Tradwives Are Starting To Realize They've Been Duped
It's not all pastel ovens and cupcakes, ladies.
Preface:
Believe it or not, I’ve always wanted to be a housewife — but not a mom to human babies. Only cat babies. When I got married, I made a point of keeping my home spotless and bringing home the bacon.
I am okay with this arrangement as long as I get laid and get help occasionally. So, trust me when I say I understand the appeal of housewife life. This is not a knock on housewives or moms, but rather, an ideology that hurts them.
There are certain moments where I take pleasure in saying “I told you so,” but this is not one of them. Recently, I saw a video of tradwives who have started to speak out about why they are leaving their husbands.
It’s a moment that I saw coming from miles away. In fact, many of my feminist friends saw it coming. Some even had it happen to them, feminist or not.
For those not in the know, the tradwife movement is one that believes in the 1950s housewife life.
It’s a movement that decries feminism as a major social evil, and much of the movement is brought about by Christian women who married young. If you go on Instagram, you’ll see tradwife influencers praising God, popping out kids, and cooking really awful meals.
While doing research on this topic, I found a blog by
that explains it well. Tradwifery is a rightwing movement that tends to encourage women to:Vote against women’s rights, especially pro-life and anti-working women's causes
Homeschool children even when they don’t have education themselves
Pop out as many babies as humanly possible
Drop out of school and work to have babies
Rely entirely on the husband to provide
Do all the housework and child-raising
Cede all decision-making power to the husband
These Instagram accounts offer a very nice, friendly version of anti-feminism that a lot of younger women have been eating up.
If you take a look at tradwife Instagram accounts, they do a really good job of making subservience to men look appealing. The moms are all dolled up, the kids cared for, and the wives keep talking about how much they love their spouses.
I get it. I really do. There is something very appealing about being able to say you will never get a job and that you would know you’d be taken care of into old age. There’s something also very nice about all those Kodak moments with kids.
But, most of us who have been under the complete control of another person realizes that those vintage 50s smiles hide some serious horrors. This is doubly true when you really think about what those strict gender roles mean.