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Original poster

This tradwife thing

90 replies

Orangeblossom78 · 17/01/2020 20:02

Has anyone else seen this on the BBC today? Just wondered what you thought...

I think fine to be a housewife etc but not about the 'submitting' and 'obeying' part...

Also she was saying about her husband being the 'stronger' and dealing with money etc, was watching this on the local BBC news this evening with my DH and two sons and felt a bit uncomfortable about it all!

So, just wondered your thoughts on this tradwife trend or whatever it is! Confused

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-51113371/submitting-to-my-husband-like-it-s-1959-why-i-became-a-tradwife

OP posts:
Fluffycloudland77 · 18/01/2020 13:07

Did you see the size of her engagement ring? That’s best part of 3 carats.

It’s ok till you’re widowed, or they leave you. I’ve met women who are early 50’s, widowed & they don’t know how to pay a bill or tax a car & claim it’s “hard” which just makes you feel embarrassed for the.

6utter6ean · 18/01/2020 13:21

If that's how the pair of them want to live their lives then that's fine, although I do worry about the messages this dynamic gives to the children about gender power.

She is leaving herself incredibly vulnerable financially, though. Her future is entirely dependent on her DH staying and providing for her and her turning a blind eye to any misdemeanours

TheMemoryLingers · 18/01/2020 13:29

I think many women live like this, without hash tagging themselves as tradwives or having props such as freshly-baked bread.

I think it's less dangerous to do this self-consciously as a proclaimed 'tradwife' than it is to sleepwalk into a situation where your DH takes control of finances and you are lumbered with all the household stuff, without actively choosing this.

pineing · 18/01/2020 13:42

So long as they have actively chosen this lifestyle and not had it thrust upon them, then let them get on with it. One of the principles of feminism is about choosing to live your life the way you want to, so they can crack on as far as I'm concerned. Just so long as they don't get all judgey about the rest of us living our lives the way we want to.

blacksax · 18/01/2020 13:43

I'm sitting here on MN reading this while DH washes up and makes our lunch. Smile

Depechetoi · 18/01/2020 13:46

Let these women do what they want. They just shouldn't complain when their #tradhubby trades them in for a younger model....idiots

Slazengerbag · 18/01/2020 13:54

I’ve just had a good half an hour nosing at her Instagram. One post caught my eye about choice. She chose to live this lifestyle and she makes a point of mentioning that a lot. Not once does she say anything bad about women who work, in actual fact she praises them for choosing to work and doing what makes them happy. She says that she has chosen her path and that makes her happy. She makes a point of saying that homemakers/ sahm/ housewives are just as important in society as working women. I have to agree. Why are they always looked down on compared to working women? You never hear it from men but it’s always women against women when they are doing something different to what we are.

There are never posts on here slagging off working mums but the stay at home mums (especially those of school age children) are always attacked. Why is that? Is everyone in such unhappy marriages that it’s always at the back of people’s minds that their husbands may run off with another woman? Maybe I’m lucky but we are 25 years down the line and it never crosses my mind.

I work and enjoy my job. We couldn’t afford for me to give up work and I wouldn’t want to but that doesn’t mean I’m going to slag anyone off who doesn’t work. Can’t we just live and let live?

AuntSarah · 18/01/2020 14:01

I think it would be delightful. Staying at home, baking, making nice meals, a bit of dusting. Handing over responsibility for the boring, worrying stuff like money and tyres and putting the bins out.

But I have to work to pay the bills and buy food. And I’d go round the bend with utter boredom.

PicsInRed · 18/01/2020 14:02

1950's wives often managed the money with an iron fist, worked/volunteered, spoke their minds and didn't take nonsense. It wasn't all beatings and June Cleaver.

This is just misogynistic abuse wrapped up in a shiny ribbon of ignorance borne "consent".

Grumbley · 18/01/2020 14:05

Ew. I love my DH, but I also love the fact that I could comfortably leave if need be and be okay. That might sound negative to some, but being reliant on a man out of choice, and your only recent experience is cooking and cleaning is genuinely quite scary.

FunnyInjury · 18/01/2020 14:16

I worry about my step mum, she couldnt do all sorts without my dad and I find it shocking Shock even changing lightbulbs is a default Male job in their (both retired) household.

My dad is perfectly capable of all the 'looking after him' she does but he seems happy to let her do it 🤷‍♀️

It's not my bag that's for sure.

Zaphodsotherhead · 18/01/2020 14:20

But what happens to the 'tradwife' if something happens to their husband? If he runs off or, as may well eventually happen, he dies?

If he's handled all the finances, how the hell do you manage from there? You wouldn't even know the passwords for banking, or how to switch bills or anything! Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Actually sounds like shit all round for the woman. Man has got it made.

MrsTerryPratchett · 18/01/2020 14:24

There are never posts on here slagging off working mums

Have you had your eyes closed? There have been many many 'why have kids and let someone else raise them' posts.

LonginesPrime · 18/01/2020 14:24

She chose to live this lifestyle and she makes a point of mentioning that a lot. Not once does she say anything bad about women who work, in actual fact she praises them for choosing to work and doing what makes them happy.

That's great, and I'm glad she's not tearing others down.

Talking about the balance of chores and responsibilities in a household is one thing, but the notion she seems to be publicising, of wives 'submitting' to their husbands connotes a sinister undertone that's linked to unequal power between the sexes.

If, as she claims, she's choosing this path of her own free will, in what ways is she 'submitting' to her husband? Why use that word at all?

That said, I know the BBC have had a habit lately of hugely clickbaity titles on their online content so I wouldn't be surprised if they've picked up one random comment and misrepresented her view entirely.

Weekday28 · 18/01/2020 14:29

I saw this this morning too. I was quite shocked, it's a very vulnerable position to yourself in I think. However like she said feminism is about choice and this is her choice. I wouldn't choose it as as much as I love my husband I have no idea if he is going to hang around for another 50 years so I not going to put all my eggs in his basket.

zsazsajuju · 18/01/2020 14:47

What concerns me is “choosing” to infantilise yourself in that way. To “submit” to your dh and so on. Less extreme versions of these “traditional” views are very common on mn. How many threads claiming women need to be married to be “protected”. More than I can count. How much judgement for men who don’t earn but women who don’t are some kind of saints who are run off their feet. Men can’t work without someone to facilitate their career, apparently (ie a woman) yet women seem to manage.

IMO division of labour is fine but acting like someone’s mum/child hybrid is just trying to get out of being an adult.

Fitforfifty · 18/01/2020 14:53

I checked out her Instagram and basically it reads like somebody who has chosen to be a stay at home mum but carve out some kind of alternative career raving about how good being a stay at home mum is! All the union jacks in the house I suspect were there to demonstrate the traditional theme which feels a bit odd (she’s Danish). Not sure what the traditional 50s housewife with no “mod cons” would make of the time she devotes to social media promoting her brand

madcatladyforever · 18/01/2020 14:53

I knew one at work, she was my managers wife.
Her husband paid all the bills, managed all the finances, filled her car up with petrol because she's never done it and managed their entire lives, She was completely helpless.
He died of a heart attack on holiday and she killed herself.
It was tragic. I knew them well and had no idea until someone told me after her death of the dynamics of their relationship.

CrowleysBentley · 18/01/2020 15:04

It started off as an alt right thing I believe. It's creepy as fuck.

Fluffycloudland77 · 18/01/2020 15:08

The thing is their not hurting anyone by being like this. Harder to do on a small income though.

@madcatladyforever That’s awful.

Stillme1 · 18/01/2020 15:12

I had tertiary education and started work at a higher level and paid accordingly.
I then got married and although I earned well DH earned a whole heap more, 2 or 3 times my income so my income was a sideline.
Later in my life I was married to someone else and that was awful. He was a sponger (cocklodger in MN terms). I was in a much higher promoted post by that time and didn't need to put up with this situation so he was sent on his way.
Now I am much older and retired early. I have health problems so don't work but I am fairly comfortable. I have met someone else now and I suppose I could be acting like a "tradwife".
He works I don't. We do not live together but he takes care of a lot of things as do other males in his family for their partners. I like that I have someone I can rely on for so many things. I don't need the financial situation and I am resistant to that idea. It is lovely to be taken care of rather than taken advantage of.
I managed a lot of weird ways to bring up children and work and often look back and wonder how I coped. It does not look like it should have worked but I got through. I wonder about some of the lives I see on here. DCs being dropped at nursery 7 or 8 am picked up at 6 or 7 pm, home for food bath and bed to start it all again the next day. I get the idea of keeping up your skills etc but that seems even more of a rat run than I had and I really would not want to do that.
I also know that there are a lot of difficult men out there and women do have to cover their own backs.

Sillyscrabblegames · 18/01/2020 15:16

The theme of control ran through the whole interview she said things like i choose what we eat, I choose where our food is from etc... I think there is an element of controlling the man too in this kind of set up. It's all a bit creepy and manipulative.

Rosehip345 · 18/01/2020 15:23

To me this just seems like the extreme of having male/female roles within a couple which are certainly prevalent across my parents generation and quite common amongst my own.
For example I actually got stopped by the postman as he’d watched me put the bins out and get the lawnmower out ready, he wanted to know why my husband wasn’t doing the mans jobs 🤨
And furthermore I often have friends say they’ve been waiting for ages for DH to put up a shelf/pictures/change a fuse etc because of course they couldn’t possibly do it!?!

Echobelly · 18/01/2020 15:25

I have no problem with people doing it, just as long as they don't bash other women for not doing it! I just hope they all have kind, loving husbands and not ones who, you know, will take massive advantage of their subservience...

Fluffycloudland77 · 18/01/2020 15:27

Oh that annoys me too, whinging because you won’t do a simple job. Either YouTube the solution or get someone in to do it.