongs, drums, vocals, lyre, and aulos to evoke the Bronze Age soundscape. It’s atmospheric and distinctive, enhancing the movie's mythical quality. Nolan’s commitment to practical filmmaking grounds the epic in a tangible grit that modern CGI blockbusters often lack. Similarly deserving of praise is Matt Damon, who throws himself fully into the role of Odysseus. He delivers a layered performance of a clever but flawed leader, burdened by the consequences of his own ingenuity (think the Trojan Horse) and the trials that follow. Damon's Odysseus is a gallant yet weary man who has seen and done too much. Certain set pieces also shine: the fall of Troy pulses with tension, and the famous encounters with the Cyclops and Giants deliver some surprising scares. If you are looking for beautifully shot moments of raw, high-stakes adventure, it should come as no surprise that Nolan delivers with The Odyssey as he often does. The Bad: An Ancient Greek Tale That Rejects Ancient Greece No one expected The Odyssey to be a documentary on life in ancient Greece (although this takedown of the film by Greek academic Stelios Panagiotou does a great job outlining how Nolan's film misses many of the themes found in Homer's work). But considering the film is obviously meant to take place during a certain time period in a certain location (Greece during the Bronze Age, as even Nolan's heavy-handed dialogue in the film explicitly states), several of Nolan’s directorial choices are strange, to say the least, and undermine the rich legacy of the source material. By now, most of us are familiar with how Nolan faced early social media criticism for The Odyssey 's casting. Kenyan Lupita Nyong’o appears in dual roles as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, while trans actor Elliot Page plays Sinon, a male character, though both admittedly in relatively limited screen time. These decisions feel more like modern virtue signaling than organic storytelling enhancements to the epic Greek tale. And as many have pointed out, though stars like Nyong’o have hailed the casting as a win for representation, not a single Greek actor is represented in this film. The opening scenes, in particular, introduce a striking array of ethnicities and genders in a way that painfully prioritizes modern notions of diversity over historical plausibility or narrative cohesion. Frankly, it's hard to come up with any justification for having rapper Travis Scott play a bard that does not come down to modern DEI pandering. These decisions feel more like modern virtue signaling than organic storytelling enhancements to the epic Greek tale. On a related note, the film's costumes have also drawn criticism for a lack of historical authenticity. And while the audience might be able to suspend disbelief and accept that men in ancient Greece wore pants (they didn't), that’s harder to do when a pants-wearing Telemachus is simultaneously presented alongside Robert Pattinson's naked thighs. Why is Pattinson the only one wearing a toga? Why is Menalaus, King of Sparta, dressed like Robin Hood? Why do these ships look Viking? Why are the Giants wearing armor that makes them look like medieval knights? These are questions I personally found myself asking during The Odyssey 's almost three-hour runtime. If Nolan (out of character) decided to reject historical fidelity with The Odyssey , he could have at least insisted on visual continuity. And in perhaps the most bizarre stylistic choice, even the film's scenic location, the Mediterranean Sea, is portrayed by Nolan as a shadow of its authentic self. Throughout its entire runtime, the film leans drab. Nolan has muted the vibrant blues of the Mediterranean and the potential warmth of Greek interiors and outfitting, rendering the world bleaker than the sun-drenched civilization it tries to depict. This aesthetic choice undercuts the sense of a vibrant, once-thriving culture worth fighting (and waiting) for. These criticisms might be dismissed as trivial to some, but it bears asking: If Christopher Nolan did not wish to portray the ancient Greek people, culture, or setting lovingly and at least somewhat accurately, why choose to adapt The Odyssey at all? The Ugly: A Shockingly Shallow Script The deepest disappointment with The Odyssey lies in the writing. To start, there is an ample amount of clunky expository dialogue. And while it's understandably difficult to have characters explain for the audience the background of the Trojan War and the time surrounding Odysseus’s absence in a natural way, with that being the case, perhaps some title cards in the film's introduction would likely have proven a more elegant choice. Nolan’s lines also leave no room for subtlety. “Civilization is falling,” and “our Bronze Age is coming to an end,” the characters spell out for the audience, in case we were unsure of how The Odyssey fit in with history's overall timeline. And despite interviews where Nolan claimed he wanted to adapt The Odyssey to make its characters more “relatable” to modern audiences, the film's biggest weakness is arguably its lack of character depth. Despite the rich source material and ample screen time, characters like Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Telemachus (Tom Holland) receive scant development. Their arcs instead revolve around painfully repetitive dialogue: Penelope yearns for Odysseus’s return and resents the suitors; Telemachus longs for his father. We’re told their struggles repeatedly, rather than shown the texture of their lives. This “tell, don’t show” approach flattens what should be compelling figures. Penelope, the archetype of faithful endurance, mostly weaves and laments. A richer film might have depicted her actively managing Ithaca’s economy, mediating disputes, or navigating household crises in Odysseus’s absence, revealing her quiet strength and illustrating her loyalty. We’re told their struggles repeatedly, rather than shown the texture of their lives. This would not only allow for some much-needed changes of scenery for the Ithaca-based characters (who, in the film, exist almost entirely in the palace hall), but would also ironically allow her character greater agency and “girlboss” moments than the film actually delivers. As it stands, a single throwaway line delivered by Hathaway about unrecognized rule feels hollow without supporting scenes. The suitors, led by a scenery-chewing Pattinson as Antinous, similarly lack dimension. We’re informed they seek Penelope’s hand and the throne, but potential opportunities for tension, like rivals offering wealth or political power to alleviate Ithaca’s woes, forcing Penelope to weigh duty against practicality, are largely squandered. And though Pattinson clearly relishes playing a villain, his Antinous is given little to do besides drink and scowl at Odysseus’s household. There is no time dedicated to exploring why, exactly, he seeks to usurp the throne. Wealth? Power? A vendetta against Odysseus himself? With motivation as absent as Pattinson's pants, Antinous comes across more like a cartoon character, who is evil simply because the movie needs a bad guy, rather than a plausible person. Homer’s characters felt vividly human millennia ago; but in Nolan's work, the characters’ inner lives and struggles are painfully opaque in a way that no amount of production value can mask. A Tale of Hubris Homer's Odyssey has defied the odds and remained relevant for thousands of years. And as it recounts Odysseus’s arrogance in the face of the gods, it's almost fitting that Nolan's own hubris is the root of this film's biggest flaws. After all, how else could we describe the notion that Nolan's changes could be an improvement to Homer's epic, Greek culture, history, or even scenery? If you’re craving epic cinema with practical wonder, The Odyssey delivers in moments. Nolan remains a master technician, but in chasing spectacle, The Odyssey drifts far from the heartfelt harbor of Ithaca it seeks. For explorations of heroism in the ancient world, I would rather watch the likes of Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy , Zack Snyder’s 300 , or Ridley Scott’s Gladiator , films that, whatever their artistic and historical liberties, invest deeply in their characters’ humanity.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Celeb Fandoms Have Gone Too Far]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/celeb-fandoms-have-gone-too-far</link>
      <dc:creator>Brooke Brandtjen</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[After Taylor Swift's wedding this month, fans reportedly paid for bags of the leftover trash. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[The wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce was bound to make headlines. Since the day Kelce proposed last August, rumors about their wedding have been swirling in gossip columns and social media comments sections. When they finally tied the knot, the secrecy surrounding the ceremony led to countless conspiracies and speculations, ranging from who was on the guest list to what kind of cake they served. The wedding was held at Madison Square Garden, a globally acclaimed location in the heart of New York City that placed the event in a strange position of being both extremely publicized and extremely private. In response, reports surfaced that fans were paying $25 for bags of trash left over from the event, labeled “collectibles.” As funny and bizarre as this incident may be, it leads us to a broader question about the relationships that fans have with celebrities. There is a huge difference between buying albums and putting up posters of your favorite artists and buying their bags of trash or bath water . There is a huge difference between buying albums and putting up posters of your favorite artists and buying their bags of trash or bath water. The relationships that exist between celebrities and their fans are often referred to as parasocial relationships. These are one-sided bonds that can be formed with people you don’t actually know, be it an influencer, a musician, an actor, or a politician. “It’s more than just being a fan,” says Dr. Adam Borland, a clinical psychologist. “[They] often include strong, one-sided feelings of identification and emotional connection… Social media provides constant exposure and access to public figures and celebrities, which can create an unrealistic sense of intimacy and perceived connection.” When we follow people online or regularly see them on TV, we begin to form an emotional attachment with them, even though it isn't reciprocated. Parasocial relationships have been around for ages. For hundreds of years, people formed parasocial relationships with authors or journalists, closely following their publications. Early Hollywood stars like Cary Grant and Greta Garbo earned national recognition as their movies played in cinemas across the globe, creating legions of die-hard fans. In 1964, when The Beatles first came to America, swarms of screaming, crying fangirls followed them around, sparking a wave of “Beatlemania.” In the modern day, social media has only made parasocial relationships more common. Influencers post "Get Ready With Me" and "What I Eat In A Day" videos, giving people constant access to their personal habits and routines. Professional athletes and pop stars alike post memes and travel vlogs. Twitch streamers host hours- or days-long live streams, which people will keep on as they study, eat, and sleep. Parasocial relationships have slowly started to replace personal relationships. Social media has allowed parasocial relationships to become increasingly unhealthy. Celebrities’ lives are overexposed, more so than they were in the age of 2000s tabloids. In the past, celebs would dash away from paparazzi when they exited clubs. Now, celebrities post their step-by-step morning routines, complete with commentary on the latest scandal or trend. At the same time, fan culture has also blossomed to new heights thanks to social media. In the 2010s, websites like Discord, Tumblr, and Reddit allowed people to start fan communities, where people from all over the world could discuss everything from who was the cutest member of Fall Out Boy to what would happen on next week’s episode of “Supernatural.” These forums allowed niche fandoms to pop up, connecting people across the globe. While that may have been a good way to find friends with shared interests, especially for those in small or rural towns, it had the unfortunate effect of placing people in an echo chamber. Parasocial relationships have slowly started to replace personal relationships. A recent study found that 61% of adolescents “thought of their favorite media figures as relationship partners.” Another study found that many people felt the parasocial relationships they had with celebrities “were more effective at fulfilling their emotional needs than in-person acquaintances.” For some people, parasocial relationships can be helpful, as they are less likely to instill feelings of rejection, disappointment, or betrayal, and they are far more resilient than an average relationship. Unfortunately, this can quickly spiral out of control. People may be afraid of forming personal connections, considering them “too risky,” causing them to push away their friends or family members. Over time, people can become extremely isolated, which can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. It also creates emotional dependency on a relationship that isn’t real, which can leave people stranded. Being a fan of someone isn’t an inherently bad thing. At its best, it can be an incredible way to find communities of people who have similar passions and values. The key is to engage with celebrities and public figures in a healthy way. Obsession typically devolves into idolatry, impairing people's ability to have normal relationships because they are wildly devoted to someone they follow online. In contrast, a healthy parasocial relationship is simply about enjoying an artist's creation. Many celebrities have had to address fans who have crossed the line by being disrespectful during their interactions. Billie Eilish has made public statements about “fans” dressing up like her in public and surrounding themselves with bodyguards in attempts to impersonate her. “Please stop doing this,” she said in an Instagram post. “It is not safe for you and it is mean to the people who don’t know any better… You make me look bad.” She also posted screenshots from several YouTube videos where content creators dressed up and acted like her in public, a trend that clearly made her uncomfortable. Selena Gomez expressed concerns over toxic fan behavior as well, claiming that her fans had been sending Hailey Bieber death threats. Gomez begged her fans to have healthier boundaries, urging them not to attack and threaten people they perceived to be her “rivals.” Cole Sprouse stated similar concerns in an Instagram story, writing, “Attacking my friends, baseless accusations, leaking my address, and sending death threats are all qualities of insanity and fanaticism.” Obsession typically devolves into idolatry, impairing people's ability to have normal relationships because they are wildly devoted to someone they follow online. The best way to steer clear of unhealthy celebrity obsessions is to understand that your relationship with them is one-sided. There’s nothing wrong with fan art, chatting about your favorite movie directors, or going to an album release party. There is something wrong with turning those people into a graven image, following their every move, and invading their privacy. One of the joys of living in the social media age is that we have the unique opportunity to better understand the artists and public figures we admire than we ever have before. It’s always fun to have your favorite celebrity respond to your comment or answer your question on a live stream. It’s exciting to create drawings or memes about their art that they might see or retweet. Certain celebrities have gone out of their way to embrace their fans, praising them for their support and showing their appreciation. Dolly Parton is known for praising fan covers on YouTube and stopping to spend time with fans, sharing heartfelt moments and her signature hugs. Lana Del Rey also has a reputation for giving fans hugs and encouragement, while Keanu Reeves is known to willingly stop for photos and engage in meaningful conversations. And although Taylor Swift has dealt with an army of Swifties buying the trash from her wedding, she has been praised for sending gifts to her fans and surprising them with visits. Many celebrities take the time to be kind to their fans, and their fans should be willing to return that respect.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[What to Wear to Every Summer Wedding on Your Calendar]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/what-to-wear-to-every-summer-wedding-on-your-calendar</link>
      <dc:creator>Anna Hartman</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[You said yes to six weddings this summer, which was generous of you and also a genuine styling crisis, because you cannot wear the same dress twice, even if your husband seriously doesn't get why.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[And forget the twenty-photo Instagram dumps for a second (obviously every photo needs a different outfit). Think about the stains you'll drag from wedding to wedding. The hors d'oeuvre drips. The champagne showers on the dance floor. And the sweat. Good Lord, the sweat. Repeat after me: in this heat, a girl simply cannot outfit-repeat. So here's the plan. A dress for the vineyard thing, a dress for the black-tie thing, a dress for the "cocktail attire" thing that no one can actually define, and a dress for the backyard one where you'll be on grass in heels and regretting it by seven. The rules: nothing white, nothing that reads louder than the bride, nothing you have to keep tugging at during the toasts. Just the kind of dresses that make someone lean over mid-ceremony and whisper okay, who is that. Every one of these is built to earn its spot in the dump. Scroll on. This article may contain affiliate links or paid partnerships. We may earn a commission or compensation at no extra cost to you. All products are chosen independently by our editorial team and reflect our genuine recommendations.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/what-to-wear-to-every-summer-wedding-on-your-calendar</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Style</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Male “Flexes” Women Actually Notice (And the Ones They Don’t)]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-flexes-women-actually-notice-and-the-ones-they-dont</link>
      <dc:creator>Andrea Mew</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[While social media algorithms push for men to attain luxury lifestyles, it turns out women pay attention to something entirely different. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[So much of stereotypical “alpha male” advice skews into superficial territories, but when you ask women what the most impressive guy “flexes” actually are, their answers certainly aren’t Rolexes or Lamborghinis. One user on r/AskReddit posed the question, “Ladies: what’s a guy ‘Flex’ that instantly makes him attractive?” and across hundreds of comments, women kept returning to the same, far more wholesome qualities. Curious to see if these were just niche sentiments from internet users, I dug deeper and asked women in my life, too, to see what it really takes to flex as a man. The jury is unanimous: women value competence, thoughtfulness, leadership, and a life that feels full before they step foot in it. Competence is Sexier than Flashiness While women certainly don’t gush over a guy with low career ambitions or accumulating debt, a real flex isn’t being super rich either; it’s being capable. Several women pointed out that flashy displays of money aren’t nearly as impressive as a man having his life together. “I think men think having a flashy car is a flex, but especially at this point in my life, I'm much more impressed by a man investing in a safe, reliable car, even if it's older and not fancy,” shared one woman. Another friend took a broader, more psychological view to argue how the biggest flex is simply seeing the results of discipline, not necessarily having it all together right away. Flashy displays of money aren’t nearly as impressive as a man having his life together. “If you put in a ton of work into something—that could be your physique, that could be knowledge of a certain field, that could be a career, that could be a hobby… that's what I would call a flex because it shows discipline and determination,” she told me. “It’s the combination of laser focus plus risk-taking plus the ability to get back up.” Reddit users echoed similar sentiments. One said a big flex is when a man is prepared, good at planning, and anticipating things correctly. “It makes life much smoother not to be moving from disaster to disaster, and it makes me feel like I can let my guard down and not always be managing things because someone else can drive sometimes,” the user wrote. Another popular comment centered on cooking, but not because being fed is important. Rather, competence in the kitchen signals independence. Sure, it’s good if a guy can cook delicious meals, but even if he has simply mastered the basics, that means he can take care of himself. “FWIW, it doesn't have to be fancy just good and maybe not look like... terrible,” one Reddit user wrote. “It's not necessarily about impressing anyone so much as it shows you're capable of taking care of yourself, you're not just a child looking for a new mommy to make dinner for you.” Having a Life is Hot Women also repeatedly mentioned that one of the biggest “flexes” is as simple as having a rich social life outside of his relationship. As one of my friends put it, good social skills and a lot of friends goes a long way. “I think social skills are honestly really rare nowadays for a lot of guys,” my friend added. “So many men are isolated and prefer to self-pity than grow.” Another one of my friends shared similar preferences, stating that it’s a green flag if a guy has hobbies outside the home with other like-minded and personable people, especially hobbies he’s not afraid to bring a girl around to. It’s a green flag if a guy has hobbies outside the home with other like-minded and personable people. “Like, if a guy says ‘Hey, come to my golf club, cigar club, gun club, CrossFit gym, etc etc., with me and meet my friends,’ and when you show up, the people are similarly friendly and cool,” she said, that’s a huge flex. But if his main hobbies are isolated like “tinkering on cars in his garage” alone or only ever playing Xbox or PlayStation in his free time, she said that “would be a major ick.” What’s worth noting is that rather than expecting a woman to become his entire social life, as some people lose themselves in their relationship and become detached from the outside world, several women made it clear they appreciate men who have already built meaningful friendships and communities they’re excited to share with the woman they love. Kindness Never Goes Out of Style While my friends focused heavily on ambition and competence, Reddit users consistently returned to another trait: kindness. One commenter argued that thoughtfulness often shows up in shockingly insignificant moments. “One I haven’t seen here is 'thoughtfulness' - the little things like grabbing a snack/drink for them too if he’s grabbing one for himself. Or even something as simple as 'hey imma step out for 5 minutes to do __, would you like to come with me?' Harder to pull off in the wild, it’s more something between friends/acquaintances; but it’s an under-appreciated way for him to show you that he’s thinking of you even when he’s doing something for himself,” the user wrote. Many others, including several of my friends, mentioned how important it is for a man to show kindness toward animals and strangers. “When animals love a man and he loves them back, being gentle/nice to them. Such an enormous green flag tbh,” commented one Reddit user. Another user said that kindness to “randoms” is not only noticed by women but also “bodes well for a future relationship.” I mean, honestly, what would be more embarrassing than your man crashing out on total strangers over small, meaningless moments? Perhaps one Reddit user summed it up best by saying, “You can measure a person by how they treat people who can do nothing for them.” Natural Confidence Wins Confidence certainly appeared throughout the discussions online and with my friends, but not in a loud and performative sense that perhaps men might think they need to take. One of my friends’ moms offered a traditional answer: “My mom said a man who is driven and can provide for his family is a flex, also confident enough to order for his wife and make decisions.” It’s hard to argue with those moments where you get total princess treatment and get to step back while your man not only knows your go-to coffee order but also takes the lead when placing it with the wait staff. Some men may feel stressed about the concept of being a “provider” in today’s economy, which is quite inflated and often unfriendly to young men, but another one of my friends argued that providing isn’t necessarily about where a man is at today, but whether or not he’s intentionally working toward a greater purpose. “I feel like it’s not entirely essential that guy can provide for a whole family when he’s just starting out but it’s a flex to have a plan and be constantly taking steps towards those goals,” she told me. In a similar vein, Reddit users emphasized the importance of a man having humility alongside confidence. “Being able to admit that they don't know certain things, that they might not be the smartest or the strongest person in the room,” is a big flex, according to one Reddit user who added, “Guys who think they are better than everyone else have already lost my interest.” Frankly, the biggest flex isn’t something that money can buy, which might come as welcome news to young men navigating an increasingly difficult economic landscape. Earlier this year, the Institute for Family Studies reported that male unemployment and underemployment have risen significantly over the past several decades, with one-third of working-age men not employed full time. The report also found that 42% of respondents somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement, “I feel like a failure.” At the same time, many young men say they’re frustrated by a labor market they believe is stacked against them, from the decline of traditionally male industries (like manufacturing and transportation) to corporate DEI initiatives to a boost in immigrant labor to diversity hiring goals. Against that depressing backdrop, it’s perhaps not so surprising that many young men feel pressure to prove themselves through traditional markers of success. Yet, the women I spoke with repeatedly pointed to something far less flashy and far more attainable. Things like competence, discipline, kindness, strong friendships, initiative, and humility aren’t things you can simply buy. As one friend put it, “Unfortunately, living on your own (not in your parents' house) has become a flex. It used to be normal, and now it's impressive.” She laughed that she has reached the stage of life where practical competence is genuinely attractive: “I'm in the ‘starting a family’ phase of my life, so I'm impressed by boring things. I want to see you fold down a stroller with one hand while the baby cries in the other, that's hot to me.” There are, of course, women who genuinely love the rev of a luxury car or the look of expensive watches and wardrobes. But judging by both the Reddit discussion and the women I spoke with in real life, the qualities that leave meaningful impressions on women tend to be much harder to acquire. Things like competence, discipline, kindness, strong friendships, initiative, and humility aren’t things you can simply buy. They’re things that men can, and should, build over time. And unlike status symbols that depreciate in value, those never go out of style.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-flexes-women-actually-notice-and-the-ones-they-dont</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Relationships</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[CoverGirl Is Trying To Win Back GenX]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/covergirl-is-trying-to-win-back-genx</link>
      <dc:creator>Emily Osment Davis</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Easy, breezy, beautiful… Cover Woman?]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Ask anyone which makeup brand defined the last few decades, and chances are they'll say CoverGirl. It was more than a cosmetics company; it was an institution. Mary Kay was for your mom, but CoverGirl was unmistakably for girls. The marketing was irresistible. What girl didn't dream of being her town's own "CoverGirl”? “Easy, Breezy, Beautiful” felt like a promise. You’re already fresh-faced and pretty; CoverGirl would simply help you look like the best version of yourself. It was effortless beauty, bottled and packaged for the drugstore aisle. A Primer on the Brand’s History In the 1960s, CoverGirl was founded by skincare giant Noxzema. It was that pairing that cemented the brand’s clean, fresh-faced approach to makeup, and it was appealing. Celebrities lined up to become the next CoverGirl spokeswoman. The brand built an entire roster rather than relying on a single face. The 1990s were its golden era , with supermodels like Tyra Banks, Niki Taylor, and Christie Brinkley leading campaigns that defined mainstream beauty. CoverGirl's cultural dominance was so complete that America's Next Top Model made landing a campaign the show's signature prize. To become America's next top model, contestants first had to prove they could sell CoverGirl. In an ironic twist, many of those aspiring models were tasked with promoting products like Outlast lipstick, LashBlast mascara, and Clean Pressed Powder. But despite naming one of its most successful products Outlast , that's exactly what CoverGirl has struggled to do. The mighty have fallen. Once a company that defined beauty for young women, it has completely lost its grip on today's youngest adult generation. The Contours of a New Plan On a recent investors' call, parent company Coty announced that CoverGirl would receive a much-needed makeover to become “the ultimate Gen X brand.” The new strategic vision “Color the Future” will shift focus to elder millennials and Gen X consumers. They now claim to aim for the 40s-50s crowd. According to their reports, they plan to invest more in the products these generations know and love, such as LashBlast mascara, while simultaneously focusing on anti-aging makeup for older, more textured skin. Their new messages will focus on preserving mature skin and aging gracefully. Talk about a switch up. Coty states they’re now going to be “intentional about serving that consumer… rather than trying to be everything to everyone.” But some people aren’t buying it. As one critic points out , “This is a pivot made from a position of weakness, not a visionary land-grab. A struggling mass brand is going back to the customer who was always buying it.” If older women really were their top customer all along, why did they waste so much time, energy, and resources on the younger generation? And they’re not wrong. It's less like a bold reinvention and more like an ex returning after discovering the exciting new relationship didn't work out. CoverGirl isn't embracing mature women because they now want to be "more intentional." It's embracing them because Gen Z kicked them to the curb. But if older women really were their top customer all along, why did they waste so much time, energy, and resources on the younger generation? Missing the (Beauty) Mark CoverGirl has always been the brand for younger women. They just never happened to notice that the girl grew up. And not only did she grow, but the makeup market did as well. What was once a handful of drugstore cosmetic brand names has now exploded into a galaxy of options. Sephora, Ulta, influencer brands, luxury brands, French pharmacy, and K-beauty have all fragmented the market. And our favorite celebrities all have multi-million-dollar makeup deals now, too. The popularity of Fenty by Rihanna, Kylie Cosmetics by Kylie Jenner, and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez dominates. The market is flooded. Not to mention, it’s not just about having a trustworthy brand anymore. The bigger question becomes: Do you have a TikTok-worthy brand? For CoverGirl, the answer was decidedly no. With brand loyalty at an all-time low, CoverGirl needed a steady hand. Instead, it repeatedly jabbed itself with its own mascara wand. No Concealer Could Hide These Cracks In 2016, CoverGirl decided to take a hard turn and hired James Charles as its “CoverBoy” for their “So Lashy” campaign. Charles stood alongside celebrity women, all donning shirts calling for #LashEquality. Outlets like the BBC and Teen Vogue praised the brand for being brave and inclusive. But the actual reviews on the mascara, with a spiked tip that resembled a medieval mace, were mixed. Then in 2017, CoverGirl decided that their celebrated slogan, Easy, Breezy, Beautiful… CoverGirl, was outdated and had to go. For the modern young girl (and guy, now), the new slogan was “ I Am What I Makeup ,” which, if you really think about it, telegraphed everything about that era while saying absolutely nothing about their customer. The campaign was so broad and amorphous that no one felt spoken to. And from there, they continued circling the drain in their descent. All to chase a shiny customer at the cost of their true, very defined loyal base. Back to a Firm Foundation Now CoverGirl is back, making amends with its primary consumers, but will they take them back? It appears that they just might, at least for a while. Right now, Gen X is reported to be the top-spending beauty generation . But not for long. In fact, predictions are that this generation has about 8 years of peak spending power left. Gen X is reported to be the top-spending beauty generation. Some are calling CoverGirl’s strategy shortsighted, but we shall see. At least for right now, older women are the better customers by the numbers. They have more disposable income, they purchase makeup more consistently, and they deeply trust legacy brands. They’ve been there all along, waiting for someone to address their makeup concerns. You’re Making Me Blush I wouldn’t say CoverGirl's new strategy of focusing on older women deserves plaudits. It's more of an admission. For years, the company behaved as though the only customer worth chasing was the next 22-year-old scrolling through TikTok. In doing so, it overlooked the women who had been faithfully buying its products for decades. The irony is that CoverGirl never really lost its customers. It just lost sight of her. Now the brand hopes loyalty runs deeper than resentment. Whether this pivot proves to be a savvy business decision or simply a reprieve remains to be seen. But despite its foibles, I hope CoverGirl succeeds. It has been a trusted makeup brand for generations of American women. And there's something reassuring about knowing that, as I grow older, one of America's most recognizable beauty brands is finally committed to helping women like me feel easy, breezy, and beautiful.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/covergirl-is-trying-to-win-back-genx</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Beauty</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Man Sentenced After Killing 93-Year-Old Girlfriend's Mother Following Attempted Sexual Assault]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/man-sentenced-killing-93-year-old-girlfriends-mother-sexual-assault</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[A Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison after prosecutors said he brutally killed his girlfriend's 93-year-old mother inside her assisted living apartment. His lawyer is now celebrating on X for saving him from the death penalty. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[The victim, Dolores Padilla Marrero, had spent March 13, 2022, celebrating her 93rd birthday with family before returning to her apartment at the St. Joseph Garden Courts senior living facility in Orlando. Hours later, prosecutors say Javier Rosado Martinez , who was dating one of her daughters, went to the residence after skipping the birthday celebration. Another resident unknowingly let him inside the building. Days later, Marrero was discovered naked on her bed with a blanket covering her body. Authorities said she had been killed after Martinez attempted to sexually assault her . She was a grandmother of 11 and great-grandmother of 21. According to court filings, Martinez had what prosecutors called a "continual fixation" on elderly women. His internet history allegedly showed searches for pornography involving older women and younger men beginning two days before the attack. Prosecutors said those searches continued while he was inside Marrero's apartment and again as he rode a Lynx bus home after the killing. "He repaid that trust with unspeakable violence." Investigators also alleged that Marrero was strangled with pantyhose, an item prosecutors noted appeared in at least one of the videos Martinez had viewed. In court documents, they argued the evidence suggested the assault had been something he had been fantasizing about before carrying it out. Following his conviction, State Attorney Monique H. Worrell condemned the attack in a statement. "Ms. Padilla-Marrero was a woman who opened her home to someone she trusted — and he repaid that trust with unspeakable violence." She added that while no sentence could erase the family's loss, holding Martinez accountable meant "he will never again have the opportunity to harm another person." Florida prosecutors had sought the death penalty because of the heinous nature of the crime. After the jury's recommendation, the court instead sentenced Martinez to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, along with an additional five-year sentence for attempted sexual battery to be served consecutively. The sentence also sparked debate online after Martinez's defense attorney, Beth Bourdon, celebrated the outcome in a post on X. Sharing a video of U.S. Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu, Bourdon wrote, "just got a life verdict on a death penalty case." After facing backlash, she defended the post, writing that she had "triggered a lot of men who cannot handle a woman as a defense attorney," adding that she was "proud to have saved a life" and that she does not morally believe in the death penalty. The case has drawn attention not only because of the victim's age and the violence involved , but because investigators say the man responsible was someone the family knew and trusted. Marrero had just celebrated another birthday surrounded by loved ones. Within hours, prosecutors say, that celebration ended in one of the most horrifying crimes Orange County has seen in recent years.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/man-sentenced-killing-93-year-old-girlfriends-mother-sexual-assault</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[If Olivia Dean Is On Your Playlist, Add Sienna Spiro ]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/if-olivia-dean-is-on-your-playlist-add-sienna-spiro</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Sometimes, all it takes is one video to know you've found your next favorite artist. For me, that was Sienna Spiro.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[I was just scrolling on TikTok when a singer I’d never seen before blew me away. She had an iconic, towering beehive, rocked a vintage mini dress, and her voice was husky and soulful. I’d heard the whole “TikTok is interdimensional cable” joke before, but in that moment it actually felt real, as if I’d just stumbled across someone who belonged in another decade, right there in the middle of my feed. Her name is Sienna Spiro, and if you haven’t heard of her yet, you're in for a treat. Music these days usually pushes for bigger production and louder personalities. Some artists make songs built for 15-second clips. Spiro goes the other way. At only 20, she’s making jazz-infused soul that invites you to slow down, breathe, and wallow in past heartaches. She's often compared to Adele for her rich , soulful voice, with songs filled with longing, insecurity, and hope. Her lyrics have emotional depth far beyond her years. She's only 20, but her music doesn’t make you want to blast it and dance around your room at all. If anything, she makes you want to turn the lights down, pour a glass of wine, and cry. Or at the very least, sit in awe and soak in her amazing vocals. A Voice From Another Era Vintage fashion has become increasingly popular among Gen Z, but for Spiro, it doesn't feel like a trend. I'd say it's more of an extension of who she is. The towering bouffant hair and '60s-inspired silhouettes might make it seem like she's playing a character, but listen to her speak for a few minutes and it's obvious she isn't. “I’ve been singing since I could talk,” she told Interview Magazine. Growing up, her house was full of Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Barbra Streisand, and Al Green. “That was my pop music,” she explained, and she spent those early years trying to copy the way they sang. Those influences are still all over her sound today. Modern singers love showing off every run and riff they can, but Spiro has learned to hold back. She credits producer Omer Fedi with teaching her that “less is more.” Back then she felt like she had to prove she was a good singer by stuffing every riff and run into a song. Now she lets the music breathe instead. When she talks about the artists who shaped her, she often mentions Frank Sinatra’s line: “A singer, to me, is somebody who tells a story.” She keeps that in mind whenever she performs. "I love the humanness of music from back then." You can really hear it in tracks like “Die on This Hill” or “The Visitor.” Instead of hiding emotion under layers of production, she leans into silence, phrasing, and even little imperfections. “I love the humanness of music from back then,” she explained. “You couldn’t auto-tune, you couldn’t punch in.” She records almost everything in one take. “All the instruments are recorded by people. You hear the little mistakes. You hear the breaks, you hear rubbing from my dress. That is so personal.” Spiro seems way more interested in keeping the emotion than chasing flawless sound. Her fashion follows the same vibe. She loves “the personality and character of the sixties” and looks up to women like Nancy Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Françoise Hardy. The vintage paper dresses, structured mini dresses, and clean silhouettes are part of her everyday look. Along with artists like Olivia Dean and Laufey, Spiro is part of a wave of younger musicians bringing back timeless influences. Her road to this point has felt pretty old-school, too. She's Always Known She wrote her first song at 10 and knew right away that music was it for her. At 16 she left school to chase it full-time after a video she posted got her management. Looking back, she admits she was “very stubborn and headstrong,” but she’s grateful everything worked out. “This is all I ever want to do,” she said. Since then she as built a loyal fanbase with her deeply personal writing. Her debut EP Sink Now, Swim Later brought stories about heartbreak, body image, insecurity, and growing up. Her breakout single “Die on This Hill” put her on the international map, and she later released her debut album Visitor , followed by a world tour across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Even with all the success, she’s still careful not to let social media run her art . She’s thankful for the audience she’s found online, but she refuses to make music just because she thinks it might go viral. “Social media is a blessing and a curse,” she said. “I think art should just come from humans, and be personal in whatever way that means.”]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Male Takeover Of Female Prisons]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-takeover-of-female-prisons</link>
      <dc:creator>Amie Ichikawa</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Last month, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court upheld West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” and Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[These rulings rest on one basic principle: sex is an immutable characteristic. The Supreme Court’s recognition of biological reality has the potential to reshape how courts evaluate countless laws and policies beyond athletics. One of the most important places where this recognition is desperately needed is in women’s prisons . For the last several years, my friends in prison have watched brave female athletes stand up against a Goliath they know all too well: gender ideology. When men with fully intact genitalia suddenly self-identify as women, they are given a red carpet welcome by the state into women’s prisons. Female inmates, meanwhile, have slowly been erased by a movement disguised as compassionate, inclusive, and humane. It is none of those things. The Supreme Court’s recognition of biological reality has the potential to reshape how courts evaluate countless laws and policies beyond athletics. Many people assume that once someone is incarcerated, there is nothing left to lose. That assumption could not be more wrong. One woman in California who dared to speak up lost the most precious thing a prisoner can possess: her chance at freedom. She lost her parole suitability grant after filing a grievance against SB 132 about the retraumatization caused by being housed with physically intact men. As a survivor of sexual abuse, she received disciplinary infractions for harassment and false reporting, even though she took the proper avenues to voice an inmate concern and advocate for herself. Both charges were eventually dropped, but not before her freedom was revoked. This sent a clear message to the entire female population: that standing up for yourself would have serious consequences. California chose to elevate men’s desires to identify as women over the rights of actual women, who are simply seeking safety, privacy, and dignity in a space from which they literally cannot escape. The result has been a major power imbalance that has left many women inmates living in a constant state of hypervigilance. For survivors of sexual abuse—who comprise a significant percentage of the female prison population—the forced presence of biological males reopens wounds they are trying to heal. Indeed, for many women, prison is supposed to be a place where they can finally begin recovering from a lifetime of violent abuses. Instead, across America, they are finding themselves once again sleeping, showering, dressing, and living alongside men non-consensually. Any correctional policy that ignores these realities is not trauma-informed; it is trauma-inducing. What makes this even more alarming is that a significant number of the male transfers into women's prisons have been convicted of violent crimes against women or sexually motivated offenses. Many prison systems have adopted policies that leave female inmates with virtually no meaningful avenue to object. When incarcerated women report safety concerns, privacy violations, intimidation, or even sexual assault, they are too often dismissed as intolerant, accused of discrimination, or retaliated against for speaking out. This is cruel and unusual punishment . A significant number of the male transfers into women's prisons have been convicted of violent crimes against women or sexually motivated offenses. The parallels between women's sports and women's prisons are impossible to ignore. In sports, allowing males to compete against females creates obvious concerns about competitive fairness, safety, and equal opportunity. In prison, those same biological differences affect nearly every aspect of daily life. In both circumstances, it is about physical safety, bodily privacy, and psychological well-being, but in prison, the government has a constitutional obligation to protect those it has placed in its custody with no ability to leave. As an ambassador for Independent Women, I have had the privilege of developing friendships with courageous female athletes whose experiences eerily mirror those of incarcerated women. The same movement that celebrates placing women at a competitive disadvantage is also perfectly comfortable forcing girls to undress in front of males in locker rooms. It is the same movement that labels incarcerated women "transphobic" when they report being sexually assaulted by a trans-identifying male prisoner. The labels change, but the message remains the same: women should remain silent as their opportunities and privacy are stripped away. My home state of California has become one of the clearest examples of what happens when ideology replaces common sense. Legislators proudly promote law after law claiming to advance dignity, respect, and inclusion, yet somehow women consistently become the exception. California now allows biological males to transfer into one of only two women's prisons in the state while simultaneously celebrating policies that allow biological males to capture girls’ state athletic championships again and again. The labels change, but the message remains the same: women should remain silent as their opportunities and privacy are stripped away. The contradiction is blinding. California operates 31 adult prisons, yet only two are designated for women. Despite those limited spaces, women are expected to surrender privacy, security, and opportunities for rehabilitation in the name of inclusion. The state’s commitment to protecting women appears to end the moment doing so conflicts with gender ideology. The Supreme Court's recent decisions should encourage policymakers to reconsider these policies through a constitutional lens. The Court did not merely uphold two state athletic laws. In its majority opinion, the Court clarified that, within the context of Title IX, “sex” and “gender identity” are distinct concepts. This legal principle extends far beyond the playing field. Correctional facilities routinely classify inmates by sex for reasons directly related to safety, security, medical care, privacy, and institutional order. Those distinctions have never been arbitrary. They exist because the physical differences between men and women are real, measurable, and significant, both legally and biologically. Federal legislation, and state legislation, will ultimately be necessary to ensure women and girls receive equal protection regardless of where they live. If states without necessary protections for women in law remain free to define “woman” according to ideology rather than biology, women living in the most politically extreme jurisdictions will continue losing rights and will effectively be erased. You cannot protect what you cannot define. Using biologically accurate definitions of “man” and “woman” should never have become controversial. Those definitions are not rooted in prejudice; they are rooted in reality. They provide the foundation upon which countless laws protecting women and girls have been built for generations. Without clear definitions, protections become meaningless. Women are not asking for special treatment. We are asking to retain protections that were created precisely because women are physically different from men. We are asking to compete fairly, to maintain bodily privacy, to heal from trauma without being retraumatized, and to exist without having to apologize for biological reality. These are not radical demands. They are the very freedoms that make the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness meaningful. We are asking to compete fairly, to maintain bodily privacy, to heal from trauma without being retraumatized, and to exist without having to apologize for biological reality. For the women and girls living in the 23 states that have yet to break free from the death grip of gender ideology, these Supreme Court decisions offer something that has been in short supply: hope. After years of darkness, there is finally a small pinprick of light at the end of a very long tunnel. For the women sitting inside prison cells who have felt forgotten, silenced, or sacrificed in the name of progress, this decision represents you, too. It is a reminder that biological reality still matters, that truth has not disappeared, and that, just maybe, the law is beginning to recognize what we have known all along. Amie Ichikawa is an Independent Women ambassador and founder of Woman || Woman. She is closely involved in Independent Women Features’ documentary series, Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons , exposing the fallout of policies that open women’s prisons to male offenders, as told by female inmates, along with insiders and whistleblowers from the correctional world.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-male-takeover-of-female-prisons</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[The Gender Pay Gap Isn't Men vs. Women. It's Moms vs. Dads.]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-gender-pay-gap-isnt-men-vs-women-its-moms-vs-dads</link>
      <dc:creator>Lisa Britton</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Some people say the gender pay gap is sexist toward women. I say demanding we close the gender pay gap is sexist toward women.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[If we truly honored womanhood and motherhood, the gender pay gap wouldn’t be seen in such a negative light. We hear the slogan constantly: “Close the gender pay gap!” The average person is told that women are paid less than men simply because they’re women, and that this is obvious proof of systemic unfairness. The number most often repeated in 2026 is 84 cents on the dollar . But that figure is created by adding every dollar earned by every man in America and every dollar earned by every woman, then looking at the difference. No adjustments are made for occupation, hours worked, experience, overtime, dangerous jobs, or career interruptions. It’s the most basic possible comparison, and it’s presented as settled fact that women are victims. When we actually look at the data with even modest controls, the picture changes dramatically. In many fields and regions today, childless women are already out-earning their male counterparts under the same uncontrolled methodology that produces the famous 84-cent statistic. Young women without children, especially in urban professional settings, are pulling ahead in earnings . The much-discussed gap doesn’t appear between men and women in general; it appears when women become mothers. The much-discussed gap doesn’t appear between men and women in general; it appears when women become mothers. That single fact reframes everything. The earnings difference between men and women is overwhelmingly driven by motherhood. Married fathers earn significantly more than married mothers, single men, and single women. This isn’t primarily because employers suddenly decide to discriminate the moment a woman has a child. It’s because women, on average, make different choices once children enter the picture. They’re more likely to seek roles that offer flexibility, to reduce hours, to step back from the most demanding career tracks, or to leave the workforce for a period of time. These are rational decisions rooted in the desire to be present for their children during the years that matter most. Men are statistically more likely to pursue higher-paying but often more grueling fields and to work longer hours, frequently with the explicit goal of providing for their families. The provider instinct is real, measurable, and still powerfully at work. When we refuse to acknowledge these different priorities, we pretend that every earnings difference must be the result of bias rather than preference and trade-off, choices built around love and sacrifice. Women aren’t victims of a rigged system when they choose careers in healthcare, education, human resources, or other fields that reward relational skills and offer better work-life balance. They’re exercising agency, the agency many have fought for over centuries now. Men aren’t oppressing anyone when they dominate fields like engineering, skilled trades, and certain branches of technology that demand long hours and physical risk. They’re responding to different incentives and different skills, on average. When researchers compare men and women in the exact same role, with the exact same hours and experience, the gap shrinks to near zero or reverses in many cases. The uncontrolled statistic that fuels so much outrage simply doesn’t survive scrutiny once real variables are introduced. They’re more likely to seek roles that offer flexibility, to reduce hours, to step back from the most demanding career tracks, or to leave the workforce for a period of time. The cultural conversation around the pay gap rarely asks the most important question: why do we treat motherhood as a problem that needs to be solved rather than a profound good that deserves protection and honor? The push to eliminate every statistical difference between men’s and women’s earnings implicitly frames children as an obstacle to women’s success. It suggests that the proper goal is for women to behave identically to men in the marketplace, with no career cost for bearing and raising the next generation. That’s not progress for women but a devaluation of one of the most important human roles. I was scrolling Instagram the other day when an ad appeared for a clothing line selling T-shirts that read “Motherhood is Kingdom Work.” The phrase stopped me. Whether one takes the biblical reference literally or not, the underlying truth is hard to dispute. The daily work of raising children—the sleepless nights, the character formation, the sacrifice of immediate career advancement for long-term human flourishing—is some of the most consequential and honorable labor any person will ever perform. Societies that treat this role as a drag on women’s “real” success are societies that have lost sight of what actually sustains them. They’ve lost the point of what life is all about. Instead of celebrating the freedom women should now have to choose motherhood or career without social stigma, much of the current discourse treats the earnings dip that often accompanies it as evidence of injustice. We’re told we must restructure workplaces, government policy, and cultural expectations until mothers earn exactly the same as fathers. The assumption is that any difference is bad. But “balance” isn’t always a perfect 50/50 split on a spreadsheet. A woman who chooses to work fewer hours or a less demanding role while her children are young is not failing. She’s prioritizing something she has decided matters more than maximizing her lifetime earnings, and that choice should be respected, not pathologized. It actually concerns me that the gender pay gap isn’t wider . When we refuse to acknowledge these different priorities, we pretend that every earnings difference must be the result of bias rather than preference and trade-off, choices built around love and sacrifice. There’s another trend the pay-gap conversation conveniently ignores. The workforce is becoming more feminized, and many young men are falling behind . Over the past year, hundreds of thousands of new jobs were added to the U.S. economy, and women filled the overwhelming majority of them—94%. The fastest-growing sectors, like healthcare, education, and service industries, are fields where women have long been well-represented. Meanwhile, young men are less likely to pursue higher education, more likely to drop out of the labor force, and disproportionately represented in statistics for addiction, suicide, and social disconnection. This represents a genuine crisis in male achievement and purpose that receives far less attention than the supposed crisis of women earning a few cents less on a dollar because they’re being awesome moms. In high-visibility industries, pay differences are even more clearly driven by revenue rather than gender. When a male movie star gets a higher salary than his female co-star, it’s usually because his name has historically sold more tickets. When men’s professional sports teams generate vastly more viewership, sponsorship dollars, and media rights revenue than women’s teams in the same sport, the compensation gap reflects that economic reality. Expecting identical pay regardless of audience draw is a demand that businesses ignore basic market signals. The same principle applies across competitive fields: compensation ultimately tracks value created. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help women; it simply distorts incentives and infantilizes them. The persistent demand to “close the gender pay gap” by any means necessary does more than misdiagnose the data. It perpetuates a narrative of female victimhood that discourages honest conversation about trade-offs. It pressures women to view any deviation from maximum career intensity as a failure imposed by society rather than a choice they’re free to make. It frames motherhood as something women must overcome rather than something they can freely embrace. And it fuels resentment between men and women at a time when both sexes face real challenges that would be better addressed through cooperation than through zero-sum scorekeeping. Rather than treating that information as proof of injustice, we should treat it as evidence that many women still believe raising the next generation is worth more than maximizing every last dollar. What women actually need isn’t the elimination of every earnings difference but the freedom and support to make genuine choices without being told those choices are evidence of oppression. They need cultural permission to value motherhood as highly as any paid position. They need workplaces flexible enough to accommodate real human lives rather than abstract equality metrics. And they need a public conversation that stops treating men as the enemy and starts recognizing that healthy societies require both men and women to thrive in their complementary strengths. The gender pay gap, properly understood, isn’t a scandal. It’s largely the predictable result of different priorities, different choices, and the extraordinary demands of raising children. In many places, childless women have already closed or reversed the raw earnings comparison. The remaining gap tells us something important about what women are choosing to prioritize once they become mothers. Rather than treating that information as proof of injustice, we should treat it as evidence that many women still believe raising the next generation is worth more than maximizing every last dollar. They should be celebrated for it. That belief isn’t backward. It’s profoundly human, even godly. And it’s long past time we stopped apologizing for it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/the-gender-pay-gap-isnt-men-vs-women-its-moms-vs-dads</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Living</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Is Netflix's Little House on the Prairie Pro-Masculinity?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/is-netflixs-little-house-on-the-prairie-pro-masculinity</link>
      <dc:creator> Johanna Duncan</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Before James Bond, America already had Charles Ingalls.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Picture this. It's the middle of a snowstorm, there's no doctor for miles, and Caroline Ingalls is in labor a month early. "I've never done this without my sisters," she sobs. "I've never done this alone." Her husband doesn't leave to find help, because there is no help to find, and he knows he is all the help she has. So he kneels beside her, holds her hand, and they get through it. That scene, from Netflix's new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie , which premiered on July 9, is by far my favorite of the whole season. It's a brief exchange, but it's where the audience finally sees where this couple's strength comes from: that determination to keep pushing forward and that refusal to leave each other alone through the hardships. Charles Ingalls doesn't intentionally set out to be a hero. Most of the time, he's just busy surviving. But over eight episodes, he becomes a point of reference for everything we want and need from men. Who He Is Showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine has been direct about what she was after: a vision of the American frontier where "you can't do it alone," where survival depends less on grit and more on community, and where Charles Ingalls, played by Luke Bracey , is less the square-jawed protector of the 1974 original and more an optimistic man figuring it out in real time. This isn't so much a rewrite of Laura's memory of her father as an expansion of it, as it includes parts of him that a child wouldn't have understood. From one angle, we can see plainly that this is a man who works extremely hard. With no sons, he builds their little house with his own hands, until he humbly asks their neighbor, Mr. Edwards, for help. He does all the hunting and wagon-pulling for the family, including that fateful river crossing in the opening. The 1974 original pushed this even further by having Charles stay up all night with a rifle, guarding their doorless little house while wolves circled outside. The new Charles gets fewer of those intense moments, but the instinct underneath—the clear image of a man who stands between his family and whatever's out there—hasn't changed. Over eight episodes, he becomes a point of reference for everything we want and need from men. Parallel to that, we see him keeping his daughters and wife calm. He's constantly telling them there's nothing to worry about and presents a very optimistic view of life. For their well-being, he even hides Mr. Edwards's troubles from them, protecting their innocence and sparing them the worry. He doesn't just keep them safe physically; he keeps them safe emotionally too. He reassures them that he will protect and provide even when he doesn't fully know how. But he isn't lying. The point is that he has the determination to overcome every challenge for his family's sake, and he does. Both angles are a fair depiction of Charles Ingalls, and together they show the reality of a strong man leading his family toward their own American Dream, one wagon mile at a time. He is never the kind to drag his feet or lean into his own vices. Watch the series closely and you'll notice the same test keeps coming up, over and over, in a dozen different forms: something goes wrong or someone is afraid, and it falls on him to steady it. That's the plot of Charles Ingalls and, I'd argue, the plot of all good men. The Man Behind the Fiddle It helps to remember that Charles Ingalls was a real person before he was a character in a book. Charles Philip Ingalls was born in 1836 in Cuba, New York, and spent his life as a carpenter, farmer, hunter, trapper, storekeeper, and eventually justice of the peace. In brief, he was whatever was needed. He grew up in Illinois and later Wisconsin, where he met and married Caroline Quiner in 1860, and together they had five children: Mary, Laura, Caroline "Carrie," Charles Frederick, who died as an infant, and Grace. The real Charles was known for what Laura Ingalls Wilder called his "wandering foot," a reference to the restlessness that took the Ingalls family from the Big Woods of Wisconsin to Kansas, back to Wisconsin, on to Minnesota, then Iowa, then Minnesota again. He wasn't chasing adventure for its own sake; he was chasing land he could own outright, a homestead that belonged to no one but his family. Along the way, he was also a well-regarded member of every community he settled into, serving as deputy sheriff, and he was known for the fiddle he carried through every move. That fiddle shows up in nearly every episode of the new series as a kind of reminder of who he is: a hardworking, steady man who also knows how to bring joy and make a hard night feel less hard. He died in 1902, at 66, of heart disease, after a life spent in service to his family and the communities he lived among. Netflix's version is trying to honor what it must have felt like to be him, and what it cost him. The fictional Charles inherited that restlessness intact. What the new show adds is a human layer that wasn't always visible to his daughter: his guilt, his fear, his uncertainty about the decisions he's made. History gives us enough to know the shape of the man. Netflix's version is trying to honor what it must have felt like to be him, and what it cost him. I'd call the portrayal fair. They don't present him as a perfect man; if anything, the flaws and humility are what make the devotion convincing. Ma's Letters From Home The new series takes a few creative liberties, and I think they're handled with care, because they deepen the story rather than distort it. One of those liberties is the correspondence Caroline receives from Wisconsin. Her sister Eliza writes, urging her to come home before the baby arrives, making it clear she thinks Charles has led her sister into ruin. Caroline loves her husband, but as the struggles pile up and the reality of pregnancy sets in, her sister's words weigh on her. The letters seem to arrive at the worst possible moments: right after she learns she's pregnant, and right after she learns the land they've settled on isn't even legally theirs to claim. You can watch Caroline being torn between the family she chose with Charles and the family she was born into. Ultimately, she loves both. During a fever in episode four, delirious and afraid, she dreams her way back to her childhood home, where Eliza tells her she's finally made the right decision by leaving Charles behind. Caroline wakes up in shock and chooses the prairie anyway. Again and again, no matter what, she chooses Charles. But this isn't blind loyalty. Charles has earned her trust, and inevitably, love follows. She knows there's no life for her aside from the one they built as husband and wife, no matter the discomforts that come with it, because he keeps earning that trust daily, not only from her, but from their daughters too. It remains evident that, that no matter what, Charles keeps his daughters and wife safe in all senses of the word. And what's more masculine than that? The Ultimate Protector Whatever the show adds emotionally, it never lets Charles stop being useful with his hands. He throws himself into the river to save the horses and nearly loses himself along with the family dog. He builds the house, the well, the church, plank by plank, alongside neighbors he's just met. When a fellow settler passes out from gas at the bottom of an unfinished well, Charles is the one who pulls him out. When two men come through the cabin and take his wife's most treasured possession, it's Charles who tracks down the truth of what happened. None of this is dramatic in the way Westerns usually are. There is no gunfight, no chase, no mysterious staredown at the saloon. His heroics are gentler and more consistent, and I'd argue that makes them more powerful, not less. When Caroline Needed Him the Most That Christmas Eve labor scene is where Charles and Caroline shine the brightest. In the real history, Carrie's birth in Kansas in 1870 had a neighbor woman present to help; Laura's own books describe Mrs. Scott stepping in the way women in the community did, and, I'd add, still do for the most part. The show strips that safety net away entirely, leaving Caroline in a snowbound cabin with only her husband for support, her daughters just on the other side of the room. This creative liberty pays off, because it puts the show's whole argument—self-reliance versus reliance on each other—under maximum pressure in a single scene. Charles doesn't perform confidence; he actually has it in him. "You'll remember," he tells her. "And if you don't, we'll figure it out all over again. Together." Then he talks her through the labor itself, coaching her breathing, telling her a story about a cousin born early and healthy just to give her mind somewhere to go besides fear: "You're all right. You're doing great. Just breathe." It's the most physically and emotionally demanding scene he's given all season, and while filled with tension, he never once raises his voice. "You Wanted a Boy" The fear had been building for months. Earlier in the season, Laura overhears enough to convince herself her father is hoping for a son, and fears she'll be replaced in his affections. The morning after the birth, holding his newborn daughter, Charles gets asked directly. "You wanted a boy," Laura says. His answer doesn't hedge: "Not at all. It's been the privilege of my life raising two brave, kind, and thoughtful girls. And she'll be wonderful too." It's a short line, delivered with a confidence that reassures Laura of exactly how loved she is, and it defines who Charles is more than any of the season's bigger moments. Charles isn't the only steady man in this story. Mr. Edwards, their neighbor, a man still working through his own drinking after losing his own daughters, tells Laura something nearly identical earlier in the season: that her father would never trade her for a son, because he himself wouldn't have traded his girls for anything in the world. It's the kind of sentence that builds a girl's self-esteem—hearing the men in their lives remind her of exactly how much she's worth. The answer this whole season keeps circling back to is a single, unglamorous habit: showing up for the hard parts, and staying long after it's over. Considering how Laura reads her father, and why Caroline keeps choosing to stay, an obvious question sits underneath all of it: what do we actually want from the men in our lives? The answer this whole season keeps circling back to is a single, unglamorous habit: showing up for the hard parts, and staying long after it's over. Charles Ingalls, the real and the reimagined version, never claimed to have all the answers. He just kept showing up to love, protect, and answer the questions.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/is-netflixs-little-house-on-the-prairie-pro-masculinity</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Matilda Djerf Shares Emotional Story Of Her Ectopic Pregnancy: “I Still Have The Three Scars On My Stomach”]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/matilda-djerf-emotional-story-ectopic-pregnancy</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Swedish fashion entrepreneur and influencer Matilda Djerf is known for her effortless style, signature blonde hair, and the wildly successful clothing brand she built with her partner, Rasmus Johansson. But this week, she set all of that aside to share one of the most painful experiences of her life.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[In an emotional Instagram post marking six years since her ectopic pregnancy, Djerf opened up about the medical emergency that changed her life . Through a series of personal photos and diary-style journal entries, she reflected on the physical pain and the emotional aftermath of her health journey. “I didn’t know what an ectopic pregnancy was when I was going through it,” she wrote. “So once I felt strong enough, I made myself a promise to continue sharing my story as the years go by to help raise awareness of what an ectopic pregnancy is.” Djerf said the day began with words she had long hoped to hear: “You’re pregnant.” Within moments, however, the conversation took a devastating turn. They told her, “It’s a pregnancy that has started growing outside the uterus.” She recalled feeling as though time stood still after hearing the diagnosis. “So many emotions rushed through my body when I heard those words,” she said. “In the span of a few seconds, I felt happy, confused, scared, and overwhelmed.” For several days beforehand, Djerf had been experiencing pain on the lower left side of her abdomen. At first, she assumed it was another stomach issue. But by the third day, the pain had become unbearable. “I woke up unable to even sit up in bed without crying out in pain,” she wrote. After arriving at the hospital, doctors told her the pregnancy was growing in her left fallopian tube and that she needed emergency surgery. A Medical Emergency Many Women Have Never Heard Of An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and begins growing outside the uterus, most commonly in a fallopian tube. Because the pregnancy cannot develop normally and can cause life-threatening internal bleeding if the tube ruptures, it requires immediate medical treatment. Depending on the situation, treatment may involve medication or emergency surgery. Common symptoms can include severe abdominal or pelvic pain, abnormal vaginal bleeding, shoulder pain, dizziness or fainting, and a positive pregnancy test paired with pain. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should seek medical care immediately. Djerf admitted she had never heard of the condition before it happened to her. “We never learned about it in school, and no one had ever mentioned it during a gynecologist appointment,” she wrote. Because it was the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Djerf had to face much of the experience alone. Her partner wasn’t allowed inside the hospital with her. “I begged the nurse not to leave,” she recalled. “I was completely alone.” After being wheeled into the operating room, she remembered counting backward as the anesthesia took effect. “The next thing I remember is calling Rasmus,” she wrote. “My Rasmus. My safe place.” When she woke up after surgery, her reality had changed. “I was lying alone in my hospital room with three new scars across my stomach and one less fallopian tube.” The Emotional Recovery Lasted Longer Than the Physical One Although her body healed, Djerf said the emotional recovery was much slower. “It took months before I felt like myself again,” she wrote. “Physically, my scars healed beautifully. They became a reminder of how strong my body is and how incredibly capable it is of healing itself.” “But my heart hurt. Constantly.” She said she spent months worrying about whether she would be able to become pregnant in the future. During one follow-up appointment, she finally broke down in tears after carrying so much fear inside. According to Djerf, the doctor responded by saying, “Well, at least crying is free.” “That overwhelming feeling of loneliness came rushing back,” she wrote. Why She’s Still Sharing Her Story Looking back now, Djerf said she continues to share her experience because of the messages she’s received from other women who have gone through similar losses. “Since sharing my story, I’ve received so many heartbreaking but incredibly important messages from people who have gone through the same experience,” she wrote. “Through those connections, I’ve found strength, and because of that, I truly believe my healing journey has continued and will continue.” She also encouraged anyone experiencing symptoms such as abnormal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, a missed or late period, and a positive pregnancy test to seek medical attention right away, noting that early treatment is incredibly important. Djerf ended her post by returning to the words that began her story, this time with hope instead of heartbreak: “You’re pregnant,” she wrote. “Words I hope I’ll hear again one day. Just under very different circumstances.”]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/matilda-djerf-emotional-story-ectopic-pregnancy</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[If Female Athletes Are Being Sexualized, Why Aren't We Talking About the Uniforms?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/if-female-athletes-are-being-sexualized-talking-about-uniforms</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[The European Broadcasting Union and European Athletics recently released a 23-page guide called Raising the Bar, encouraging camera operators to avoid angles that unnecessarily sexualize competitors. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[The recommendations call for fewer low-angle shots , fewer tight shots from behind, and less use of slow-motion replays that linger on athletes’ bodies instead of their actual performances. The organizations behind the guidelines want the broadcast to tell the story of the sport without turning women into objects. Unexpectedly, the ruling sparked controversy online almost right away. A lot of people welcomed it, pointing out that female athletes have spent years competing while knowing certain camera angles would inevitably get clipped and shared for reasons that had nothing to do with the sport itself. Those women often ended up sexualized through screenshots and slow-motion footage that overshadowed what they’d actually accomplished. Others are saying political correctness runs amok, insisting there was nothing wrong with how the broadcasts already looked. Before long, though, the conversation took a turn in addressing women’s clothing in sports. Why are so many women still competing in uniforms that show far more skin than their male counterparts? It’s a fair question and probably deserves the same amount of attention. Take sprinting, for example. The fastest men in the world race in fitted shorts that give them full freedom of movement. Women, on the other hand, often compete in bikini-cut briefs that show a lot more skin . Those uniforms have become so normalized that many people don’t even stop to ask why they’re designed that way. Meanwhile, supporters of the current women’s uniforms say they’re built for comfort, aerodynamics, and unrestricted movement. Some athletes genuinely prefer them, and that preference shouldn’t be dismissed. Sportswear has become more personalized, and today’s athletes generally have more options than previous generations did. Still, it’s hard not to wonder: if showing more skin really gives a performance edge, why don’t the world’s fastest male sprinters race in bikini-style briefs? Men’s uniforms have evolved with performance in mind while still looking like regular shorts. Women’s uniforms have stayed considerably more revealing, which makes people wonder whether tradition, aesthetics, and long-standing expectations have played just as big a role as actual athletic need. Beach volleyball changed its uniform rules a while back after criticism that bikini bottoms were effectively the expectation at the top level. Gymnastics has increasingly allowed full-length unitards.  Handball made headlines in 2021 when Norway’s women’s beach handball team was fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms (the penalty was later dropped). Why did revealing uniforms become the default for women in so many fields while men competing alongside them rarely faced the same pressure? Perhaps those unanswered questions explain why the new broadcasting guidelines, although hopeful, feel incomplete. If broadcasters think certain camera angles can make athletes feel unnecessarily exposed, then maybe the discussion shouldn’t stop at telling camera operators where to point the lens. Former British Olympic pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw put it plainly in the report: inappropriate clips from competitions often keep circulating online long after the event is over. She said : “How our sport is displayed during live broadcast can be incredibly powerful yet sometimes harmful to the women competing and the women/girls watching. I first-hand have received social media abuse and witnessed inappropriate videos online of myself and colleagues when slow-motion content of us competing is captured.” "We share our responsibility to present our sport in a way that engages, informs and inspires." Athletes spend years honing their craft only to have certain clips spread online because of how their bodies looked from one particular angle, rather than because of how incredible their performance was. Respectfully filming female athletes is a step in the right direction. Viewers should be watching someone’s speed, technique, strength, and years of training, rather than waiting for an awkward freeze-frame or slow-motion replay that invites people to sexualize her . If changing camera angles helps keep the focus where it belongs, that’s a good change. Serbian long jumper and world champion Ivana Španović also voiced her support for the initiative, saying athletes themselves have a responsibility to help shape how their sport is presented to the public. "As athletes, we share our responsibility to present our sport in a way that engages, informs and inspires," she said. "By focusing on the skill, strength and dedication behind every performance, we can create a more respectful and inspiring experience for everyone." Španović also thanked European Athletics and the European Broadcasting Union "for not only initiating this important project in women's athletics filming, but also for giving space to us athletes to be heard and for taking our voices into consideration."]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/if-female-athletes-are-being-sexualized-talking-about-uniforms</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[6 Things Americans Have That Most Of The World Doesn't]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/6-things-americans-have-that-most-of-the-world-doesnt</link>
      <dc:creator>Greta Waldon</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[One of the most surprising parts of living in 2026 is that there are certain things many of us took for granted that now feel controversial to say. “America is a great country” is, sadly, one of those things. ]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Earlier this month when the United States turned 250 years old, to acknowledge the Fourth of July felt like a political statement. Even institutions like the Smithsonian pushed the idea that the 250th anniversary should be “problematized” rather than honored. Celebrating the amazing things our country has accomplished and the incredible things that are enshrined in our Constitution should be something we can all get behind, wherever our vote lands on Election Day. As a second-generation American, I have proximity to family who knew firsthand what it means to flee war-torn countries, communism, and the threat of death to pursue (and modestly accomplish) the American Dream. I think that's what has helped me remember that the United States is incredibly unique. Average Americans live with the promise of freedom, comfort, opportunity, and equality that is simply not a reality in all places. With blessings like these, we live in a country worth celebrating long after the last fireworks fade. Freedom As Americans, we enjoy freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to assembly and petition, and the right to bear arms, to name a few. We are among the strongest countries in the world for tolerance of free speech , support of free press, and defense of our right to use the internet without government censorship. Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes use firewalls and internet shutdowns to control what their citizens can and can’t see or do online. While Western countries typically don’t resort to these extremes, in places like the U.K., the government’s new age checks have limited how even adults can view things like footage from Gaza or Ukraine, political discussions or news groups, and healthcare forums. Social media companies, complying with the new laws, have opted for better-safe-than-sorry policies that rely on facial scanning and ID verification . Average Americans live with the promise of freedom, comfort, opportunity, and equality that is simply not a reality in all places. We also have numerous less-articulated freedoms, like the freedom to drink alcohol. My husband had a friend from Jordan who while visiting Qatar was given 40 lashes for drinking. While this sounds outlandish to us, it is common practice there. Most of what I’ve mentioned so far falls into the "freedom to” category, but Americans also benefit from a lot of “freedoms from” as well. For example, we have freedom from corporal punishment like lashes because we have freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. And we have the freedom to not worry about getting ripped off every time we purchase anything due to our antitrust laws and consumer protection agencies. Innovation & opportunity We are responsible for inventing everything from the internet to telephones to airplanes to smartphones to electric guitars. This is largely because our economic system allows for the brightest minds among us to pursue their ideas and inventions at scale. We also attract talent from all over the globe because they know that they can come here to make the most of our entrepreneurial culture, where we see failed businesses as data points rather than endpoints. None of this would be possible without our venture capital model, world-class academic institutions, and large, affluent consumer market. As Fortune magazine puts it, “America’s most important innovation has never been a single technology but the capacity to reinvent the institutions of innovation themselves.” Opportunity in America is not just for exceptional inventors. We have more people who want to immigrate here than we can process or reasonably accept because the promise of the American Dream is still very real for regular people. Upward mobility is a tangible possibility for American citizens, with the vast majority of adults earning a higher income than their parents did . Upward mobility is a tangible possibility for American citizens, with the vast majority of adults earning a higher income than their parents did. As I mentioned, my maternal grandparents came to the United States with hardly any possessions as war refugees. Through their hard work, they provided for four children who all went on to live much more comfortable lives than they had themselves, pursuing higher education and careers that in turn created even more opportunities for their grandchildren. Culture & the arts America remains one of the world’s greatest cultural centers. The whole world watches our movies and listens to our music. New York City, home to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Broadway, and Lincoln Center, to name just a few of its art institutions, is the cultural capital of the world. Hollywood is, of course, the entertainment capital, with 70% of its revenue coming from international markets . While Hollywood has been experiencing a severe downturn lately, two of this summer’s most popular movies, Obsession and Backrooms , were still made by Americans outside the usual Hollywood studios. Even as one art form or art institution passes away or transforms, it’s Americans who fill the gap and bring us into the future of art. If pop culture isn’t your thing (and to be honest, it’s not mine) you are bound to find something you like being made in the United States. We have countless local musical groups of all genres, local art and craft fairs throughout our metro areas year-round, and indie film and theater scenes in most decently sized cities. And because we have so many cultures represented here, you can easily access music and art from pretty much every culture, whether it's Native American, Armenian, Indonesian, or Colombian. We also attract touring artists from all over the world, which means, on an average night not only can you see huge names selling out stadiums, but you can also find incredibly unique acts performing at smaller local venues. I’ll never forget when I got to hear Les Filles de Illighadad perform their incredible Nigerien guitar music at a venue near me. Equality If you were born and raised in America, it can be easy to forget that equality is not a value all countries hold. In some countries, women continue to face significant legal or cultural barriers to political participation, even when they have the right to vote. Countries like Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iran often require that women be accompanied by men to travel or even leave their own homes. Afghan women are also prohibited from pursuing higher education and from working outside of the home. Other countries are still operating with systemic racial discrimination and inequality. In Myanmar, the Rohingya minority do not have citizenship rights or equal protection under the law. In Sudan, Black African ethnic minorities experience mass killings, gang rape, and other violence. The Chinese government uses mass internment camps, forced labor, forced birth control, and digital surveillance to control the Uyghur minority . Our cultural conversation oftentimes loses perspective by comparing imperfect democracies with regimes committing active atrocities. Our cultural conversation oftentimes loses perspective by comparing imperfect democracies with regimes committing active atrocities. As I was researching equality and discrimination worldwide, the top result for racial inequality was Myanmar. When I asked for more examples, the next country Google’s AI generated was the United States, citing “redlining” (an illegal practice in which banks, insurers, and other businesses refuse to offer loans, mortgages, or insurance to residents of certain neighborhoods based on their race or ethnicity, rather than their individual creditworthiness) as its central argument. I clarified, asking, “Sorry, but can you give more clear examples like that of Myanmar, where there are clear and current systemic racial inequality issues?” Only then did it list the countries where ongoing violence, genocide, and other severe human rights violations are happening even as you read this. In America, all citizens are guaranteed their rights regardless of race, gender, religion, or any other personal characteristic. We also all have the right to vote in local and federal elections and have a say in how our country is governed. While our history is by no means perfect, to treat America’s current problems as morally equivalent to the terrible human rights violations happening worldwide is misguided, to say the least. Safety While our larger cities, like all big cities across the globe, do have crime, everyday life in America is safer than in much of the world because of our culture of interpersonal trust. Our trust in the media and the government has been falling recently, but trust in local communities, small businesses, and neighbors remains strong in the U.S. There are, in fact, many American neighborhoods across the country where you can still leave your doors unlocked, walk anywhere without being pickpocketed or assaulted, and let your kids play in the yard without direct supervision. When I lived in New York City as a young adult, I felt safe walking alone anywhere I needed to go in Manhattan, even if it was 3 a.m. When I accidentally forgot my cell phone in a taxi, the driver called “Grandma” in my contacts to track me down and return my phone to my college dorm. While these experiences took place in 2012 and I can’t speak for NYC specifically these days, this level of safety and goodwill in one of the world’s largest cities is very unusual. Likewise, while some individual law enforcement officers might have flaws, our police as a whole are not corrupt and actually help our communities feel safer. When there is an officer who acts poorly, we take notice, demand justice, and can reasonably expect to receive it. In addition to law and order, the ease of receiving emergency medical treatment in America is unmatched. About 71% of Americans live within 30 minutes of one of our numerous emergency departments, and you can call 911 for an ambulance to pick you up wherever you are. We legally require that emergency departments treat everyone, regardless of insurance or ability to pay. There are even free or sliding-scale options for those who truly cannot afford the life-saving care. Convenience & comfort As Americans, we're spoiled with conveniences and comforts. In fact, the plumbing, central air, heat, internet, waste management, and electricity we take for granted as Americans are often quite literally saving our lives. In Europe, over 175,000 people die each year due to heat . In the U.S., 90% of homes have air conditioning. In Europe, it’s more like 10% to 20%. Similarly, between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in low- and middle-income countries simply due to mismanaged waste . Our conveniences reach far beyond the infrastructural. As long as you don’t live in a very rural part of the country, chances are you have many options for dining, grocery stores, a mix of local and big-box businesses, and amenities like hospitals, community centers, and entertainment all within a short drive. And if there’s something you need but can’t make it to the store, Amazon will have it on your doorstep the next day. The plumbing, central air, heat, internet, waste management, and electricity we take for granted as Americans are often quite literally saving our lives. The U.S. also ranks among the top three countries in the world for largest home sizes . Our houses come with varying sizes of yards, from a modest city lot to country acreage, but we are still known for our generous lawns, with the national median sitting at about a quarter of an acre. And inside our homes, we have some of the world’s best appliances, including our washers and dryers, dishwashers, and refrigerators. If you don’t have a large yard, depending on where you live, you may have a public park within walking distance. You can also make a trip to visit one of our 400 gorgeous national parks, 300 of which are free to enter. While you’re driving there, you’ll appreciate the comforts of free public restrooms and a surprisingly safe and incredibly convenient interstate system. I hope these reflections have helped you remember that we live in a remarkable country, one that we can feel grateful to call home. As we celebrate the culture, freedom, and opportunity America offers, we’ll help to sustain those blessings for future generations, too.]]></content:encoded>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Is Your Bra Making You Sick?]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/is-your-bra-making-you-sick</link>
      <dc:creator>Hannah Dunning</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[It's time we expose lingerie's dirty little secret.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[“Where can I find a clean bra?” This is the No. 1 question I'm asked as a textile health consultant, advocate, and educator. And honestly, it's a question that keeps me up at night. Losing someone you love has a special way of “firing up” a person, especially when you feel like it could have been prevented. At least, it did for me. At the ripe age of 16, I lost my best friend and favorite person to estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer. I remember Googling “what causes breast cancer?” and finding no real answers other than, “We just don't know for sure.” I also remember thinking, “Well, how many more women have to die for us to find out?” That's why I promised my grandmother, on her deathbed, that I would spend the rest of my life looking for answers. That's also why, when I think about what's in a woman's bra, I see red. The ingredients Most bras on the market are plastic. Polyester alone accounts for 59% of every fiber made on earth , and once you add the nylon, the elastane, and the foam in the cup, the average bra is a petroleum product with a hook-and-eye closure. Most bras on the market are plastic. And plastic is never just plastic. The most complete inventory of plastic chemistry ever assembled, published in Nature , catalogued more than 16,000 chemicals that turn up in plastics. Over 4,200 of them are flagged as chemicals of concern, meaning they persist, build up in the body, or are toxic. For more than 10,000 of them, the basic hazard data doesn't exist at all. Nobody has looked. The fiber is only half of it. Most manufacturers add harmful chemicals to all kinds of materials, whether plastic, cotton, or any fabric in between. We're talking phthalates, formaldehyde, azo dyes, and PFAS. That's not even mentioning the polyurethane foam disaster that is a bra cup. We use this foam in furniture, automobile parts, construction applications, and, yes, virtually every woman's bra. And we've normalized putting it directly on the most hormonally sensitive part of our bodies: our breasts. Almost none of it is has to be disclosed to you. Fewer than 6% of known plastic chemicals are regulated anywhere in the world. The label Here is what federal law actually requires on the tag inside your bra. Four things: the fiber content, the country of origin, the name of the company responsible for it, and instructions for washing it. That's the complete list. The Textile Fiber Products Identification Act , which governs every garment sold in this country, has nothing to say about dyes, finishes, foams, adhesives, or any of the several hundred chemicals that might be sitting in the cup. And the requirements it does impose come with holes: any fiber making up less than 5% of the garment can be dismissed as "other fiber," trim and ornamentation frequently don't have to be disclosed at all, and the FTC will forgive a 3% margin of error on the numbers that are there. Now consider fur. If you buy a fur coat, federal law requires the label to tell you whether that fur was bleached, dyed, or otherwise artificially altered. The chemical treatment of a dead animal is a mandatory disclosure. The chemical treatment of the fabric held against a living woman's breasts, twelve hours a day, is not. There is no clean bra aisle because there's no label that would let you find one. Nobody has to tell you what's in your bra, so nobody bothers. The diagnoses Women under 50 now have an 82% higher incidence of cancer than men their age, up from 51% in 2002. It's a statistic that has left the medical and scientific community ringing alarm bells. The most common type of cancer in young women? Breast. Deaths have fallen 44% since 1989 , thanks to screening and better treatment. But diagnoses keep climbing, up 1% a year overall and 1.4% a year among women under 50. And one category of the disease has skyrocketed. Hormone-driven breast cancers, the kind fueled by estrogen and the kind you'd expect hormone disruptors to influence, now make up roughly 70% to 80% of all breast cancer cases. Can someone please tell me why this isn't the No. 1 topic on social media right now? Every day, about 1,000 women are told, “You have breast cancer.” This seems like a real “National Health Emergency” if I've ever heard of one. Something in our environment is making women sick, very sick, and we're still pumping out plastic bombshell bras full of chemicals we can't pronounce, like they're exactly what a woman needs in 2026. Human beings have split the atom, invented the internet, performed surgery on babies who hadn't even been born yet, and put people on the moon, but making a classic T-shirt bra without harmful chemicals or plastic? Apparently, we haven't been able to pull that one off yet. And if we question our food when colorectal cancer spikes, alcohol when liver cancer spikes, and cigarettes when lung cancer spikes, shouldn't we be taking a hard look at what we're putting on our breasts when breast cancer rates spike? And yet… crickets. When researchers actually test clothing, they find the chemicals. A Stockholm University screening found quinoline, a carcinogen, in garments at levels that touched the EU's legal limit . Greenpeace tested branded clothing and found a perfluorinated compound in every item. A 2025 study of infant textiles found methylparaben in almost 95% of the products it tested, along with preservatives and UV filters that nobody expected to be in baby clothes at all. Some of those compounds leached out under nothing more than normal skin contact. Hormone-driven breast cancers, the kind fueled by estrogen and the kind you'd expect hormone disruptors to influence, now make up roughly 70% to 80% of all breast cancer cases. And a good number of them are xenoestrogens . That means they're shaped enough like estrogen to bind to the same receptors, mimicking a hormone your body never asked for. Parabens have been measured in human breast tissue . BPA activates both major estrogen receptors and can stimulate the growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cells. The tissue that responds most to estrogen? Our breasts. I'm not suggesting bras are the only thing making women sick. But I am suggesting we take their ingredients far more seriously, because once you learn what's in a bra, the whole “can't find a clean bra” thing goes from feeling annoying to feeling straight-up criminal. Maybe it's my own bias, in that I have breasts and lost someone to breast cancer, but I feel like the attention to this issue should be so much bigger. In a world where we have so many people getting sick and so few answers as to why, I believe it's about time the lingerie industry took a “giant leap for womankind.” The kind of leap where toxic bras are simply not acceptable anymore. Because no marketing campaign or runway show in “honor of women” means anything if you're still making products that could contribute to making them sick.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/is-your-bra-making-you-sick</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Health</category>
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      <title><![CDATA[Miley Cyrus Says Posing Nude And Wearing Revealing Outfits Ended Her Relationships]]></title>
      <link>https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/miley-cyrus-posing-nude-revealing-outfits-ended-relationship</link>
      <dc:creator>Meredith Evans</dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Miley Cyrus says men wanted that sexual side of her “saved for them only” — and not shared with the world.]]></description>
      //
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[Miley Cyrus recently spoke candidly about how her hypersexual era affected her relationships in unexpected ways. On the podcast Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky , the singer explained that the way she dressed and performed meant many men simply did not want to pursue anything serious with her. Her sexuality during her Bangerz era was already out there for everyone to see, leaving little room for the private connection and intimacy some men wanted to keep between the two of them. “So like guys, when I would try to date when I was dating or who I was engaged at the time, that didn’t work out because I was sharing a part of myself that men wanted to be saved for them only,” she explained. “And the fact that I would, you know, pose nude or dance in very little clothes or show my body was making them feel like I was taking something away that was meant to be for them.” Plenty of men feel the same way, and there is nothing unusual about it. Women have preferences for height and work ethics. Some men value the idea that certain aspects of a relationship should stay between the people involved. When those boundaries disappear, intimacy starts to lose what makes it feel personal. We hear time and time again that women find men who aren't on social media more attractive, so it makes sense that many men feel the same way about women. A woman who shares every part of her life online or turns her body into content may find that some high-quality partners lose interest. Not Everything Has to Be Shared During her Bangerz and "Wrecking Ball" era , Miley built a hypersexualized image of herself, posing nude for the "Wrecking Ball" music video, performing in revealing outfits, and she frequently made headlines for provocative performances and interviews. It became one of the defining parts of her public persona, but it cost her a relationship. This matters especially now, when so many young women turn to platforms like OnlyFans for attention or money. The pattern is similar: once your body and sexuality become available to strangers, it becomes harder for someone to feel they are getting something meaningful and protected. Respect often begins with how a woman treats her own body and privacy. If she does not draw lines around those things, it becomes difficult for anyone else to treat them as precious. There is real appeal in a little mystery. There is real appeal in a little mystery. The women who keep certain things back, who save their most personal expressions for the person they choose, often find that the connection feels deeper and more charged. It is not about hiding or playing games. Not everything needs to be performed for an audience. Men who appreciate that quality are usually looking for the same respect and reserve in return. They want to know there are sides of her that belong only to them. How a woman presents herself in public sends signals about what she values in private. Miley’s experience shows one outcome when those signals lean heavily toward maximum exposure. Other women may reach different conclusions about what works for them. Either way, the men who pass on the hyper-public version are not doing anything wrong. They're just choosing the kind of romantic relationship they desire , where some things remain theirs alone.]]></content:encoded>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/miley-cyrus-posing-nude-revealing-outfits-ended-relationship</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <category>Culture</category>
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