An alarming rise in #TradWife and #PrincessTreatment aspirations?

[LongFacedRat]

I'm shocked in the number of young women who are promoting TradWife, Princess Treatment, Soft Life etc aspirations on social media.

To me it feels like the sister of Incel-ideology. A woman's sole aspiration is to find a "masucline" provider and take the "divine feminine" role of helper etc.

It comes in lots of different flavours of varying extremes. I think because I watched a few videos I keep being shown more and more, and the comments are really sad too.

Has anyone noticed this? Am I being OTT? It seems very pervasive, ranging from not wanting to pay for things when dating, to aspiring to be a stay at home wife who cooks from scratch and presents the husband's meal like a restaurant.

I can share some examples, but I also don't want to shame specific content creators. You can search the terms above in social media for examples (i think a bunch of "soft life" things are more on the jokey side).

When I was growing up I wanted to be a doctor and make enough money to support myself and help my parents. Now young women just aspire to marry a "provider" who "takes care of me". Obviously our mothers and grandmothers fought against this because of the vulnerability it brings. It's a shame to see women desperate to go back to the 1950s

Examples from traditional media: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/relationships/article-11851527/Woman-shares-guarantee-princess-treatment-three-things-do.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/04/sometimes-i-long-for-the-life-of-a-tradwife-then-i-remember-its-a-reactionary-fantasy

To a degree I agree with you. It’s not what I’d choose for my children, male or female.

Our mothers and grandmothers fought for us to have the right to choose, not for SAHM as an option to cease.

Something I’ve noticed in the last few years is that women who appear to have it all - careers, children, often lead very hectic and difficult lives as they are still the default parent. The one who has to juggle her life to fit everything else in, pick up ill children, make sure uniform is clean and dry, do the bulk of housework. It’s rarely men who pick up the slack.

The 4G movement in South Korea is a result of that. I suspect the tradwife stuff is just a different manifestation of the same thing. 4g - women are sick of having to be everything to everyone so they cut out the man and children part. Tradwives opt out of the work and outside life thing.

Social media has a lot to answer for. It's currently a popular female influencer niche particularly in semi-religious circles and western audiences.

Like any social media portrayal it's papering over the cracks and presenting an aspirational lifestyle. The women are being coy in that either their husband works a lucrative job (sometimes something very 'modern' like an IT contractor) to foot the bill of the family's supposedly 'simple, traditional' lifestyle. Or else one salary doesn't provide all that well and their social media influencing or MLM income is topping up the coffers. Sometimes they're far out-earning their husband's income. Apparently neither of these count as women working and are swept under the rug 🙄

Some of the husbands actually seem rather inept and lazy, not the 'traditional, masculine providers' they're supposed to portray. Quite a lot abandon their jobs when it's clear the wife is the main breadwinner particularly if their influencer income is good to high. Some try to cuckoo their way into 'leading' their wife's brand (which she developed, runs, is the 'star' of and attracts a predominantly female audience). I'm aware of more then a few religious fundamentalist accounts where the influencer income isn't there yet and the husband still refuses to work. The women are being abused or at the very least taken advantage of while they try to get their channel off the ground, financially support the family, do childcare, cook, clean, worry about impending homelessness and are often pregnant.

Of course all this influencing relies on exploiting their children, unconsenting minors.

The niche seems to have taken off as it relies on the popular female influencer tropes of attractive appearance (hair and make up being just so, slim with an enviable wardrobe), instagrammable home decor (modern farmhouse is best; use one part of your home as your 'set' if the rest is less aspirational and/or cluttered), engagement/wedding content followed by new pregnancy and newborn content approximately every 18 months to 2 years, wholesome cooking/baking content (overlaps with the sourdough and raw milk fads), idealized family content emphasising the youngest kids and so on.

I just find it really disingenuous and rather predatory. This set up is only going to work for a small and privileged proportion of SAHMs whereas these influencers are trying to pretend to their audience that it suits all women/couples. You're just not trying hard enough if it doesn't work for you. More guilt. Not everyone can conjure up a long-term, reliable social media income and the niche is saturated as it is. It's setting women up for failure and financial insecurity while profiting off a naive audience ( via monetisation, advertising, sponsorships, engagement, algorithms etc).

I think part of it is the usual projecting a perfect life/people following a fantasy online. Its nice looking at beautifully baked pies, and cottage core and clean rosy cheeked children. I have no interest in trad-wife Instagram - but have always had an imaginary life where I live in a beautiful cottage with roses on the door and a stunning garden with a vegetable patch and an orchard etc etc. It becomes a problem when people get sucked into that world/judge themselves against it or take it too seriously.

Women's lives I think have got more stressful. Expected to do everything. Go to work, arrange children's activities, ferry them to and fro, cook, clean. And be very grateful their DH helps. Hmm not sure this is very ideal.

Agree, @Viviennemary
Also though, if I make a beautiful pie and spend time decorating it with intricate pastry designs on top, its because I have unusually got time to do it, and choose to spend that rare time on it because I want to. This makes it extremely enjoyable and relaxing in a mindful way. Its a treat. If I was a stay at home mum and was baking the same complicated pie everyday for my husband and children because it was what felt necessary - I would be bored stiff and it would feel like a massive chore. I would be really resentful that the kids were finally of to sleep, and all the housework done but I still had to bake the sodding pie before I could relax.

I don't think humans are meant to feel perfectly content and happy all the time. The internet sort of gives the impression we could if only our lives were different. It becomes more risky when it gets oddly tied up with political ideals.

Every case I've seen so far has been religiously motivated. They seem to belong to extreme sects that demand they wear Little house on the prairie type clothes and submit to their husbands. They portray it as their choice, their calling in life etc but most if not all of them probably know nothing else. And yes they are being exploited as their "trad" husbands muscle in on the income from social media. They are very vulnerable and it is nothing to aspire to. To be clear I'm not talking about people in equal partnerships who have made an informed choice to be a SAHM here.

I was a trad wife and I loved it. DH was also happy with it. All the £ went in one account and we spent as required. Eventually I went to work but never for a minute regretted those years. Never felt anything other than an equal partnership to us. It was what I wanted and DH was delighted to be able to make it happen. Doesn’t mean I’m any less than a career family who spend so much time at work they’re run ragged, hardly see their kids and spend a lot of time bemoaning their situation. I had it better in my view but ultimately everyone entitled to choose

MN is the only SM I have. Also tables now turned as DH has become my trad husband as due to cancers he does everything for me and in the house.

@Whatevershallidowithmylife were you a "tradwife" though. Or just a mum that stayed home with their kids as a perfectly normal joint family decision. And was happy doing so but didn't bang on about it. Also, I am guessing you werent submissive to your husband which seems to be part of the trend sometimes. There seems to be a weird trend to make everything an "identity" rather than just accepting that we do different things at different stages in life.

I read the article on being a princess:

'If you know you're going to a nice steakhouse, you should already know what temperature you like your steak cooked. For example, a 6oz filet cooked medium.'

Well, that's a massive princess fail right there because they don't cook the steak at different temperatures, they cook it for different lengths of time. No second date with Mr millionaire for a girl who doesn't know that!

Think it’s complicated, many women with careers do end up doing it all anyway. I never wanted kids (did end up doing it in the end) but some women really do and have an idealised vision of what that looks like. I sometimes think it’s modern life as well, everyone seems to have so much on their plate, maybe it seems like a rational choice in the face of too much choice. Fuck knows, I’d raise my eyebrows if DD declared she would be becoming a trad wife or a princess.

Its the American influence plain and simple. They are becoming ever more unhinged and they have polarised into ludicrous stereotypes.
Stereotypes that we have fought 60 years and more to overcome.

On the Left, womanhood is defined as a 'feeling' that anyone can have and men can usurp for their own ends, and on the Right a biological prison manned by misogynists.
The American influence on our culture has got substanially worse since Brexit, although its been there for decades. And the stereotypes and misogyny are being amplified 1000 times by the American driven porn industry.
If America was an individual they would be sectioned so sick has it become. They are not a culture we should be emulating.

I'm glad that women are choosing to be SAHM. Why should that choice be removed? When women become mothers, the majority want to be mothers and not be forced to seek employment.
Women need choices and freedom.

I agree- it disgusts me and I'm not usually a judgey person. Having said that, as someone who is so up against everything right now financially, I really can see the appeal... maybe these girls/women have grown up seeing their mums hustle and don't want that for themselves? I've seen a lot of Arab trad (slave) wife videos online but Arab women have always loved being pampered- it's part of their culture (and they are the ones that really rule at home- the man is just a means to an end- to provide. Nothing less, nothing more).

not forced to seek employment

Blimey, hello poster the 1950's want you back!!

Do you know the only SAHM mothers I've ever known are the ones on here. In real life I don't know any. So I'm not sure where you're getting your figures from!

Mental!

Its not choosing to be a SAHM. SAHMs are already a thing. Trad-wife is either a horrific sacrificing of your autonomy to your husband OR a really annoying social media trend where you make one thing you do your entire personality that you then try to monetise online. SAHMs are fine.

I’ll be honest, I’d much prefer to not go to work. Sadly, DH and I met too late to have children….and I’m shit at housework 🤣. I would love the option of part time or not working at all though.

I can understand why young women would want that. I don’t think it’s the right answer, but I also think the movement that set the main aspiration for women being the ability to have a career while outsourcing child care was helpful.

The model for a marriage where one partner worked and the other raised the children was (in my opinion) better. Working towards it being equally acceptable for the man to stay at home, or for both to work part time would have been a better model to aim for.

My generation (mid fifties) is filled with women who tried to do it all, got pissed off because they ended up doing all the work, burned out and then divorced.

Maybe I sound bitter because I don’t even have a good pension after my divorce as I prioritized nursery and child care over pension and am now facing working into old age on my own, but my mum had it way better than I have done.

It's a reaction (IMO) to people looking down on SAHM. It's a shame everyone is busy trying to justify their own decisions by looking down on others. You see it on here all the time. People who say:

"Being with my children all day is so boring, I need to work for my brain." (Implication: only stupid people are happy as SAHP.)

"What will she do when her husband leaves her?" (Implication: no man will support a SAHM, she's a financially vulnerable fool.)

"Children need to socialise in nursery." (Implication: SAHP give their children an inferior upbringing.)

And frequently SAHP are referred to as lazy and not contributing.

What we need to do is understand that different people need different things and find different roles fulfilling. And also normalise SAHDs, and a model of two PT working parents (this is what we do and it's not perfect but it is very good) and stop punishing certain types of set ups in the tax system, and maybe reform divorce arrangements (though this is probably more controversial and harder to do without creating different unfairnesses.)

IMO there's a lot of people assuming that women are forgoing great careers by staying at home. The truth is that most women , and men, have boring, ill paid jobs.

Didn't Jordan Peterson point out that the more egalitarian a culture becomes, the more men and women push towards traditional gender roles? The opposite is true also.

Is this a bit of a rebellion against TV/ film portrayals of women being kickass, pansexual girl bosses?

That's my take. I'm a SAHM, I agree with pp that the tradwife slant is worrying as that implies surrender to husband.

Most influencer lifestyles are I would hazard not 100% genuine...
They might be trad-wives for the feed but that's not necessarily going to be how they actually live.
It's not aspirational for most women and it's not the narrative of female empowerment. I'd agree it's an odd choice but it's a choice they're free to make. I suspect that the princess types are the kind of women that some men want and yet also despise.

The other issue is that part of the argument given for trad wife values is that women's role as mothers should be respected (I agree) women shouldn't want to work outside the home as being a mother is the most important job. But some of the same commentators arguing this will be spitting feathers at the thought of a woman getting 50% in the (unfortunate) event they divorce. The same men in particular complaining that women are tricked into favouring careers over motherhood are often the same men complaining about "divorce rape". Clearly they don't really see the role of mother as equal to that of wage earner

Yes, but usually people aren't in a fabulous massive house with a modern-rustic farmhouse style kitchen blah blah while their fabulously paid banker husband still comes home at 6 every evening to a beautifully prepared meal either. Usually when both parents work, its because it makes sense for their family, and their lives/careers aren't that glamorous. When one parent stays home, its because it makes sense for their family and their lives/careers arent that glamorous. The trad-wives/princess trend sets up a false dichotomy between a working life of drudgery and stress versus a life of staying home being pampered like a princess. Real life isn't like that.