Tradwives

How nanny women do you think will be working as solicitors in Afghsnistan now? How many women will be schoolteachers once the Taliban have banned girls from being educated after the age of 12? Have you converted to Islam? I presume your mother was not a ' tradwife' but you have chosen to be because you married into a far more traditional religious family, or converted.

So you aren’t a trad wife?

How does your lifestyle fit with your religious values?

I was unaware of a religious values that say you should stay home until kids are in high school.

Who is letting strangers raise their kids?

I have worked. I can go back to my career if I choose to. Maybe I will when my children go to high school.

If I worked, and my husband still worked and his career is not a 9-5 job. Nobody would be around for the children and there is no way that strangers raising my children while I work is better for my children. I don't think I need to justify putting my children in 7-8 childcare when I don't NEED to. It's my choice.

Why are women's choices criticised when we choose to stay home.

Regarding the comment below. My child is 5. Of course she will assume I'm the next available option if her husband is working as her father is working. It's quite low clutching at what a 5 year old is saying

TheLeadbetterLife · 12/08/2023 17:22
I think women these days can choose to cosplay this stuff purely because of the freedoms won for them by previous generations of feminists.

if they HAD to be domestic slaves they would be putting their heads in ovens.

I’d have no problem with it if they at least acknowledged the reality of this crucial context

this exactly! If its forced kn you by a cultural thing with no choice then its a totally differnent thing! Some women who are white middle class etc know that this is a choice born out of privilege to do so .

There are lots of women working in Afghanistan. My husbands auntie is a school teacher there. My cousin works in a solicitors doing admin. My cousins are over 25 and still not married because they chose not to. Not every single woman in Afghanistan is a stay at home mother and wife. My mother in law worked as a lawyer back in the 80s.

DinoDough

There's a lot of whataboutery there. It feels a bit like trying to get into a purity spiral in a bid to push sex-work as a wonderful choice for women.

If you want to take a "you do you" everything is about choice approach to feminism that's fine.If you think feminism means viewing sex work as a positive step for empowered women then that's ok. You, like anyone else, is entitled to have a view.

The reality is that many feminists view the sex work industry as harmful to women because it is based on harmful and misogynistic assumptions about women and the value of women. Choices aren't made in a vacuum.

Back to the topic of the thread, women can structure their family lives and relationships as they see fit. Feminists, like anyone else, are free to question the assumptions and ideologies being pushed that are harmful to women.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves it's not a job. A job is where you get paid. You don't get paid for being a housewife, you don't have an employer.

Instead you have decided to be the home maker and not have employment.:::

I can accept that it might be their preference. I don't agree that it's a job.

You under estimate what a trad wife is....

It's their preference. But the idea of a housewife who does a bit of hoovering and dusting is a very modern idea.
Personally I think it is an incredibly boring life, but up to the individual

Errrrr no idea what you are going on about.

Using the same logic, Plenty of women don't work and are on benefits. Therefore housewives.

You can accept some women don't want to work in an office and would rather look after their home? And that's their job right? That's their preference.

@forgetmenottt but this rarely happened in the past.
In the past you had rich women and men like now who did not really work or just had hobby jobs.
Then you had women and men who had to work. Many women worked in the home, but they really worked. They grew vegetables, kept chickens, washed clothes without machines, made clothes, mended clothes and linen, canned and preserved food, plucked chickens etc. old recipe books include how to pluck a chicken, and how to gut deer and fish.
Our idea of a housewife was only possible relatively recently.

Because some women would rather look after the home than the office?

I think what they miss is that they exercise a choice to live this way.

That choice is available in the western democracy in which they live.

If they lived in Afghanistan it would not be a choice.

If they lived in the west in medieval times it would not be a choice.

That's the difference. They're not true "trad" wives - as there is the choice and if they wanted to live differently that would be perfectly possible with the society they live in.

I absoluely think a lot of tradwife content falls into fetish/kink. The clothes many of these influencers wear are tight-fitting busty sundresses or retro 50s pin-up wear that feel awfully costumey.

+1 for the person who mentioned Miriam Cates, she of 'women have jobs, not careers' while working...as an MP, hardly scanning groceries at Waitrose during school hours. Definitely Phyllis Schlafly territory -- live as I say, not as I do.

When did this become a thing. I mean during the wars when the men were called in didnt the women run the country. Weren't they every thing in every job men had? Haven't women been working for decades now. What role from what time is it they are really taking on?

Besides as pp have said if they really wanted to live that live go somewhere where youn can't even receive medical treatment if a man doesn't agree who will then ditch you for whatever woman next takes his fancy. Even having a platform proves its all one big cos play. That would not he allowed under a real situation like this.

But hey free choice and all that. Thats ultimately what women fought for to have choices and rights so they can do what they want. But I do wonder how you keep conversation fresh when you've done fuck all but cook and clean all day.

This influencer is saying watch my channel which makes me money, about how you can become a housewife and have no earnings.

Virtually no one makes much from Only fans. It is a MLM scheme. If you persuade someone to sign up you get a percentage of their first years earnings. So even if they make two thousand pounds that year, if you can persuade lots to sign up it is a nice earner. In reality only women who are already known in porn or are influencers, or who sign up others to only fans make much money.
But because it is a MLM people wanting you to sign up using their link exaggerate what you earn and how much work you have to do.

Meh... i guess it pretty cool when you don't have to work for a living. But you're screwed if something happens to your man.

But you can apply a lot of that to the men who do Only Fans too.

And I think a large portion of modern feminism ISN’T truly about undoing female oppression. It’s about undoing the convenient female oppression. How often do we hear feminists shouting about bikini bodies and working rights for women, but still wearing clothes made in sweat shops by women being raped daily and taking home a pittance for their families. Those same feminists say very little about FGM and sex trafficking. Modern feminism is very conveniently about western women and more women shout off about things like trad wives instead of about the fact that there are women in the world who are forced into horrific lives. I’d rather be supporting Janice to get her boobs out on camera and earn more money than she can working in Waitrose and be sourcing ethically made clothing than shouting on Twitter about how disgusted I am about Page 3 whilst buying clothes from H&M and Levi’s that see women risking their lives And being raped just to take home a few pennies.

So I don’t agree with your views on modern feminism. For me it’s about all women having a right to choose what they do. I have the freedom to work, I have an amazing husband who wants to do most things 50/50 who treats me with respect. I have a mother who has encouraged me to fight for my own career and helped me build one. I’d still love to quit and by a stay at home mother and look after our home. Not because I’m oppressed but because I enjoy it. It’s my life and my right to choose. And thank fuck I am lucky enough to choose that, because there are millions of women who aren’t.

You don’t get to dictate feminism to me. By attempting to tell me how to be a feminist you’re exactly the same as the men who do it too. I can support women in the way I choose to, in the way I deem to be feminist - by supporting their choices and their right to choose. And I don’t care if you tell me I’m wrong or that ny feminism is wrong because it doesn’t match your view.

I do agree. To a point. Women fought for the right to vote. That doesn’t mean women have to.

However, that’s not the same. This is like someone trying to push not voting as a superior choice that makes women happy, making money out of women not voting…..while voting themselves.

It would be influencing women to not vote whilst actually actively participating in elections.

That’s the difference. Do what you want. But don’t play act a submissive life style and talk about why it makes you so happy and it’s so fulfilling to submit to your husband when that’s not what you are doing. When you don’t actually do that. Don’t try and sell women a lifestyle that would possibly put them in an abusive situation. Which is what they are doing. They are telling women submitting brings them happiness and fulfilment. But it’s a lie. They don’t submit to their husbands, they do have financial independence.

But the women and young girls they are trying to influence may not be so lucky and end up with a man who actually does Believe his wife is his servant.

Agree that it's fantasy. These women wouldn't like it if it were forced.

But also I think that it's a response to the uncertainty and poor quality of life that many face. It makes sense to couple up and raise your children together, pooling your assets and decision making. This is much harder to do if both people in the couple share all roles. You'll have to make decisions - whose career do we prioritise? Who takes the sick days with DC? Really, who wants to work all day long, do a commute home and then cook dinner for a family of 5? Modern life is so hard. When you disagree it is perhaps helpful to have a "head of the household" who is ultimately responsible for joint decisions. So it actually makes perfect sense to me, that you would want a system in place to split the labour so that one person earns the money and the other takes care of the household. These women have looked to the past and taken the good ol' worn classic patriarchical model as their model of how to split the labour.

In other words: if life weren't so very hard, nobody would do this.

She doesn't "work" but she does make an independent income as an influencer while telling other women not to have an independent income... am I right?
Nail on the head.

They monetise their LARPing and cosplay by selling a fetishised image of female submission.

Meanwhile there's lots of families, for their own reasons, who choose a traditional family set up because it works for them. Both people are happy with their allocation of family responsibilities, but there's none of this nauseating #TradWife role-playing.

She doesn't "work" but she does make an independent income as an influencer while telling other women not to have an independent income... am I right?

And the idea that you have to tell other women how to live and abide by your view of feminism isn’t actually giving them any kind of freedom. If a woman chooses to do Only Fans because it gives her the freedom to work her own hours and make her own money then I will always support her choice and freedom to do so. That doesn’t mean that I support the oppression of women, the general sexualisation of women and the ongoing issues that women around the world suffer from.
It's not about telling other women how to live.
It's about challenging female oppression.

A liberal, individualistic version of feminism would see a woman on OnlyFans and say it's her choice, if she's happy doing it then who is anyone to say anything about it? It's an option she's chosen because she can work her own hours and it fits around the children. If you challenge it then you're telling her how to live her life, feminism should be about choice

Feminism that's actually interested in dismantling female oppression wouldn't take that view.
A feminist view would ask more probing questions about WHY society is structured in such a way that women are so devalued and viewed as sexual objects that women feel sex work is the only way they can make a living that fits around the family. A feminist would be drawing attention to the fact that sex work to fit around the family is a situation that largely affects women because society is structured to oppress women. A feminist would notice that sex work is often a choice made by women because their other options aren't very good. It's not usually a choice made by women who have a lot of options or money. A feminist might change their mind when sex work is being done by choice by a lot of women with financial resources behind them and lots of options, who are doing it because it's empowering and a better way to earn part time money than other methods that don't involve catering to male sexual demands.

A feminist might say it's awfully convenient that poor flexibility in the workplace, a systemic obsession with prioritising men's careers over women's, and pathetically low expectations of non-resident father's in their financial obligations to their children keeps a certain amount of women in a situation where sex work is their 'best option'.

The "but it's their choice" is a central to a modern brand of feminism that is thought terminating in my opinion.

A feminist can respect the individual woman as a woman, whilst also disagreeing that sex-work positivity is good for women as a class.