The ‘TradWife’ trend romanticises traditional domestic roles and exploits choice feminism to mask its anti-feminist agenda. While presenting itself with an idealised view of financial independence, it obscures the realities of traditional gender roles.
Social media has time and again provided a sprouting landscape for the growth of different niche circles that act as catalysts for exploring different identities, opportunities, and aesthetics. However, it has turned us into commodities, constantly marketing ourselves to each other for the gain of larger corporations. It has also devised a pathway for sweeping in regressive ideologies wrapped up in harmless, glamorised visuals. The TradWife or ‘Traditional Wife’ social media trend is one such regressive, anti-feminist ideology that has been gaining prominence all over the internet.
From “cooking from scratch” videos in their immaculate, expansive kitchens and elegant dresses to presenting idyllic farm life and taking care of their children and husbands, the ‘tradwife’ trend manifests itself in different forms. While what might seem as harmless content of women getting the choice to do what they want to and equally enjoying it, an overarching view needs to be put into perspective when consuming media that tends to romanticise and glorify ideas that for decades women have tried to fight against.
The social media ‘tradwife’ influencers are far from what they are inevitably promoting through their content. It is very different from the average stay-at-home mom reality, where the women are financially dependent on their husbands while performing thankless, challenging labour to keep their homes running and their children fed. The ‘tradwife’ influencers are actually financially independent given the monetisation of their content while also having a lavish lifestyle. The ‘tradwife’ sidelines the harsher realities of what could go wrong if you’re financially dependent on someone. Most of the ‘tradwives’ are white women living in first-world countries built at the expense of the marginalised global south. Ironically they are financially stable enough to promote a disillusioned lifestyle to their followers.
Tradwife content is as much about what it is against as what it is for,
says Seyward Darby.
By projecting that a certain way of life is more fulfilling than the other, ‘tradwives’ create a dichotomy of what’s present in their lives and what is not present in the lives of their followers. It surfaces the idea among the followers that a desirable stay-at-home lifestyle while being financially and emotionally supported by a family is “missing” in their lives but is nevertheless attainable. These ideas, when internalised in the minds of young women, tend to create a false reality of a comfortable, more appealing traditional lifestyle.
While most ‘tradwife’ influencers might be subtle in expressing their allegiance to a particular political ideology, many members of the conservative ‘tradwives’ community are explicitly anti-feminist. This anti-feminist stance mostly stems from the false belief that feminism has forced women to surrender and overwork themselves for larger corporations while making barely enough for a decent lifestyle. Overworking, burnouts, and minimal wages, while in fact notable problems, are not caused by feminism but by late-stage capitalism and the hyper-capitalist society we are living in.
According to them, instead of serving and surrendering to a stranger, women should rather serve their husbands and children, who, in return, are going to “protect” them. Sitler-Elbel argues that the logic of some conservative tradwives is that “a woman not only stays home because she wants to be domestically focused, but because she, as a woman, must cater to and take care of her husband in these ways.” Thus, they reject the idea of women choosing to be who they want to be and perpetuate the extremist rhetoric that a nice “religious” woman must submit to these “natural roles” to “rebalance the natural order.”
‘Housewifery’ or a stay-at-home lifestyle is not anti-feminist or oppressive to its core, as most people tend to believe. Feminism has given women the choice to choose their lifestyle. Choice feminism, as argued by Michael L. Ferguson, implies that,
We live in a post-feminist world where the women’s movement did all it needed to liberate women, and now women are totally free to make whatever choices they make without oppression.
However, one thing that goes unnoticed is that the final stage of choice feminism assumes that, due to the past victories of feminism, there is no choice that is oppressive and degrading to women.
One should be careful with how we view these positions and make sure to distinguish between the misery of being a housewife in general and the misery that stems from mistreatment and unappreciation that housewives may receive from their family or society,
states Livia Gershon.
However, feminism is supposed to question religion, laws, traditions, cultures, trends, and eventually anything that potentially subjugates women as a sexual class. It’s systematic thinking, not individual choice-focused. Thus, there is a need to question the harmful presentation of such extremist rhetoric as idyllic and choice-based.
Read also: https://dubeat.com/2020/03/08/the-bare-minimum-feminists-are-they-enough-barely/
Featured Image Credits: Sara Fang for The Michigan Daily
Reeba Khan