Was 2024 the year of 'tradwives'?

According to Salon, "tradwives" was the hottest online topic of 2024. Although it's been around for a while, this was the year that it really entered the mainstream conversation. So what are "tradwives" and what has been the debate?

"Tradwives" is a growing social media trend, that Salon defines as anything from "a silly online fantasy" to "overt propaganda." It is a shortened way to say "traditional wives," though the social media posts and culture wars debate make it anything but old-fashioned.

In the words of one of the top TikTok tradwives Estee Williams, "a tradwife is a woman who prefers to take a traditional or ultra-traditional gender role in marriage, including the beliefs that a woman’s place is in the home."

Image: esteecwilliams / TikTok

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But beyond being housewives, tradwives also tend to embody a whole aesthetic. Most opt for a 1950s style in their looks and home decor. Notably, that was right before the feminist revolution of the 1960s.

Image: _cynthialoewenseguin / Instagram

However, others go even further back in their lifestyle, such as beauty queen and ballerina Hannah Neeleman. The young mother of eight has 9.1 million followers on Instagram. While she does not self-identify as a tradwife, her words, religion, and picture-perfect posts of her family have been picked up by conservative media as the ideal woman. They even use her image as an argument against birth control.

Image: ballerinafarm / Instagram

An article in the Sunday Times even went viral, causing a storm of debate and controversy. The article portrayed her as having given up her dreams (she was training at Julliard) to submit to her husband. She said that it couldn't be further from the truth.

Image: ballerinafarm/Instagram

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Enitza Templeton, who committed to traditional values in her marriage but left the lifestyle behind, told People that the profile of Ballerina Farm highlighted the ugliness behind the scenes. She emphasized the pressure to do everything from scratch and organic, have more children (without epidurals), take care of the man but without any financial power.

Image: emergingmotherhood/Instagram

Despite what the tradwives may say, critics of the idea suggest that these women are helping to normalize and idealize right-wing policies within societies like the US. "They are exploited as pawns of the right, laundering extremist views and transforming them into ostensibly more palatable packaging," wrote Time Magazine in 2024.

As the tradwives talk openly about the ills of divorce to millions of followers, they could help push a new law that entraps women in bad marriages without being able to have a good argument to leave their husbands.

For instance, there is a growing push to outlaw no-fault divorce in the United States, which allows one party to leave without any (clearly provable) "just cause." As Rolling Stones reported in July 2024, rewriting rules on divorce is emerging as the next front for the Republicans.

These ideas have also filtered into the 2024 presidential campaign. JD Vance, candidate for vice president in 2024, has suggested that people with children should have more power in society than those who don't. “We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too,” Vance said.

"It doesn’t mean we are trying to take away what women fought for," tradwife Estee says. "No tradwife TikToker is saying that every woman’s place is at home, but it's what we choose to do."

Photo: esteecwilliams / TikTok

Influencers like Estee even claim to be feminists in saying that "women should have the right to be homemakers without being judged."

Image: _cynthialoewenseguin/ Instagram

Meanwhile, some critics say that those openly sharing and embracing the tradwife label are victims of internalized se*ism. It's one thing to divide the labor with your husband, but another thing to be subservient in the name of traditional values.

Image: This Morning / YouTube

Of course, it is possible to be happy in marriages with 'traditional' gender roles. But as Christine Borzumato-Gainey of Elon University told CNN: "It's really just a high-risk situation that somebody could get lost and overwhelmed by the duties that they have, and not be treated with respect or appreciated by their partner who is completely in charge of the finances and other major decisions."

Another professor and counselor told CNN that there is a spectrum in the world of tradwives. Some genuinely choose to do what they do, while others are entirely dominated.

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The ones that are 'dominated' cannot leave the house without permission and face punishments for breaking the rules, the counselor tells CNN. Financial abuse and emotional abuse can emerge in situations where one partner — the one with the money — takes away agency from another.

As pointed out by the New York Times, white supremacy is a minor current running through the movement. Having a lot of white babies, as opposed to babies of color, is a goal for some of these women. For instance, tradwife Ayla Stewart reportedly called for a "white baby challenge." Her account was so radical it was eventually banned from Twitter.

Image: Ayla Stewart / YouTube

Many of the tradwives hold deeply religious values. Some oppose feminism, citing the Bible passage (1 Corinthians 11:3), which reminds believers that "... the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God."

Research on algorithms by Media Matters found that the audience of tradwife accounts has huge overlaps with those viewing conspiracy theories. That may be due to social media algorithms, which may give recommendations of conspiracy theory content to those watching tradwife videos.

Of course, with any online movement, the controversial nature of tradwives can also generate more clicks and money. "Some tradwife creators post things that they label as triggering opinions and then say they get so much hate for being stay-at-home moms. But they rely on that dissonance in order to create more engagement (which leads to more clicks and more money)," writes the New York Times.

Image: jasminedinis / Instagram

For instance, Australian homemaker Jasmine Dinis posted that she was selling her courses of 'being a tradwife' for 99% off — at a price of $5,900 (AU). It was accompanied by a woman dancing to the caption; "When my husband tells me to quit my job so I can stay home, make bread, live off the land & not rely on the government." So yes, while these women may not be going to the office, many tradwife influencers are still earning quite a lot of money from social media.

Image: jasminedinis / Instagram

Despite fierce critics and defenders of the movement, Dr. Kristy Campion of Charles Sturt University, a researcher of tradwives, says that people should avoid "denouncing all tradwives as far-right extremists." She claims we can't hold all of them "accountable for views they may not hold and demonizing what is, for many women, an extremely personal choice."

At the same time, the "fantasy" of tradwives has never been further from reality. Today, 45% of American wives make more money than their husbands, according to a Pew Survey. Likewise, around half of women are single (and they are generally better off than single men). At the same time, the birth rate has hit a record low in the US and much of the Western World.

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