On Bert Brussen's podcast:

The tragedy is the great silence on the left

Bert Brussen interviewed Sybilla Claus on his weekly news podcast in December 2024. A rare pleasure: a host who lets his guest finish her sentences. The episode has since been watched 8,300 times on YouTube. Brussen is one of those journalists who has carved out his own independent path and now publishes the newsletter NeutraalNL.

This is how he introduces the episode on his YouTube channel:

The book behind the conversation

The conversation centres on Gender Rebels, the Dutch anthology compiled by Sybilla Claus and published by Uitgeverij het Haantje in 2024. Forty girls and women contributed to it, among them Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Jolande Withuis. Its starting point is that girls spend hours a day on social media, where stereotypes and a culture of victimhood prevail, while their mental well-being erodes behind a layer of perfect selfies.

The English edition, Rebel Girls — Uplifting stories about courageous young women, appeared with Spinifex Press in 2026 and counts fifty contributors from the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, China, Afghanistan and Australia. You can meet some of the young women in the book on The Girls, and find all other interviews, reviews and podcasts in the overview Rebel Girls in the Media. Questions about the project are answered in the FAQ.