Karoline Leavitt and the trap of MAGA womanhood

President Donald Trump and press secretary Karoline Leavitt, among others, attend an event on July 22, 2026, for US service members killed during operations in the Middle East. | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day.

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Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old firebrand who became the nation’s youngest-ever press secretary in 2024, is stepping down to “spend more time with her beautiful young children.” President Donald Trump announced the news on Wednesday night in a Truth Social post , adding that Leavitt would remain an adviser and “an influential voice within the Republican Party.” It feels fitting that Leavitt — whose public persona required her to perform both her job and her role as a wife and mom — is stepping down to parent.

In MAGA’s conception of womanhood, there can be no higher calling .

Not even serving the president.

For more than two years, however, Leavitt made a show of trying to do both.

She returned to work on Trump’s reelection campaign only days after the birth of her first child and regularly shared photos of herself working while holding her son.

Leavitt also welcomed a daughter over the spring, amid what Fox News dubbed a White House “baby boom.” Officials and conservative media quickly turned the new mothers into advertisements for the pro-natalist movement : Proof that women could, and should, have both careers and children.

Leavitt is still being held up that way, even — perhaps especially — as she departs.

“She’s been a role model to millions and millions of young women,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News on Wednesday.

“A mother, a family woman, a press secretary, a patriot.” MAGA’s rules for women View Link The MAGA movement tends to glorify traditional female roles — wife, mother, homemaker — while simultaneously (and confusingly) elevating ambitious, career-driven women like Leavitt.

At first glance, her prominence — and that of other women in Trump’s administration — would seem to rebut the charge that the movement is misogynist.

In fact, that’s a line of defense that Trump himself has advanced .

But look a little closer, and you’ll see the structural contradiction at the heart of MAGA femininity: Female power is only legitimate when it’s exercised on behalf of Trump , and by women who conform to traditional expectations around gender, marriage, motherhood, and physical appearance.