Conspiracy, She Wrote

The Conspiracist Cure for What Ails Middle-Aged White Women with Noelle Cook

Conspiracy, She Wrote

Show Notes

After unknowingly showing up at a Capitol insurrection, ethnographer Noelle Cook spent years embedded with the women arrested for January 6th — not grifters and influencers, the true believers. Her new book, The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism and the Lure of Belonging, follows two: Yvonne, a self-proclaimed starseed and sovereign citizen who considers the J6 pardons divine vindication, and Tammy, who showed up for the community and never really left. As Noelle details to Cristen, the paths that led them there map the pandemic’s alt-health tipping point, conspirituality’s empowerment trap, and how conspiracy functions as a coping mechanism and connection machine for middle-aged women that culture makes invisible.

Sources: conspiracyshewrote.com/episodes Inbox: [email protected] Instagram: @unladylikemedia Website: conspiracyshewrote.com Patreon: The Cabal

Conspiracy, She Wrote is an Unladylike Media production created, hosted and written by Cristen Conger. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from Conspiracy, She Wrote

Sep 4, 2026

Was Gloria Steinem, the face of the Women’s Liberation movement and founder of Ms. magazine, in league with the CIA to neutralize second-wave feminism? That’s what a small group of feminists (and Betty Friedan) alleged in 1975—but why? Cristen unravels the kernels of truth and valid suspicions regarding her CIA connection and path to becoming a feminist celebrity and activist icon from the infighting and state surveillance-induced paranoia that made the plot seem so plausible.

Aug 28, 2026

In the late 1960s, the FBI began recruiting female informants across the country to spy on the growing Women’s Liberation Movement. But why? And what happened when the feminists realized they were being watched? Cristen unravels an often overlooked chapter of the Bureau’s infamous COINTELPRO counterintelligence program when then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that the movement for gender equality was either a Communist front or a pipeline to violent radicalism. For Women’s Liberation leaders and activists, that real surveillance seeded legitimate fears of infiltration that curdled the movement from within.

Jul 31, 2026

Far-right ideologies rely on a conspiracist worldview of puppet masters secretly orchestrating any social movements or culture shifts deemed threatening to white, male power. Jews are their go-to “puppet master” scapegoats, but as evidenced by manifestos left behind at two mass shootings this year, feminists (which is really just shorthand for Western white women) have ascended the villainized ranks to enemy number two. Alex DiBranco of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism deconstructs the framework of antifeminist conspiracism, its evolution from men's rights grievance to top-tier organizing belief and intersections with gender ideology and cultural marxism conspiracies.

Jul 23, 2026

Tulsi Gabbard’s profile has been defined by two things: political shape-shifting – social conservative to Democratic darling to Bernie booster to MAGA makeover – and accusations of being a puppet for strongmen leaders like Putin, Modi and Trump. Cristen unravels why the only throughline that makes sense of her improbable path is Chris Butler, the cultish founder of Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), an offbeat Hare Krishna sect Gabbard grew up in. Because based on recent reporting from the Washington Post, it appears that the man Gabbard has called her guru dev, or divine teacher, was secretly steering Gabbard as a proxy for his own political power.

Jun 26, 2026

When deadly floods hit Texas Hill Country in 2025, chemtrails believers and cloud-seeding conspiracists baselessly blamed it on scapegoats “playing God” with the weather. Cristen unravels the post-pandemic mainstreaming of weather control conspiracism, from fringe theories about jet contrails to politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene legitimizing the misinformation with congressional hearings, and states outlawing geoengineering. With an incoming El Niño forecasting extreme weather ahead, prepare for more conspiracies and climate denial.

See all episodes →