Inside the Young Women’s Leadership Summit: A life of servitude, motherhood for women

FFRF’s Caitlin Berray was able to infiltrate the Young Women’s Leadership Summit (thanks to a generous donation by an FFRF member), hosted by Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit founded and run by Charlie Kirk, a well-known Christian nationalist commentator. Here is Caitlin’s take on the event.

By Caitlin Berray

I  expected to be upset, even before walking into the Charlie Kirk-endorsed “Leadership Summit” for young women. But, it wasn’t the constant degradation of women or the villainization of feminism from the summit’s speakers that disturbed me the most. Instead, what really bothered me was the all-female crowd’s eager embrace of the sermon-like remarks that urged the attendees to trade ambition for obedience, education for marriage and independence for servitude.

I attended Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit (YWLS) in Grapevine, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, on June 13–15, alongside about 3,000 other attendees, mostly school-aged young women and girls. Predictably, the majority of attendees were white, although there was a notable presence of women of color. Just about every girl was dressed in some rendition of a brightly colored sundress or floral prairie dress, paired with cowboy boots and voluminous hair, a look popularized by an emerging wave of young women in the conservative base. Some wore MAGA merchandise, while others touted “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) tote bags. Arguably, Kirk and his political advocacy organization, Turning Point USA, have played a pivotal role in drawing young women to the ultra-conservative right in droves, etching a niche within the conservative base for a concentrated, traditional definition of femininity focused on marriage, motherhood and an RFK Jr.-led understanding of health.

I would be remiss not to mention the considerable presence that MAHA had at the event. Many speakers advertised their natural supplement lines or their toxin-free makeup and skincare brands. One speaker, a former trauma nurse, professed that the Western medical system is the “enemy of the world.” Prescription drugs were vilified, anti-vaccine rhetoric was celebrated and science was belittled. Yearning for weight loss or fretting over processed foods are emerging as pipelines for young women to adopt ultra-conservative worldviews. Podcasts covering the evils of seed oils and urging women to cook “real foods” are attracting susceptible girls to a new wave of conservatism: MAHA. One of the more popular speakers at YWLS, podcaster Alex Clarke, quipped that we should “put women back in the kitchen” because the kitchen is where the “real revolution” starts.

When the event kicked off, speakers were quick to tell the receptive audience that not only are feminism and Western society lying to them about education, careers and self-sufficiency, but that feminism is also concealing the foremost truth about femininity: Women need to be wives and mothers. There was what I can only describe as pure jubilance in the audience as Kirk, the only male speaker of the weekend, called upon women to abandon careers and education to “submit to a godly man” and raise “more children than you can afford.” To Kirk, the ultimate goal for every girl should be marriage, and every single decision should push them closer to finding a husband.

Kirk resoundingly does not support women in the workforce, at one point professing that, “Husbands should do everything he can to not force his wife into the workforce.” But Kirk not only wants women to stay out of the workforce, he also wants women to abandon education. In the Q&A sessions that Kirk led, as teenage girls lined up to ask for his wisdom on navigating school or balancing a career with motherhood, Kirk stressed that women should not attend college and that high school girls should instead prioritize marriage and children above all else. Kirk trumpeted that grades do not matter and that a true patriot should not care about them, suggesting that Christians get bad grades because they do not succumb to the “woke” teachings of the U.S. education system and the left.

If girls do attend college, their end goal should not be a degree, but rather a husband, Kirk further clarified. At one point, Kirk touted that American society should “bring back” the “Mrs. Degree,” a concept that women attended college with the intention of finding a husband, dating back to the mid-19th century. Kirk blatantly wants the reality for American women to be modeled after the 1950s, and a congregation of over 3,000 women and girls appeared to agree with him.

Speakers warned women and girls that a life filled with degrees and promotions would be empty and miserable. The summit depicted a pathetic and depressed image of the “modern Western woman,” one focused on a career, deprived of children. Feminists were described as hooked on dangerous antidepressants, their lives desolate. Kirk’s brand of traditional femininity and motherhood was juxtaposed as a way to achieve true fulfillment and happiness in an angry and divided society, leaving behind the mental health disorders born from the horrors of feminism.

Followers believe YWLS’ brand of femininity to be the solution to the mental ailments young women face because of feminism. Vulnerable young girls, struggling with eating disorders, anxiety and depression, are turning to the Charlie Kirk world because it markets itself as a way to find happiness amid societal discontent. Kirk’s wife, Erika, claimed to “release” girls from the anxieties of feminism, from the idea that they should chase a cozy corner office or a meaningless paycheck. She stressed that all the women in the crowd can, and ultimately should, rely on men, that relying on men is a path to happiness, to contentment. For a woman, a career, financial independence or self-sufficiency is only a distraction.

Of course, speakers differed in the severity of their messaging, with Kirk outright saying that women should not work, but instead serve their husbands and raise children, while others danced around the idea. All of the female speakers had successful careers; there were even a few female members of Congress who spoke, including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). Some speakers argued that working could lead to marriage and children, while others said that a career only served as a hindrance to the true contentment that lies in motherhood. Some stressed that women can have both a career and children, just at different times, while others said that a life driven by a job and self-sufficiency would be meaningless. Still, all of these women were the lead-up to Kirk’s argument that women should only be wives and mothers.

Silent obedience, and especially the obedience characterizing the Virgin Mary, was also idolized during the gathering, framed as something for every girl in attendance to strive for. Of course, that obedience pertains to following the whims of the men in their lives. Every time this happened, I looked around, horrified, at the children filling the rows and rows of chairs; girls as young as 5 attending with their mothers and grandmothers, young mothers rocking babies in their strollers, and high schoolers hanging on every word. Closing the first night with her husband next to her, Erika Kirk professed: “I get to serve my husband. I get to submit to my husband. He submits to the Lord.” It was straight out of the New Testament.

And, still, with all the glorification of submission and servitude, I did not hear, during the entire three-day convention, a single mention of domestic abuse or the sexual violence that women and girls face, outside of hate-fueled rhetoric about transgender women and illegal immigrants. While Kirk and other speakers described the ideal woman as one subservient to her husband, there was not a single reference to the possible violence that concept invokes. To the teenage girls and young women in the crowd, neither Kirk nor any of the female speakers gave even a brief disclaimer on what to do when your husband, boyfriend or any man is physically or sexually violent. The closest reference was when Erika Kirk made one throw-away comment about how female submission is a “beautiful” thing only in a “healthy marriage.” Instead, Charlie Kirk went on an almost laughable tirade about how men are in a “far sicker” position in society than women because of putdowns like “toxic masculinity” and men being talked down to.

This from the same man who argued with a female college student about rape statistics in May: “It is so materially insane to think that 1 in 5 American women will be raped in their life. . . meaning that they’re lying about being raped, that they’re lying about being sexually assaulted . . . like a fraternity guy and a sorority girl, aged 19, hooking up, both five drinks in at 2 a.m., and, all of a sudden, she, like, removes consent. Yeah, like that’s a murky, middle gray area.”

Any woman who is not indoctrinated into the Charlie Kirk world could tell you that the 1 in 5 statistic, if anything, is an underestimation. I would venture that even a sizable number of the women and high school-aged girls I shared  a convention hall with would disagree with Kirk on this point. Perhaps that is why he did not philosophize about women lying about being victims of sexual violence.

Instead, Kirk predictably stressed the importance of purity and modesty for young women and girls, but, in a way that, once again, demeaned women. He framed the Christian value of waiting for sex until marriage as a way to improve the dating pool and to teach men “self-control,” placing the responsibility of “self-control” on young girls instead of boys. This, coupled with Kirk’s lies about sexual violence and his desire for subservient women (women who do not “talk down to men,” or better yet, women who do not talk back), highlights the real danger created by giving men like Kirk a platform. Thousands of young women and girls looked on, starstruck, as Kirk espoused these dangerous, demeaning ideas. They cheered him on. They celebrated him.

This summit can perhaps be boiled down to Kirk’s most shocking quote of the weekend: “Young ladies need to be able to submit to a godly man.” He said that if the girls in the audience felt any internal disagreement with that, they should “just go pray about it.” Clearly, Kirk’s religious doctrine is how he explains and markets his ideas to young, impressionable girls. His warped understanding of Christianity is the basis for everything he stands for. Kirk and other speakers prepped attendees to engage in “spiritual warfare” for control of American culture, boasting that conservative women are going to save womanhood by integrating biblical values into society.

This ultra-conservative Christian base cannot be ignored. Turning Point USA promotes Christian nationalism and MAGA on high school and college campuses. It wields considerable influence, and it only grows with each passing year. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the Young Women’s Leadership Summit, and many speakers and attendees celebrated having attended 10 years ago, now bringing their own children. Women and girls are recruited into this movement through family, friends, fellow students, podcasts and social media. They learn not to recoil when Kirk calls for a “return to normal,” referring to women “serving.” Even more so, they learn to celebrate female servitude as something to strive for — something that will heal and complete you.

The twisted religious doctrine that Charlie Kirk espouses cannot go unchallenged. Women and girls need to know that there is so much more in the world for them outside of submission. They need to be able to build lives based on their own values and aspirations, separate from those imposed by men masquerading as messiahs. We must be louder, clearer and more persistent than those telling susceptible women and girls that female submission under men is ordained by God.

Young women and girls deserve better.

Caitlin Berray is FFRf’s governmental affairs coordinator.