The common response to this news is that Alex Cooper is somehow leading her audience down a path that she herself is not choosing. But what’s happening here is actually the exact feminist dream.
A woman participates in hookup culture as much as she wants when she’s in her prime. She sleeps around, has casual sex, gets the ick, dumps men, gets dumped, has summer flings, gets abortions if needed. She’s hot. She has pretty privilege and isn’t afraid to use it.
But when she feels like the time is right, she settles down with a high value man — only because it’s her choice, not because she feels pressured by societal standards or a ticking biological clock. This man does not care about her past because he wouldn’t dare judge a woman for expressing herself sexually. They have a beautiful wedding and her dress is stunning. She gets pregnant when she feels like she’s ready to take on motherhood.
She trades in her promiscuous days only when she wants to, on her own terms. And the perfect man she finds is more than happy to go along with her timeline because he respects her and her desires. And he doesn’t want to lose her.
Alex has quite literally lived out the perfect feminist blueprint thus far.
You see, the only problem is, this modern feminist blueprint usually only works for exceptionally successful, gorgeous women with influence (with exception of course, but we’re talking about the rule here). Models, actresses, wealthy bachelorettes and entrepreneurs.
It doesn’t quite translate for the everyday mid who works a boring corporate job. By the time she’s well into her 30s, the everyday mid with the promiscuous past generally doesn’t have the same allure and magnetism as a famous rich blonde who regularly rubs shoulders with elite celebrities. The men that she wants to try and settle down with have far less interest in her and would much rather marry a woman much younger, much less seasoned, and much more fertile.
This is why we are seeing such high rates of childless unmarried women. They followed the early years of the blueprint, spending their 20s and even most of their 30s dating casually, believing that they too could find a high value man when they’re older and eventually sick of the dating scene—why wouldn’t they be able to? They look at famous, rich celebs and influencers and think, hey I can do that too. If they can postpone marriage and kids until they are “ready,” so can I!
But everyday women simply aren’t on the same playing field as women like Alex Cooper. Few will fully understand this. Many will try to make excuses as to why this isn’t true (brace yourself for the outliers’ stories).
Even if you don’t see anything morally wrong with the hookup culture that Alex Cooper praises on her show, young women would be smart to understand the real world, and that you have a much greater chance at locking down a high value man when you’re younger and a bit more austere. Sorry I don’t make the rules.
The IRS got suspicious that a fishing boat owner wasn’t paying proper wages to his staff, so they sent an agent to investigate.
The agent climbed aboard the boat and said, “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.”
The boat owner replied, “Well, there’s Clarence, my deckhand. He’s been with me for three years. I pay him $1,000 a week, plus free room and board.
“Then there’s this mentally challenged guy. He works about eighteen hours a day and does almost all the work around here. He makes about $30 a week, pays his own room and board, and every Saturday night I buy him a bottle of Bacardi and a dozen Budweisers so he can cope with life. He even gets to sleep with my wife occasionally.”
The IRS agent frowned and said, “That’s the guy I want to talk to — the mentally challenged one.”
The boat owner nodded and said, “That would be me. What would you like to know?”
On the left sits an Orthodox schema monk—a man who has reached the Great Schema, the highest and most demanding level of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. This is not simply a “religious outfit.” It represents a life almost completely stripped of the modern world.
To reach this stage, a monk usually spends decades in obedience, fasting, prayer, silence, and renunciation. Many schema monks live in near isolation. Some barely speak. Some sleep only a few hours a night. Their entire existence is oriented toward inner transformation rather than external achievement. Historically, people would travel for weeks or months to monasteries just to ask such a monk one question, believing his spiritual clarity came from a life emptied of distraction.
Now look at where he is sitting:
a metro car.
No monastery walls.
No desert cave.
No mountain hermitage.
Just plastic seats, fluorescent lights, and a moving city.
To his right sit two young women—representatives of a completely different modern reality. They are absorbed in their phones, earbuds in, eyes down. Their posture is relaxed but inward-facing. Their attention is fragmented across invisible networks: messages, feeds, timelines, algorithms. They are connected to thousands of people—and fully present with none.
No one is doing anything “wrong” here. That’s what makes the image powerful.
This is not about mocking technology or romanticizing asceticism.
It’s about contrast.
The monk represents a worldview where:
Meaning is found inward
Silence is valuable
Attention is sacred
Time is slow
Wisdom comes from subtraction
The phones represent a worldview where:
Meaning is external and constant
Silence is uncomfortable
Attention is monetized
Time is accelerated
Knowledge comes from accumulation
The monk likely knows nothing about trending news, viral videos, or social media outrage. Yet his inner life may be deeper than most people experience in decades. The women likely know everything that happened today—but may never experience stillness long enough to hear their own thoughts.
What technology and time have changed isn’t just how we live, but what we value.
We now prize:
Speed over depth
Access over presence
Information over wisdom
Visibility over meaning
The monk’s very existence challenges that shift. His clothing alone symbolizes death to ego, to identity, to modern relevance. In Orthodox theology, the Great Schema is sometimes called a “second baptism”—a symbolic burial of the self. That’s why the garments resemble funeral clothing. The monk has already practiced dying to the world.
And yet here he is—inside the world, riding alongside it.
That’s the quiet brilliance of the image.
It’s not a clash.
It’s a coexistence.
Two eras sharing the same bench.
Two definitions of “connection” sitting inches apart.
One life trained to look inward for truth.
Two lives trained to look outward for signal.
The image doesn’t ask which is better.
It asks a more unsettling question:
What have we gained—and what have we forgotten?
In a world where attention is constantly pulled outward, the monk is a reminder that the most radical act left may be to remain still.