The tradwife movement

[Chocaholick]

AIBU to find the ‘tradwife’ movement absolutely horrific?

Essentially it’s a small core of women with deep internalised misogyny, who are making £££ by pretending they don’t work and indoctrinating young women to be ‘submissive’ to men and wait on them hand and foot, while feeding the manosphere and emboldening its members. It uses Christianity to brainwash followers into believing it’s God’s will for husbands to basically treat their wives like servants and ‘lead them’, and imposes a very long list of ‘duties’ on women while all that is expected of men is to work a job (like they wouldn’t be if they were single!).

It seems to be really catching on, even here in the UK.

I have been bombarded with these types on Facebook lately. It seems to be gaining ground. A lot is really awful such as a woman saying her husband had told her she was no good at making decisions so he now just tells her what to do and she obeys. Another telling everyone how she told her grand daughter that wanting to study medicine was bad because God made women to be submissive wives not doctors. Loads justifying marital rape. I'm seeing a lot of pages about having large families too, a lot of them seem to be attaching themselves to the quiverfull stuff which is not great. I just think it can't be real? It's got to be made up, acted out for the money because no one would seriously advocate that for themselves and their daughters.

It's white supremacy, at heart. Never forget that.

One thing about the tradwives is that they’re mostly in their 20’s/ early 30’s. Even they come to their senses albeit later in life.

THIS
I’m a feminist of course, but even I can see how much feminism has failed and actually betrayed women - we have more demands & expectations on us than ever before in history, and are given less time to be mothers with our children than many of us would like. It’s no real surprise why some women would want to opt out of this wage-slavery-plus-motherhood-household slog. I can certainly see the attraction of being able to focus on my children & home.

So she has no say in her choices she jusy blindly unintelligent doesn't thinl for herself and let a man do all her thinking for her?

Are there any red flags of women and women who 'trap' men or does it only ever work one way?

Not when you’ve been groomed from a teenager, no.
i thought this was 2026 and we knew about grooming and were better than victim blaming and misogyny?

She’s also constantly pregnant… do you really expect her to be able to think clearly? Do you not think that’s why he does it?

I think you're mixing up feminism with capitalism.
Its not feminism that exploits you in the workplace so you don't have enough time with your family.

Women in the 1950s certainly weren't happier. 'Mother's little helpers' [tranquillisers]?

Choices are not made in a vacuum.Women doing this put themselves at risk and need at the very least to understand that.

I sometimes think every generation looks at other ones and think they have/had it better. My mum was a young married in the 1950s. She was a teacher but it was just assumed she would do all the cooking and cleaning etc. although she worked full time. She envied the fact that my DH did some housework.
I envied the fact that it was assumed her DH (my DF) would provide financially for his family. I was the main wage earner, although my DH did work, and I felt the pressure. I would have quite liked to be less responsible!
I look at my DILs who share some finances with their DHs, but the rest is separate ie their own.
For me it’s less about how people live their lives, it’s have they made that choice freely. People need to wise up to the lies told on social media, but unfortunately every generation has it’s gullible ones and that is how they are fooled today.

There have always been groups that promote this ideal of womanhood. I remember them well from the 90s.

I've nannied for 2 well-known social media 'Tradwives'. In both households I was one of 2 nannies (they had maternity nurses for their babies too, who would do overnights). They had housekeepers who would take care of the majority of the cooking, all the grocery shopping and and all the laundry. They would kit themselves and the kids up in white floaty things for filming, then back into jeans and T-shirts for real life. The parents had very little to do with their own children outside of filming content, and in one family the couple themselves had a strained relationship.

These people had hundreds of thousands of 'followers', admiring and envious of their 'lifestyle'. In both households it was all a complete veneer and what was portrayed on their Instagram was wildly different from the reality.

Doesn't it dovetail in with the rise of the Manosphere?
Men in the so-called manosphere expect and want women to look after them in a traditional way.

In times of stress people will be susceptible to propaganda about how to go back to a mythical time when everything was perfect. This also requires scapegoats. Nazi Germany had Jews and gypsies. The right and the religious have feminists.
Sell women and men a story about how good their life would be if they only had a happy provider/a submissive helpmeet.
Agree with PP that any woman who says she’s ’not a feminist’ needs a sharp retort about which rights she’s planning to give away.

The logical part of me knows this is true. One of the most ‘traditional’ tradwives was forced to sheepishly admit she had a cleaner and part time childcare (despite having only 1 baby and no job).

But it still paints a mythical picture for men to point to when it comes to their ‘wifely expectations’. And yes the marital rape endorsement is horrendous.

I always think the massive contradiction (hypocrisy) of tradwife influencers is that they are making money working for themselves by being very opinionated on social media? They're selling a tradwife aesthetic but if they were serious about the tradwife life they'd get off Instagram, for starters.

Women weren’t allowed to have their own bank account without permission from their dad or husband until the 70s. Doesn’t give you much chance if your husband is abusive. I don’t think women with abusive husbands are happier. I would prefer to have the choice - equal choice as men to do what I want. I think that’s what feminism has given us hasn’t it?

The mid-twentieth century was an odd time where household appliances had started to significantly reduce household labour, but wider social shifts meant middle-class families could no longer afford to keep servants. This had big effects on the nature of women's work both in the home and out of it.

I get the impression that tradwives tend to be going less for "the 1950s" and more for a sort of romanticised nineteenth century rural America?

Excellent post

I think trad wife is a luxury belief, almost like cosplaying, because women in the past fought for women to have equal pay, education, the vote, the right to own property, to divorce if necessary, the establishment of refuges and charities, to claim benefits and child maintenance if they do find themselves a single parent, to have access to birth control, for marital rape to be illegal etc. women can choose a trad lifestyle but are not trapped as women in the past could be (and women currently are in oppressive countries) They need to be careful not to discredit these rights or pull the ladder up behind them, just because they’ve found a rich man prepared to keep them in a lifestyle they’re happy to go along with while everything’s going well.

No perhaps I am wrong on the latter point. Maybe what I have seen of it is not typical.

She has a TON of help! Teachers for the schoolhouse they have, interior designers she openly references, house organisers, a farm staff of at least 20-30 between the store and the packaging plants and all the rest. She shows her hair and makeup artists, a Nike ad director made their first promotional reels, it’s been professional from the start. She’s very open about it! She likes a certain aesthetic and has a lot of kids (her mom and sister do too, it’s not an alien concept to her) and references things like their staff Christmas party and shows the filming team often. I went through a stage of being wtf and now I find her kind of bizarrely charming, she’s doing her thing while other people project on to her.

Do you really think she didn’t have staff for this?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=bRJwYlE-Ya0

Yes but also no.

She earns more than her husband and pays teams of people. She is promoting it but she is not living it herself.

She has 2-3 nannies NO DOUBT.

Who the fuck is rearing 8 kids while she's asking quiches in a cookery school in Ireland. Yes the kids are in Ireland but still.
..

shes also now spoutong bollocks about them being coparents...
I couldnt roll my eyes harder.

It's utter bullshit but teenage girls will buy it and it is dangerous.

In the same way my friends and I believed posh Spicewas just disciplined and exercised and wouldnt listen to our parents when they tried to explain she had an ED and a bolt-on tit job.

No shade to posh... also think tradwives are way more harmful than the bad body image issues millennials were let with from 90s/00s media

I agree with @GirlWednesday it should be a choice and there be no exploitation , but I think it has to be a scrupulously well informed choice. What contingencies are in place for the 50% chance their marriage will fail? Highly unlikely that will given equal consideration as couples preparing for standard marriage seldom thrash that out.

Also, what happen if leading the wife became dictating to her, enforcing rules and what be the consequences for her for disobeying the rules.

Obviously ignoring these things would also be a choice, if they are even noted. But I think in time these women will find they are let down by this lifestyle way more than they were ever let down by feminism.

He doesn’t own an airline, his father does.

She admits working too hard and ending up in bed recovering but she has not said she has no staff. You see them quite frequently in her videos.

She has loads of kids, as did her parents, and do all her siblings, because she was raised Mormon. I don’t agree with it, but the idea he forced her into it is not reasonable.

The only point you made I would agree with is her aspirations to be a ballerina were influenced by him - she has sort of spoken about this and the Times ran a feature on them a year or two ago which went into some of this although she subsequently hotly denied it and said the journalist had misinterpreted their life.

I’m not advocating the tradwife movement but I can absolutely see why it appeals to people. Two income households becoming the norm has meant house prices have increased because people have been able to afford to pay more.

one professional salary could have supported a family working 40 hours a week with a reasonably nice lifestyle - house, car, holiday every year. Now a lot of families are working 80 hours a week between them and paying huge amounts of money for childcare to be in the same or worse position as that family on one wage 60 years ago. Being at home to look after your children and family yourself is seen as a luxury, and wanting to do that is seen as anti feminist. The majority of men now expect their wives to work, however socially the woman is still seen as responsible for maintaining the house, doing the majority of child rearing and housework.

Some women (including me) choose to work part time, and are then faced with the corresponding career stagnation and slower progression. As these women are “only” part time there is very much the expectation that they will carry the majority of the household/child caring load.

I am not advocating for all women to be housewives or stay at home mothers, I really enjoy my career and do find it fulfilling. I am also very grateful that I have the choice. But it makes me angry that one average professional wage cannot support a family the way that it could a couple of generations ago. I think a lot of people would like for that to be possible whether it was the man or woman working or perhaps both part time.

this social shift has also meant the loss of the village in many ways - female relatives would have been at home and available to help with children, and also volunteer benefiting their communities. There is a real volunteer crisis currently and that impacts all kinds of things - playgroups, libraries, hospital befriending, care of elderly relatives, lots of things which make a community welcoming and a nice place to be. There used to be women at home who would watch out the window as children played with friends. Most parents now (including me) wouldn’t allow their children to play out on the street because there isn’t that supervision. Children now are missing time with their primary caregivers, and spending more time with the iPad than having enriching experiences with an adult which again has negative societal effects. One of the reasons I went back to work after maternity leave was I felt lonely - but if my female relatives and friends had been off work too I would have found it much more enjoyable and been more supported.

To me feminism is about women having the choice to work or be at home but for many there isn’t actually a choice - they have to due to living costs. Now we are expected to do everything women of the past were, and work on top of it. Of course it’s much easier to run a home with modern technology and appliances, but it’s baffling really that we have all these time saving devices and yet families are working more hours than ever before.

all of that to say - I can see why the unrealistic trad wife content appeals to exhausted mothers of young children who like the idea of not having to worry about bills, make nice meals and have the time to put themselves together everyday. It is an unrealistic trope but I think a lot of women are exhausted and think at least then I’d only have one job not two! (Home/kids + career)