This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics Podcasts from WNYC Studios.

It's Tuesday, July 2nd.

I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamus Newsroom, filling in for Brian today. We're going to take a moment today

to consider the evolution of Republican women candidates in the age of Donald Trump.

Maybe you saw that recent New York magazine cover featuring a collage of body parts,

including the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green and Christy Noem. That fractured image is part of the theme of writer Rebecca Traister's exploration of the reconstructed hyperfemininity and hypermasculinity that's come to define the women who are now the face of the modern Republican Party. As the illustration shows, a high hill on one foot and a hiking

boot on the other, Traster writes, quote, as we cruise toward November with two ancient white

men on the presidential ticket and the rights of millions of people who are not white men in the

balance, the public performance of Republican womanhood has become fractured, frenzied, and far less coherent than ever.

In the performance of modern Republican womanhood, there are many contradictions.

Rebecca Traster is writer-at-large at New York Magazine and The Cut, and she joins me now to talk about her recent cover story headlined,

How did Republican women end up like this?

The baffling contradictory demands of being female in the party of Donald Trump.

Rebecca, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Thanks so much for inviting me.

And Rebecca, let's just start with a little bit of background on this story.

What made you want to explore this idea of modern Republican womanhood and the people are now running for office in elected office?

Well, the origin for this specific piece, I've written about women in politics for a long time,

and I mostly write about women in democratic politics, but I've also written about Republican women.

I once wrote a long profile of Susan Collins, the senator from Maine. And I've obviously,

in my work over the years, spent a lot of time thinking about how women, political leaders, elected officials, candidates present themselves.

It's a lot of what my work has been. And I'm interested in that process and those choices on both sides of the aisle. This specific piece, I would say the origin came right after Katie Britt

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