Tradwives & A Woman's Right to Laziness
Hey friends, thanks for reading. I’m taping my stand up special Oct 13th in NYC; I’d love if you came—tix here. Before that, I’m touring in Asheville, Atlanta, and Philly!
Okay, let’s get into it!!
I’m obsessed with tradwives. Obsessed. Wholly and completely fixated on these influencers who espouse the benefits of “traditional” 1950s living. They’re amazing; they do everything traditional housewives used to do: cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, and going viral on TikTok. And the most famous tradwives have chosen—like all traditional women—to be extremely hot.
As a content creator, I respect the hustle. As a woman who sometimes vacuums naked, I relate to the joy of tending to a home. As a feminist, I believe in a woman’s right to self-determination. And how can I begrudge any woman the search for happiness?
Except, of course, the 1950s housewife isn’t all that “traditional” (only really popular for about 15 years), they weren’t 100% happy (there was that book, do you recall?), and these high-profile tradwives do a lot of non-household work. For example, they make viral content (that’s sorta…their whole thing). One famous tradwife, Alena Kate Pettitt, even runs her own businesses teaching tradwifery. If a woman was meant to be a housewife, built to follow her intuition to care for a home…why does she need a school?
Factual errors aside, I support their choices, for the most part. The issue arises when traditional living becomes prescriptive, rather than descriptive. It’s a slippery TikTok slope
From:
“check out this organic tuna casserole I made from scratch, literally scratch, like, I scratched the tuna until it died, and now it’s in my heart-healthy casserole”
“I’m happy to be a stay-at-home mom”
To:
birth control gives you tumors”
“the patriarchy is our destiny, but in a good, non-Barbie-esque way.”
Just because the alt-right likes the same things as you doesn’t mean you’re one of them; Donald Trump & I both drink an enormous amount of Diet Coke. But, yes, many (not all!) tradwives are conservative Christians, veering towards MAGA—with dangerously backwards ideas about pronatalism and gender roles.
Tradwives are no joke, though. Critics contend that there’s a particular risk to putting a soft face on dark ideology. These ladies package gender roles in a way that makes them palatable—you don’t think you’re being propaganda’d, you just think you’re learning how to grout. And to dismiss the tradwife movement is to dismiss the power of young women. For better or for worse, we ought to pay attention.
My favorite, Estee Williams, makes bubbly videos discouraging college and asserting that a woman’s highest calling is wife and mother (that’s two callings. College or not, I can’t abide a failure to count). A year ago, Estee argued that tradwifery is not really a movement, as no one is pushing it. Within a year, she’d reversed her stance; pushing the tradwife movement as fervently as she pushes a stroller. JK, she doesn’t have kids.
There’s a nuanced distinction between an idea and the movement around it. As tradwife Laura Spencer has said, she doesn’t identify as a feminist because she takes issue with the modern feminist movement, though she supports the basic tenets of feminism (equality between men and women). I feel similarly about the tradwife movement. I take no issue with homemakers posting about how much they enjoy their lives; I only take issue with the activists who claim this is “women’s role.” That the patriarchy begets joy. I mean, did anyone watch Barbie?
Like many influencers, tradwives’ online goal is to generate envy. While I wouldn’t say that’s “fine,” I acknowledge they’re far from the only ones in the envy-induction-rat-race. But they’re working too hard. There’s no reason for a tradwife to tell me that there are benefits to not having to work. As a person who has to work, I…know.
I understand why tradwives want to make others jealous. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that some (only some) women are judgmental of those living these traditional lives. Perhaps tradwife influencers are reacting to that. Asserting how much they love their lives, in an attempt to intercept judgment before it lands.
But tradwifery is its own form of elitism. We are not all qualified. You must be cisgendered and straight, of course, you need a husband who can provide for you whole family, and you must be able to have children. You also, presumably, have to be relatively good at cooking and cleaning. If there are any aspiring tradwives whose husbands insisted they rejoin the workforce after tasting their tuna casseroles, I’d love to hear from you.
Tradwifery highlights the limits of the feminist movement. As a child growing up in NYC in the 1990s, I was told I had every option. No career was off-limit. But of course, some were. Who among us truly has every option? Just because I wasn’t constrained by gender doesn’t mean I was without constraint. I never, for example, had the option of becoming a supermodel.
I don’t think I’d be a good tradwife—it doesn’t seem like an option for me. I know my skills, and they’re not in homemaking. And I do envy their lives. I envy that they have the time to make themselves look nice. (Well, okay, I have the time, but eyeliner application is also not my strong suit). I envy that they make meals from scratch; I’d love to get preservatives out of my diet. I envy their beautiful homes. Mostly, though, I envy that it’s enough for them.
Despite the most backwards parts of the tradwife movement, I find an empowering message within it. Like many women—modern and traditional— I struggle with my self-esteem. I want to value myself beyond my professional output, but it’s hard. Monetary compensation for my labor is tangible; I can point to it and say, “I was worth that, to somebody.”
Tradwives’ work has value, of course. A friend of mine thought “tradwife” was short for “trade wife,” which it almost could be. Historically, household work has been of equal economic importance. Sometimes, I wonder if a household where the man makes money and the woman takes care of the home is a more equal distribution of labor than many modern heterosexual families—in which both work, and the woman does 80% of the household work.
And yet, reminding the world that tradwives can be as productive as women who work outside the home keeps the focus on productivity—we are what we produce. I want to be enough, productive or not.
Sometimes, it seems like feminism and anti-capitalism are battling it out. I know many successful, well-educated women so burnt out on corporate America that they now want a man who can support them financially. All of whom said differently ten years ago. Some of whom might be me. And I wouldn’t consider myself part of “corporate America.” I understand it’s a great privilege to take my own right to work for granted, but still; I’ve had office jobs, and the first word I’d use to describe them is not “empowering.”
What about a woman’s right to be lazy? What about a woman’s right to value herself beyond what she produces?
Tradwives work hard. But telling women they’re enough without conventional markers of success (a high-powered career, for example) could be a stepping stone to telling women they’re enough without constantly measuring their production. They’re not there yet—most tradwives post about how busy they are. But maybe they’ve cracked the door open for someone else to do it.
So, I don’t think it’s entirely bad to give tradwives a platform. And that’s why social media is important (that’s what this newsletter is about, remember?). To let us have a public discourse, to surface the topics for debate. So as long as TikTok continues to show me me tradwife videos, I’ll keep watching them.
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Ginny