CULTURE
Tradwives: Nostalgia’s New Political Power
WORDS BY CHARLOTTE SWAINSTON | C.SWAINS@THEIWI.ORG | 20 SEPTEMBER 2024
In the year 2024, a scroll through any popular social media, be that Instagram, Tiktok, or Youtube will perversely reveal one of the most outdated stereotyped lifestyles - that of being a traditional, stay-at-home wife and more. The most famous example might be Nara Smith, model and husband of Lucky Blue Smith. Her carefully edited, lit and styled videos demonstrate her cooking food in beautiful smocks and dresses for her husband and children. They show her as the perfect example of sweet subservience: the voiceovers begin frequently with phrases such as 'My husband was craving tacos' or 'My children requested fresh bread' before showcasing herself cooking said demands entirely from scratch, without complaint. Her acquiescence is matched with her soothing, purring voice, and it's not hard to understand the comforting likeability of this model turned traditional housewife - 'tradwife' as termed by Tiktok.
Smith is not the only one. A quick search reveals many creators who base their content and platform on promoting this lifestyle. Creators include Hannah Neelman of ‘Ballerina Farm’ showcasing her ranch lifestyle with seven kids, and Estee Williams showcasing herself attempting physical and domestic perfection to please her husband. These creators have 9.7 million and 1.3 million followers respectively. Tradwives are varied and diverse, but a broad overview finds them a group invested in the principle that men and women have fundamentally different neural wiring, and this should directly inform their roles in wife. This encourages them to reject modern femininity - often deemed a 'lie' or a 'hoax' - in favour of a mode of living which places women as domestic severs, and men as the household leaders. Where they are in terms of extremity is varied - Smith still runs her modelling career alongside, but others have given up everything to be homemakers - but the fundamental belief that a heterosexual marriage cannot be a true 'meeting of minds' persists.
What is especially interesting about this content is not only its extreme popularity (Smith boasts over 4 million Instagram followers), but how widespread this content is throughout different internet niches. Theoretically platforms such as Tiktok, Youtube, and Instagram generate new content for the user based off previous history - yet the tradwife trend is one that all interests and sides of the political spectrum have been into. No American Tiktok For You Page is complete without a few videos from the likes of Smith, Hannah Neelman. What is behind this pervasive yearning for the 1950s?
False dichotomies and misplaced angst
America in 2024 is on many measures a depressingly unequal existence for many which has deeply disappointed any prior optimism from the turn of the millennium. Neoliberalism's increasing of inequality been the poorest and richest was only enhanced by the economic, social and emotional impacts of the Covid pandemic. It was then that tradwife content began to proliferate, reaching a peak in the early 2020s(i).
Concomitant with a public disappointment in the promises of the future is public disappointment with feminism. There is a toxicity about the way mainstream feminist discourse has been co-opted by companies to 'pinkwash' themselves to seem equitable, which results in a deep entwining between neoliberal ideals and modern 'girlboss feminism.' What many people now are brought up with and told is feminism in America is in fact not rooted in the philosophical or political history, but instead in a hyper-independent, work hard to consume more mindset. Girls and young women who are un-enamoured with this ‘live to work’ culture mistake this for being un-enamoured with feminism. Creators play into this: hashtags of those complaining about the 9-5 grind, such as #idontdreamoflabour are co-opted by these influencers who promise that domestic servitude is the solution to this disgruntlement(ii). This is something which political feminist and human rights discourse is typically ignoring. Acknowledging weakness, or possible toxicity in feminist discourses is something leaders and advocates are shying away from for fear of feminism being viewed by men’s right’s groups as ‘weak’ or ‘failing(iii).’ Fear of misogyny, then, is leading to feminism being increasingly associated with neoliberal capitalist ideas. A lack of critical discourse within the feminist community on this subject leads to many as seeing a return to a sexist past, a solution.
Just as anger at feminism can lead to a misplaced desire to return to what seems like a ‘simpler time,’ so can ecological anger. Many Americans concerned about the climate crisis, and disheartened with political leaders, turn to self-sustaining approaches to reducing consumption and living more ethically. Yet on social media platforms, viewing content about self-sustaining lifestyles quickly leads to content about ‘homesteaders.’ These homesteaders will offer viewers tips on reducing waste and living off the land, but a scroll through reveals the basis of many of these ‘homesteads’ is a stay-at-home traditional wife. Further complicating this issue is a growing movement often referred to as ‘eco-primitivism.’ This is a reactionary environmentalist movement which find hope and direction by suggesting that the solution to living more equitably with the environment can be found by taking inspiration from our primitive ancestors(iv). However there is tension within eco-primitive advocates about how far this primitivism should go – should we be looking at how female and male roles differed in the past as part of the solution? On social media however, this is an unfair fight. Due to Tiktok’s algorithm, the popularity of the ‘tradwife’ movement means that the ecological creators who also tap into this lifestyle get ‘boosted’ more than those who don’t. Users with ecological interests therefore cannot browse easily without being drawn into gender essentialist discourse. Different aspects of contemporary disenfranchisement on social media thus lead to algorithms quickly suggesting solutions rooted in the misogyny of the ‘tradwife’ lifestyle.
Consequences
This trend is concerning considering America’s teen pregnancy rate of 13.5 girls per 1000(v). This is a decrease on previous levels, but the United States still trends above other ‘developed’ countries for teenage pregnancy in this millennium(vi). A trend which glamourizes a precarious and dependent style of motherhood is likely to impact teenagers. Tiktok especially is Generation Z’s second most popular app to search for information on(vii). Teenagers are an especially vulnerable group as they are highly likely to question the status quo of ‘girlboss’ feminism, but not have the media literacy to realise that heavily curated content, with potentially hidden evangelical motives, is equally a lie. Developing young people’s faculties for critical analysis is an essential part of protecting the next generation from falling prey to movements that want to eradicate hard-won women’s rights, and this should be a focus of any high school language arts curriculum.
Equally concerning is the impact this has on the political sphere. It has been a hard-fought battle to increase female participation in politics, and although many Western countries have had female heads of state, America falls behind – there has yet to be a female president. Kamala Harris’ 2024 election campaign has rooted itself around her as cool – using singer CharlieXCX’s trending album ‘Brat’ to gain social media popularity(viii). The emphasis is on making her seem cool and as capable as any man. Yet as demonstrated above, disenfranchisement with neoliberalism is causing an increasing number of women, particularly on social media, to surrender the competition to equal the men. Kamala’s political campaign is lost on this disenfranchised group, despite how ironically a female president would help their interests.
The solution rests in an urgent conversation about how to make societies moulded around happiness, rather than economic and personal productivity. Without this, movements such as the tradwife trend will continue to draw the disenfranchised in, ‘freeing’ women from a capitalist world by trapping them in servitude on society’s sidelines. The tradwife movement may seem innocuous, but without a careful, critical conversation, we risk catapulting back into 1950.
i.https://web.archive.org/web/20230116233359/https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=tradwife
ii.https://www.tiktok.com/search?q=%23idontdreamoflabour&t=1725900278331
iii.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19419899.2020.1785534
iv.Aaltola, Elisa (2010). "Green Anarchy: Deep Ecology and Primitivism”.
v.https://abcnews.go.com/Health/teenage-birth-rates-us-reached-historic-lows-2022/story?id=99720479
vi.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1123322/
vii.https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2024/03/11/genz-dumping-google-for-tiktok-instagram-as-social-search-wins/
viii.https://www.tiktok.com/@kamalahq?lang=en