This tradwife thing

[Orangeblossom78]

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!

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

Bloody idiots. When they get traded in for a younger model they'll be sorry.
Women often big up their husbands for diy and minimise their own abilities eg at home admin/maths.
I find it infuriating.

The same men speak dreadfully about said wives at work btw. Men do not need any more evidence to see women as property. We are going back in time!
This is NOT feminism.

Not my thing but if its how they chose to live then fine by me.

Maybe they see all the setting up for post divorce as a plan to fail strategy.

Each to their own, try not to be too judgmental.

She's like a real life Serena Joy pre-Gilead. Obviously still dealing with her father abandoning her, lets hope for her sake that pattern isn't repeated.

If it makes her happy, crack on, but like other PPs have said, she doesn't actually bear any resemblance to a 1959 housewife. My granny was one, we're Irish, and when she got married, she HAD to give up work as the local employers didn't believe in married women working. Paying jobs were for men and married women had enough to be doing at home, was the thinking at the time. My Granda handed over all his wages at the end of every week and she gave him an allowance. In return, she ran the home and did all the child care. There was nothing subserviant about her, she was tiny but formidable, and my Granda respected her as well as loved her. But they were a team, which is surely what every good marriage should be, regardless of the roles people choose to take within them? They both worked hard to build a life together.

I think these women are just lazy and taking the easy option rather than having to be responsible for themselves, earning their own living and looking after their own bills. It’s like they are rejecting adult life and reverting to childhood when someone else took care of all that stuff. They’re doing it secure in the knowledge that if they decide they don’t want it anymore the law allows them to leave and continue to be supported by their ex husband. Nothing traditional about that. Traditionally women had very few rights, protections or options. The women who choose this now should check their privilege. They’re playing house.

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!

Yes, exactly - she's busy working at building her brand, and in the process, is encouraging other women who don't have aspirations to build a social media career to make themselves financially vulnerable.

She's basically selling a lie as she's working from home on her videos and encouraging others not to work. She might not be earning much from it now, but presumably that's the plan.

I don't have a problem with anyone who chooses that lifestyle, I was surprised at the level of vitriol in the comments though. She didn't run anyone else down or say that everyone should live like her in the video (BBC news) that I saw. What is the difference between her and Mrs Hinch/TOMM, her focus on the lifestyle rather than the cleaning? Having said that, Mrs Hinch seems to bring out a lot of strong opinions as well!

My grandad and his friends used to “tip up” every payday. They’d tip their wage packets into their wives pinny and the wives would’ve given the men folk a small bit back and they’d keep the rest. This was the late 50s/ early 60s so women have had control of their money whilst being homemakers.

The same men speak dreadfully about said wives at work btw.

I have to agree with this, and it's disgusting, I've said more than a few times I don't want to hear it. It also cemented my view that I never wanted to be a SAHM.

It all sounds very red pill/alt right to me.

There's a lot of this agenda being pushed at women right now, (Mrs. Hinch for example).

she's busy working at building her brand, and in the process, is encouraging other women who don't have aspirations to build a social media career to make themselves financially vulnerable.

That is an absolutely perfect description of how I feel about it too. By all means live the life you want, and by all means form groups with others who feel and do the same, but running an “academy” seems an awful lot like encouraging others to follow your footsteps.

Margaret Atwood is a fucking prophet.

How many threads claiming women need to be married to be “protected”. More than I can count
That somewhat deliberately oversimplifies it .

People advocate marriage in situations where a woman is choosing to give up her job and financial security to stay at home precisely because operating the man as breadwinner and woman stays home model is risky for women and the contract of marriage ensures the woman's contribution to the household is valued in the event of a split.

A woman giving up her financial security to a DP is in a terribly risky position. She loses her income, job/career, employability prospects and future earnings due to time out, she has no national insurance contributions, doesn't have a personal pension in most situations.
Should the relationship go downhill, the woman has limited ability to leave because she may not be able to set up on her own due to limited personal funds. Depending on how they structure their finances (which is almost always in favour of the man in these situations) in the event of a split the woman ends up with nothing.

Nobody says all women should be married to be protected. There are many situations where being married offers very little in terms of short term protection if both people are similar earners, have all assets I joint names, appropriate pension arrangement etc. There's also ways for couples to legally arrange affairs etc without marriage and this is often done if they wish to protect inheritance for their DC if it's a second long term partnership.

What is advocated is that women make informed decisions and don't get railroaded or drift into situations that are against their best interests. Sadly on MN there's still a lot of women who insist on having an issue with this and so perpetuate the same lies that some men trot out e.g. "marriage is just a piece of paper, we have children and that's a bigger commitment, marriage isn't very feminist so you're actually more empowered to be an unmarried SAHP, we don't need a party to prove how much we love each other, ignore the smug marrieds they think they're better than everyone". These are all arguments used by some to mislead women by pretending that it's somehow unfeminist to suggest marriage is a legal contract that affords certain protections and obligations (despite countless threads of women who've given everything up for their DP and find themselves shafted 5/10 years later).

The thing is all I can see is everyone skating her for her choice! That's what freedom is a choice! Isn't it also sexist by basically assuming that she'll get finished with because all men are arse holes!?

Reminds me of the surrendered wife movement about 16 yrs ago.

They wouldn't be so Surrendered (Trad) if ... husband gambled all the money away... sexually fiddled with the kids... insisted on chaining them to a stove in the house while he was out at work all day. And other insane shit that WAS obligatory to put up with in real history.

I can't take it very seriously. It's a .. .sleight of hand for not being a modern control freak, one suspects.

Oh god I remember that surrendered wife thing too.

There was no halcyon age.

Honestly I think it sounds like a lovely life, but I couldn't deal with not being viewed as successful in my own right. Honestly good on her, it's her life and they've chosen it together.

I think a lot of women are jealous because they don't have to opportunity to do it.

I’m curious as to why lots of people assume the trad wife will get dumped?

Surely what the tradhusband wants is a homemaker?

Orchidflower1
I'm inclined to agree with you. If two people are seeking the traditional set up and marry in that traditional model then it's probably something that works for them.

What I think is more likely is that the non-married tradwives are more likely to be dumped once their trad-non-husband decides he's done having the usefulness of someone running the home for him and raising the kids and knows he can walk away without any legal obligation to the woman who has facilitated his lifestyle. These men know that marriage would afford their partners rights and would impact on their pensions etc and they want to have their cake and eat it, so they want a traditional wifey figure at home to raise the kids and clean the house, but don't want the traditional responsibility of long term breadwinner with a moral and legal responsibility towards a spouse. They're selectively traditional playing pick and mix with the things that suit them.

Each to their own I guess, but I worry about two things: the example to their children, and what happens if life doesn’t go as planned.

My DH got sick at 33 and died at 37 when our DC were very young, and I’m really glad I have a job, know how to bleed radiators, manage finances etc.

We didn’t do ‘his and hers’ roles - DH used to make jam whilst I watched sport 🤣. I miss that!

I do All The Things now. I’m glad I know how.

MaxNormal and Jessie... couldn’t agree with you both more!!! My mum and dad were married throughout the 50s, and there was no submission going on in our household 🤣

Also trying find the #tradhusband who’ll cook, clean and look all purty when I get home from work 😊

I think life in many places has become so pressured that this could be a form of backlash. I mean the high rents, the astronomical childcare costs, the long & expensive commutes etc etc. Having small children and both partners working full time is an incredible and knackering balancing act - particularly when you don’t have any family nearby. There is often this prevailing narrative of hard work/sacrifice and how you are superparents who should be able to manage it all which for us made for a miserable existence. Obviously deciding to move back to a 1950s model is an extreme reaction to this but it is in some ways understandable.

For what’s its worth, this is why we both jacked it in and moved abroad to somewhere where it’s possible to cycle to work in 30 min and have a nicer house. Our income has dropped a bit but we have so much more time.

Lots of (presumably) men commenting online (DM etc) about how nice it is to see the housewife and SAHM roles being respected again and how great it would be to more young women resuming these roles like in the past.

I always see the word ‘respect’ crop up in these conversations and it annoys me because a great deal of men (usually older) who go on about housewives/SAHMs playing a key and equal role in keeping a family would also have the mindset of all the money belonging to the man because he’s the only one who does paid work and should therefore control the finances and woman has to ask for any money, as well as the belief that only the working men deserve any downtime and relaxation- drinks in the pub/bar after work whenever they please, weekends devoted to resting or persuing a hobby. That does NOT demonstrate seeing both roles as equal.

@booboostwo argh yeah I think I agree with you! At first I was happy to accept it was her choice etc but actually if we start idealising this we all know where it ends.

To be clear I see nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent - my mum worked from home and we were v lucky as kids to have her around. I had a great example from both my parents as my dads work was quite flexible too and they made things work between them. But in my parents' relationship, and in mine both partners are absolutely equals. Like heck am I submitting to my DH but I really really hate the idea that "to honour and obey" might be taking off. As many have said, the 1950s was nothing like this weird fantasy version she presents!

Respect is just a trick here. It's not about respecting the women who choose this life, it's about drawing a distinction between the women who choose this life and are worthy of respect so that one can treat the other women disrespectfully with immunity. The other women chose to be treated with disrespect and therefore deserve to be treated with disrespect. It's not about women making all sorts of different choices, it's about women either making the choices that put them under the control of men or being abused.