Amala Ekpunobi joins the podcast this week to talk about her transformation from liberal to outspoken conservative, and what it’s like to speak out against the feminist left in such a public way and at such a young age. We also discuss what Gen Z faces in dating—has feminism ruined the art of romance? And last, we touch on a new trend in social media called tradwives. Are traditional gender roles coming back in style, and what does the left have to say about it?
Raised in a far-left activist household, twenty-two-year-old Amala Ekpunobi was once a student organizer for the left. Unanswered questions—and a search for the truth—led her to a complete ideological transformation. Passionately sharing her new conservative values online, Amala became a viral social media sensation. Now the host of PragerU’s popular show “Unapologetic with Amala,” she inspires millions of young people every day to discover the truth, defend their values, and lead better lives.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we have a treat. Amala Ekpunobi joins us to talk about her transformation from liberal to outspoken conservative and what it’s like to speak out against a feminist left in such a public way and at such a young age.
We’ll also get into what Gen-Z is facing in dating. Has feminism ruined the art of romance? Last we’ll touch on a new trend in social media called tradwives. Are traditional roles coming back in style and what does a left have to say about it? And before we bring her on just a little bit more about Amala.
Amala Ekpunobi is 22 years old and was raised in a far left activist household and was once a student organizer for the left, but unanswered questions and a search for the truth led her to a complete ideological transformation. Currently, she passionately shares her values online where she has become a viral social media sensation on PragerU’S popular show, Unapologetic with Amala. Amala, a pleasure to have you on She Thinks.
Amala Ekpunobi:
It’s so good to be here, Beverly. Thank you for having me.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think you do embody the motto of this podcast where we say you’re allowed to think for yourself because you do think for yourself. You express your views on your show, Unapologetic with Amala. And just want to start by asking you how did you get to the place, not only where you developed the skill of critical thinking and thinking outside the box, but also the bravery to speak up because there are a lot of haters out there.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Oh wow. It was a rough road for me. As you said before, I was a left-leaning activist for much of my life and really deeply entrenched in that sort of ideology, just based on a number of factors, the way that I was raised growing up in a conservative rural town and wanting to be different and just wanting to be a world changer like most people do.
And I graduated high school and decided why not take up the torch of being an activist? And did that for about a year before I realized this is not the ideology for me. This is not the way I want to lead my life. I’m depressed. I’m anxious all the time. I’m constantly searching for injustice.
And believe it or not, that time being a leftist activist really armored me with critical thinking skills and put me in a position to be comfortable being brave because I knew exactly what I was going to face standing on the other side of it, speaking out about conservative values because I was that left-leaning woke hater that I came to know as they came out as a conservative.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I’m sure that there are a lot of things that led you to this turning point for you, but was there that straw that broke the camel’s back?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Oh, certainly. I was in a meeting one time working for this organization and we start off our meetings by agreeing, doing community agreements, which is basically rules that we’re all meant to follow as this meeting proceeds. Things like say your pronouns before you start talking for the first time or make sure that you let the most depressed in the room speak, things like that.
And a coworker of mine went up and started writing out these community agreements, and at the end of it said, “To all the white cisgendered, heterosexual people in the room, maybe you shouldn’t speak at all during this meeting. You’ve had the stage for long enough. We’re done with you. History has favored you. It’s our time now.” And I’m a biracial young woman who was raised by the white side of my family who had taken care of me my entire life.
So hearing this sort of created some cognitive dissonance, I guess, because I was running around talking about how racist white people are and then going home to a family that had taken care of me. And when I confronted the higher ups at this organization about my concerns with this sort of rhetoric and what really seemed anti-tolerant to me, they said, “You just don’t know how oppressed you are. That’s on you, educate yourself.” And I couldn’t last after that.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so what was then your path after that? Did you know that you were a conservative? I’m assuming you didn’t, you just knew that…
Amala Ekpunobi:
No.
Beverly Hallberg:
You weren’t racist against white people and went out searching for something else.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah. I had all of these unanswered questions because I was constantly going around knocking doors and talking to conservative individuals about the way they vote, what they were going to do in the upcoming election, and they would give me all these questions that really challenged my ideology, but I was incapable of answering.
So when I had this initial question about how anti-tolerance the left seemed, I took to the internet and started looking for answers to all the questions that I had. Ended up stumbling upon PragerU videos, Thom Sowell, Dave Rubin, Larry Elder, all these just bright conservatives who were willing to sit in front of the camera and say, “Hey, I get why you believe what you believe.
Here’s why you might be wrong.” And I just went deep into this rabbit hole of watching everything that I possibly could and having to come to terms with the fact that a lot of what they said made sense. So I struggled back and forth, tried to hang on to my leftist beliefs as long as possible, but they just did not stand the test of time.
Beverly Hallberg:
No every year around Thanksgiving, there are all these articles that talk about how do you talk about politics with your family. I’m assuming since you did from a liberal leaning background, that there have been interesting conversations all along the way, especially since this is not just your passion, but it is your occupation. People know you’re conservative, you’re outspoken. What has it been like to interact with family if they do still disagree with you on your ideology?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Sure. So I’ll use my mother as an example here because she still happens to work for the left. And she is quite radical in her beliefs, in my opinion. So when I initially started coming out as a conservative, we would start to have these conversations about different political topics, women’s reproductive rights, immigration, gun violence, all of these different things. And it was rocky at best is what I can call that.
We would go at each other’s throats essentially because I was this newly passionate person who had found what I believed to be the truth. And she was a parent who was watching her kid sort of fall off the wagon as many parents are experiencing right now, both conservative and liberal. So we went at each other’s throats for a few months and then just recognized, hey, this is not what we’re trying to conserve in this relationship.
We want to keep our mother-daughter dynamic strong. And when we are both on our deathbeds, at the end of the day, we’re not going to be worried about these political arguments that we’re having. So we kind of had a sit down where we said, “Maybe politics is not part of our relationship. Or at least if we’re going to inch into those conversations, do so with the mindset that neither of us is going to change the other’s mind and we can continue to have this relationship.” And we’ve had a good relationship ever since.
Beverly Hallberg:
That’s awesome.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah.
Beverly Hallberg:
And you’ve made tremendous ground in your career, your show very popular on YouTube, you’re on social media, you have a lot of followers. You are a social media influencer, which I don’t have the exact stat in front of me, but I heard, I think I read somewhere that about a third of Gen-Z wants that to be their dream job. And of course not a third of Gen-Z is going to be a social media influencer.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Sure.
Beverly Hallberg:
But you have attained what so many wanted. How did you get to this point?
Amala Ekpunobi:
I say all the time that I think I just stumbled into this. I left that left-leaning organization and said, “You know what? No more politics. I don’t want to argue with people anymore.” So I started working at a medical clinic in my local little small town and was working as a technician.
And one day I downloaded TikTok, regrettably. And started scrolling on it. I guess, not regrettably, because here I am now. But I started scrolling down this for you page that was supposed to be content that they had curated for somebody with my demographics, being young, being biracial, being female. And I was getting all of these activists telling me how important it was to be a fourth wave feminist or how we must fight for racial equity in America.
And I thought, “Wow, this is all the stuff that I had been taught as a young person that led me down this path of depression, anxiety, and constantly searching for that injustice, as I said before, and now people are getting it in mass on social media. Who is here to counteract this? And I saw very few conservative voices on TikTok. So I thought, “Okay, I’m just going to make a short video talking about my transition from left to right.”
And I posted that video on the internet and that got tens of thousands of views. So I took it up as a hobby and just started answering people’s questions about this transition in my life, asking them questions about where they’re at, trying to debunk some of the leftist lies that I felt that I had been indoctrinated with. And eventually, I’d made a video debunking white privilege, and that went on to get 10 million views on the platform platform. And it just skyrocketed my career, I guess. And that’s where I landed here at PragerU.
Beverly Hallberg:
And for those who are not on social media, or at least not on TikTok, how would you say the conversations typically are around a definition like feminism? How does it typically go? What are the common narratives and are there many people like you trying to counter that?
Amala Ekpunobi:
I would say there is more than you’d think. Once I entered that space and started doing it, I did find that there were a lot of young women in particular who are feeling disillusioned with the feminist movement. And you’ll find as far as a definition, you’ll get thousands of definitions of what the feminist movement means on TikTok.
The common threads that I see is often being anti-men, being pro-sexual promiscuity, wanting to take on men’s roles in society, or at least those previously traditionally gendered roles that we had before. And a rejection of what have been typically seen as traditionally feminine traits, occupations, being a stay-at-home mom, being nurturing and caring. Those are the common threads that I’m finding. Very rarely are you finding feminists who are identifying with maybe first and second wave feminism, which was just evening the playing field.
Beverly Hallberg:
Exactly. And you took on an interesting topic in one of your episodes as of late, and that was looking at, there was a show that you were highlighting, and it was a self-proclaimed feminist answering this question about if she’s a feminist, why does she still think that the guy should split the bill on a first date?
And she really struggled answering that. And I was hoping you can give us a little bit more context for that and some of those pitfalls that feminists fall into where in some ways they think this is about we need to have equal gender roles. You and I would disagree with that in our view of what feminism is.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Sure.
Beverly Hallberg:
But they still expect the man to act certain ways. And do you find that there is this place where those who identify as feminists are struggling to figure out how to reconcile that?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Certainly. And I think what, it’s contingent upon how you view feminism, and there’s two really big camps that you can be in. You can be in the feminist camp of equality, which is probably the camp that you and I would be in if we identified as feminists saying that men and women should be treated equally, should receive equal opportunity, but they do take on very different roles in the society, somewhat of a yin and yang that supports each other.
Then you have these fourth and fifth, we’re probably not in the fifth wave yet, but fourth wave feminists who say, “I believe in equity,” which means men and women have to have equal outcomes in our society. “We want the same number of male and female CEOs split halfway down the middle.” Although they get a little bit quiet when you start talking about being a construction worker or a garbage man, but that’s neither here nor there.
So when a feminist is confronted with this idea of you are fighting for equity, but when it comes to the dinner table at your first date, you want the man to pay, how are you holding these two beliefs in your brain? And that’s where that cognitive dissonance comes in. It’s the same cognitive dissonance that I experienced having gone into work saying white people were racist and then returning to my white family. And now they’re struggling to reconcile that. But I think just ignoring the fact that they’re experiencing this.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so what is one of your tools to be able to counter this narrative? And I don’t mean just use social media, get your message out, but the way you talk about it. And the reason I bring that up is I also was following you when you were going back and forth, but in a, I would say in a very kind way with Dylan, why am I blanking on his last name right now?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Mulvaney.
Beverly Hallberg:
Mulvaney.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah. Mulvaney.
Beverly Hallberg:
Who has gone viral talking about being a girl and how many days he has been a girl. And I find that the way that you do talk about the issue of transgender, and people do call you a transphobe just because of your perspective. I think you talk about people in a very respectful way.
And is that something that you’ve taken on where you can say, “Look, I think you can choose how you want to live your life, but I can also disagree on certain aspects of how you want that to influence children or what policy should be.” Has that been purposeful on your part to really focus on treating people with respect, even if I disagree with you on your perspective?
Amala Ekpunobi:
100%. And I wasn’t always like that. When I was a leftist, I was super angry at anybody who disagreed with me, and I viewed them with a lot of vitriol. Then I left leftism and started inching into conservatism. And I was very angry at woke leftists for having put me through what I went through in my prior life as a leftist and felt a lot of anger for having been indoctrinated in believing these things.
And then I realized, okay, we have these two separate camps of people. Everybody is getting there based on their own life experiences and things that they have been exposed to, and they shouldn’t be ashamed for that. And when I was inching over into conservatism, it wasn’t people who told me that I was stupid and brainwashed who really resonated with me.
It was people who said, “You know what? With everything that you’re seeing on mainstream or legacy media, on social media, what you’re hearing in school, the narrative that’s being spun for you, I completely understand why you believe what you believe. Here’s a separate perspective and maybe hear me out and see if it changes your mind, or here’s some questions that I want you to ponder in regard to your own ideology, and I’ll just leave those with you.
I’m not expecting you to change your mind, just leaving them with you. And when you have an answer, get back to me.” Because I was left with all these unanswered questions that when I finally did take the time to visit them, my entire mind was changed. So that’s how I approach things now is, “I was you four years ago, can we talk it through? I’ll tell you about my journey, you tell me about yours. And if you don’t have a mind changed, go on about your life. I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.”
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, we talk about being a very polarized society. Do you find that people are typically receptive to that? Or do you find that most people still don’t want to engage in debate or just general discussion?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah, it’s a hard wall to get over. But I will say that I’ve had, I think more success than most trying to get people who vehemently disagree with me to maybe come to a speech or enter Q and A. I had a moment at a university, and it was the first ever university that I spoke at. Will never forget it, Winona State University. And I showed up and there was 40 to 50 students who were there ready to protest me, had all these signs about how I was a white supremacist somehow and racist and misogynist.
Beverly Hallberg:
Were white people holding these signs, just for clarification?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yes.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yes. Imagine how that happens.
Amala Ekpunobi:
A predominantly white group of students was calling me a white supremacist. So…
Beverly Hallberg:
Got to love it.
Amala Ekpunobi:
I confronted them, and this is on video. Anybody can go and watch it. And just walked up and said, “Hey, I want to have a conversation with you guys, and I want you guys to come into the speech.” And a particularly powerful moment at that time was me rolling up my sleeve, which under here, I have a black power fist that I got tattooed when I was 16.
Again, regrettably. And I showed them this tattoo and I said, “You know what? A few years ago I would’ve been organizing this protest. I would’ve helped you make those signs. Now I’m just trying to talk to you.” And out of those 50 students, maybe five of them went into the speech to listen, but five is better than zero.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s an awesome story. Do you plan to keep that tattoo as something that you as a reminder and also using as a tool just like you are here?
Amala Ekpunobi:
I think for now it’s going to stay because it’s part of the story.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah.
Amala Ekpunobi:
My boyfriend would love it to be gone, I will tell you that. But for now it’s there.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, let’s talk about dating. You mentioned that you do have a boyfriend.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah.
Beverly Hallberg:
What is it like for young people in today’s dating world? And here’s the context I want it to come from. And you touched on this in one of your episodes recently, and that is so many people in dating they just say that they’re talking, not actually dating. It’s this perpetual texting, people not making commitments. I talk to women all the time who are very frustrated with the dating scene. What have you seen in your experience? And I’m glad that you have found somebody who’s committing to you as a boyfriend. That’s a good thing.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yes. I was very lucky to find the one that I’m with right now. The dating scene is rough, and I know it from women who I’m very close with and friends with who are out trying to venture into the dating scene and find men. I’m living in LA so I think it’s even harder here than it is in other areas.
But there’s a lot of just non-committal conversation, like you said, that talking stage, which I’m unfamiliar with what that even means now. Maybe because of dating apps and the texting back and forth, we’ve developed some sort of talking stage. But there are women who are being sexually promiscuous and giving everything really that men want out of relationships without being in a relationship.
So there seems to be no incentive to create those deeper bonds and links that maybe lead to family and marriage as that does not seem to be the goal for at least a lot of young people right now. I won’t say necessarily most, but a lot of them. And statistically, people are waiting till far later in life to even have conversations surrounding marriage and kids, some women in their early thirties, which is quite late if we’re looking at recent history in the US. It’s a very strange time.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so when you’re, let’s say, talking with your girlfriends, talking to them on how they should approach dating, what do you say to them? Because I think this is a common fear that people have. It’s like, “If I don’t act in dating other women, nobody’s going to date me.” What encouragement do you give to them to still hold on, not just to their values, but if you look at the economics of dating and also just men in general, if you actually hold respect for yourself, there will be more men who will respect you.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah. I think it’s honestly a tough conversation of you’re just going to have to see it through and go down this path, and there’s going to be a lot of rejection of you rejecting men and them rejecting you because you’re not willing to move at the pace that they’re trying to move without commitment. So it’s a lot of sort of wading through the water until you find the right person for you.
I luckily found somebody just by happenstance, and out of all places, at a bar in LA, but it’s not common for that to happen anymore. And people aren’t really seeking relationships. I think I read somewhere a stat that said 60% of young men right now in the United States are single, where that is only about 33% for young women. So the numbers are not adding up. And honestly, I just tell them, you’re going to have to go through a lot of trials and tribulations before you find the man who’s going to actually lock things down.
Beverly Hallberg:
We had a sociologist on our show and he was talking about marriage and where we could see things in a few years. And the stat that he quoted was that a third of women in Gen-Z will never get married if we continue with the current trajectory that we are on, which of course…
Amala Ekpunobi:
It’s crazy.
Beverly Hallberg:
Is daunting and sad in so many ways. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one of the messages is, it’s going to be hard, rejection’s going to happen, however, don’t try to delay. It if you meet somebody when you’re 22, who’s wonderful, do you focus on not just your career, but also marriage? Is that something that you have in mind and also communicate to young people?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Oh, a hundred percent. So our CEO here, Marissa Streit at PragerU, she said something really important to me when I started working here. She said, Amala, your career is very important, but you should work just as hard at finding your significant other as you do at seeking out accolades in your career and moving up the ladder.
And I took that to heart. I know a lot of women are taking that message to heart. I think that Gen-Z stat, however, is coming from the women who are rejecting that narrative. I see a lot of young Gen-Z females saying, “I never want to get married. You think I’m going to enter into some sort of contract with somebody when it’s inevitably going to end?”
Or they’re saying, “I want to be that career woman who is an aunt who spoils her nieces and nephews, but doesn’t have any obligation to anything outside of herself and her travels and getting money.” And while that might feel good in the short term to pursue those things, and you might cushion your happiness with money and things like that, once they’re hitting 40, 50…
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah.
Amala Ekpunobi:
I just don’t know how that looks.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder too, as we see so much about feminism has seeped into every aspect of life, including dating, which we just talked about, if we are seen maybe the pendulum swing back a little bit, where people are pushing back against what feminism says makes us happy. And this brings up a trend that we see on social media. It’s not really a trend.
It’s called just a traditional wife, somebody who likes to take care of her husband. That could look like something like being a stay-at-home mom, stay-at-home wife, cooking, cleaning, et cetera. But on social media, tradwives are going viral and showing this more like 1950s wardrobe, cooking and cleaning and celebrating that. And of course, so many feminist women hate it. Tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing on social media. What do you make of it?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Sure. Yeah. So women are just peaking in views right now just making videos of simply cleaning their homes or making lunch for their husband or waiting for him to come home from work. And the reason they’re going viral is not because the society is cheering this on or that the culture is looking for more women to do this, although there are of course great camps of women who want this life for themselves.
But looking into the comments on these posts, you’ll find hundreds of thousands of young women saying that this is a red flag, this is their nightmare, this feels like a fever dream, and that they would never want to see their life look in any way, shape, or form like this woman’s. And you know what? That’s okay. If we’re going by feminism itself, that’s about choice, having your choice.
But if all their peers and everyone on the internet is demeaning and bullying a woman who makes this choice, that might lead them to go down that career path, to try to get that job in STEM or to try to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and later down the line, they will regret that. So these are the things that need balance. And unfortunately, they’re not balanced.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I also think it goes against this narrative that is perpetuated out there, that women can have it all, that you can have a career, you can have a spouse, you can have kids, and you can do it all and be really happy. I also see on social media, women who talk about, “I’m supposed to take care of the kids, clean, do all these things and hold a full-time job? I’m exhausted.
I have nothing else.” And so I think this whole narrative that women can have it all doesn’t add up. Women get into it and they realize how exhausted they are. Now they could have it all at different times. And so I do, I agree with you. I think it comes down to choice.
Do you think though that part of it that we’re seeing on social media that I think some of the people who are doing it may be doing it more of a caricature, maybe parody style, that there are women who are talking about it seriously and trying to change young women’s minds about this? Or at least presenting this idea that this is something that can be a positive choice for women?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yeah. There is a little bit of both, certainly. You’ll find women who are actually leading this life trying to boost it on social media and let women know, “Hey, not only is this an option for you, but this is a good option and it is a fulfilling option.” But where there are movers and shakers and revolutionaries come to think of it in today’s time, there’s also going to be people who try to make satirical versions of that.
So with all the hate comments that come in, of course people take up the torch and start making satirical versions of the tradwife lifestyle saying that she is at the beck and call of her husband and that she has no real agency for herself. And there’s just somewhat of a delusion, in my opinion, that being a stay-at-home mom or a tradwife means that you are abandoning all sense of self.
And that’s how a lot of young women feel right now. If I’m at home taking care of kids, cleaning, cooking, whatever, I have no time to pursue anything that makes me feel fulfilled personally or any of my passions. And in fact, that is quite the opposite.
Being a tradwife and staying at home, taking care of your kids is a man giving you that time to pursue whatever it is your passion is. All you have to do, take care of the household, take care of children. That does not mean you have no time to yourself, that you cannot maybe own your own business like a lot of women want to do right now, that you can’t educate yourself. There are so many options. And in fact, you’re given more time to pursue those things.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so many women do struggle when they work to not be raising their kids or be with them a lot. So…
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yes.
Beverly Hallberg:
A lot of women want to raise their own kids, and especially during COVID, want to educate their own kids when they saw what happened in schools. So again, comes down to choice. That’s an important part. Final question for you before we have you go. It’s a question I ask often of guests and the guests who are willing to speak out on issues that do seem controversial to many people. So I know you’ve talked about getting death threats. You get a lot of hate on social media. How have you been able to face that, and what encouragement would you give to somebody who wants to do their part, but they’re fearful to speak up?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Yes. So regardless of what you do in life, there will always be people who hate what you do, who dislike you, who have something to say about it. And those are not the people that I think you should give time or energy. When I came into this space, luckily I was prepared for what I was going to receive by virtue of having been that person before.
So I knew the death threats were coming. I knew the hatred was coming, and it was sort of like water off a duck’s back. I tell people that somebody who’s emitting that sort of hateful energy towards you does not deserve your time and does not deserve your energy. Now somebody who has valid criticism of things that you’re saying or wants to engage in a healthy debate, give that person time.
Beverly Hallberg:
And for people who may want to subscribe to your show, Unapologetic with Amala, where can they go?
Amala Ekpunobi:
Sure. You can go on any social media platform or podcast platform and type in my name, Amala Ekpunobi, and you’ll find me and my show. So give me a follow and subscribe.
Beverly Hallberg:
Absolutely. People should go do that. Amala, thank you so much for joining us on She Thinks and all you’re doing to share conservative values. We appreciate it.
Amala Ekpunobi:
Thank you for having me. It’s been a blast.
Beverly Hallberg:
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