Tradwife podcast

The trend of being a traditional wife, promoted by influencers on social media, is gaining attention. It involves women choosing to be homemakers and adhering to traditional gender roles. However, this trend has sparked controversy as it perpetuates oppressive standards and anti-feminist messaging. Critics argue that it romanticizes and caters to men, while rooted in patriarchal culture and religious rhetoric. These trad wives try to influence other women because they believe feminism has lost its way. Feminism, on the other hand, aims for gender equality and freedom to choose one's own path. The belief that gender roles are fixed in biology is not supported by research. Religion plays a significant role in the trend, raising concerns due to its ties with conservative politics and gender discrimination. The 1950s lifestyle that the tradwife trend romanticizes was actually oppressive for women, limiting their opportunities outside the home. Influencers profit from promoting this lifesty My name is Lieve and I'm here with Claire today. We're both students of the Humanities Faculty of the University of Amsterdam and together we'll discuss what the trend and a traditional lifestyle entails and also its controversies and the feminist debate it evokes. Along the way we'll explore its historical, political, cultural and even religious background. Okay so Claire first of all can you tell us a bit about the whole trend and what a trad wife is? Of course. A trad wife is defined as a married woman or woman in general who chooses to be a homemaker as her primary occupation, who adheres to and embodies traditional femininity or what they consider to be traditional femininity and traditional gender roles. This lifestyle has been going viral on social media specifically TikTok and it's promoted by FEMA influencers who show the aesthetic and ideology of domesticity, submission and conservative ideals. All wrapped up in this glamorized 1950s aesthetic. This controversial internet trend and lifestyle has been gaining lots of attention since 2022. Both SD Williams and Ballerina Farm are a few of the more popular influencers creating content of this trad wife trend. All right so you mentioned controversy online. Can you tell us a bit more about what's controversy, okay so you mentioned controversy online. Can you tell us a bit more about that and about what's happening? Sure by watching this online content you can see that it's all portrayed as a natural and comfortable lifestyle always tidy and typically a God-honoring one. At the same time this behavior pushes more alt-right and traditional values that are actually deeply rooted with internalized misogyny and along with it anti-feminist messaging. Critics point out that most of these creators are romanticizing and in fact catering to men and more specifically the displacement that young men feel in today's feminist cultures. The elements that this trend contains in and of itself are actually not harmful but deep down they're rooted in patriarchal culture and religious rhetoric where the wife and female of the home ought to be obedient and ought to be submissive in order to please a man. Okay so what you're saying is that women adhering to these traditional gender rules is not a harmful choice itself however trying to influence other women to do the same perpetuates oppressive standards in society right? So why do you think that these trad wives are so intent on influencing other women? I think trad wives often say that they have to influence because they think that feminism the movement itself has in fact lost its way and has been getting out of control. Uses of the word feminist nowadays but I personally would call myself a feminist and for me it is a feeling that it's hard to describe. Anja Molenbelt a Dutch author gives a beautiful explanation in her book The Difference. Feminism in its most basic sense is trying to get everyone to be treated equally gender equality and with that we don't mean that women have to become more like men or that men have to become more like women or that either of them should be above the of the other we just mean simply that everyone can be more like whatever they want to be. All right so basically what you're saying is that if you have a penis and you want to wear baggy pants and ride trucks you definitely should but if you want to take care of your kids and your partner provides for your family financially that should also be possible right? And the other way around if you have a vagina and boobs I don't know and you want to get rid of those boobs you should be able to or if you are like a female or if you identify as a female you should be able to stay at home and sustain a household if you want that right? Yes of course yes feminism is about seeing people as humans instead of these gender labels and being able to give everyone the freedom to organize their life exactly how they want it to be. All right that sounds pretty good for all of us but then why do a lot of these straight wives feel like feminism has gotten out of control? I think the world is often misused. I think maybe you should say like as I said there's a lot of misuse and misconceptions around like you already said that right? I already said that exactly. So you can say like I asked why do these straight wives still think it's gotten out of control and then okay there's a misconception I really understand that as I said there's misconceptions okay okay and I would also really say that it's misused by people who doesn't didn't do their research okay okay okay let's do that again. All right that sounds pretty good for all of us but then why do you think that these straight wives still feel like feminism has gotten out of control? I can understand this sentiment. Previously I did say that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounded by the word feminism and movement itself. I do think however that the word is often misused by people who don't do enough research or reading on the topic. I get that some women feel annoyed by other people using the word feminism to justify anything and everything that they do. An example would be that in a Dutch talk show called Nadia where some more traditional lifestyles were having a debate with feminism and some of the women were proudly talking about how feminism is nowadays meaning that you should be able to put your breasts on line showing off your body and justify it by saying you're a feminist. While these posts are actually then contributing to the sexual objectification of women. I think this is however only one side of the argument. All right and let's move on to the next question because a lot of people say that these gender roles are also fixed in our biology and that we shouldn't even have the freedom to choose our own position since it's biologically decided already. Yeah this is a big topic of debate. However research has shown that these claims on gender roles being fixed in our humanity are actually as factual as they seem. Often the roles are internalized from the day we're born by our surrounding environment and by the community around us through for instance religion or existing social structures. Okay so religion is a big part of the Treadwife trend also and it's raising a lot of concern by other people. Where would this concern come from if the trend itself is not harmful? Right I think ultimately there are ties between religious rhetoric and the trend itself. Specifically in the US many of these religious beliefs are tied with a conservative political traditions even going so far as being construed with fundamentalist Christianity. Similarly in Europe a whole phenomenon can be associated with far-right politics and Catholicism. However although such political parties are less diverse, less inclusive and sometimes very problematic this does not make Treadwives automatically racist, homophobic or any of the such. In our society there have been many cases where religious doctrines encourage and even justify gender discrimination. There's a post on Instagram, there's a post on an Instagram page called the Treadwife Club that says women are beginning to seek asylum from the hustle that has left them burned out and unfulfilled. And so they seek this asylum in a lifestyle that resembles what was common in the 1950s in the USA right? The Treadwife trend. But does this lifestyle actually reflect the historical picture of the 1950s? This is interesting. This lifestyle is highly romanticized on social media. However women at the time were subjugated to the societal pressure of devoting their entire selves to maintaining the home instead of pursuing their interests. When the Treadwife influencer S.T. Williams says being a wife and a mother should be your top priority always, she doesn't consider or value the power that women have in doing other activities outside the home. And at the same time it is controversial because they aren't promoting a realistic lifestyle. These women are privileged by making profit off of influencing online without disclosing this extra income aside from the one that is provided by their husband. Did you write? Me again? I can do it. So what's the real picture that they're maybe not that they're not putting online? That's okay. We'll just give it a pause and I'll say it again. In fact by having a huge number of followers they're earning money off this content which does not reflect the reality of an actual stay-at-home mom who doesn't have access to a personal income. That's why these influencers seem so perfect and so happy because they don't show the difficulties that come with this lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with the lifestyle itself but eventually by influencing young women to behave as this docile woman submitted completely to her husband economically. This is very problematic. Many of these influencers have college degree whereas compared to the situation in the 50s female university students were pressured to be married instead before being able to continue with their studies or anything past marriage. They had to sacrifice their future careers in order to serve their husbands and take care of their children. I'm sure we'll do a quick break. Alright so why do you think that women feel unhappy with the mainstream life that women live in 2023? Also with emancipation and in general at least in Western society more opportunities for women? Well I think that women and actually just people in general are facing a lot of stress currently. Think of the workload, rising student debt, rising house prices, inflation, climate crisis, the current wars, etc. There is an allure of staying home that could be about trying to control the chaos and uncertainty and being able to control what you can. In this tradwife trend it's mainly your house and your family. There is a connection between the dream of escapism and creating a close-knit community somewhere you know isolated or removed from current stress. Dr. Evian Leiding in her article on the far right gender and online radicalization explains that young men and women are attracted to extreme far-right ideologies because these simplify the complex world that we live in. One that is easy to retreat into often through chat rooms and algorithmic recommendations with social media. And so the nostalgia for a past in which gender norms are dictated by a clear division of labor becomes appealing. Therefore by embracing this fundamentalist lifestyle modern women feel freed from the burden of participating in an increasingly complex, stressful, and often fatalistic society. It is important to note that it is no coincidence that most tradwives are white. In a quote by Hajar Yazidiya, an assistant sociologist for Brock. I'm just going to say that part again. Maybe you can say like, oh god. By the way I also want to add. Okay. To further add to this it is important to note that it is no coincidence that most tradwives creating content are white. In a quote by Hajar Yazidiya, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Southern California, traditional notions of femininity and white feminism are really rooted in white supremacy. And so these performances are something where if black women were to do the same thing they would be framed as lazy or even welfare queens. Therefore one must be super critical to recognize the under-representation of minorities within this trend. All right thanks Claire. Honestly I feel like we could be talking about this forever and we're far from done. But anyway we have discussed different aspects of this. Okay thanks Claire. I feel like we're far from done covering this topic. But so far we have discussed different aspects of this trend from where it has originated to also what it communicates and the negative and positive aspects of it. We want to stress that there's no right or wrong opinion on this lifestyle but every element of it had led to an open discussion so far. By giving multiple insights we wanted to make our listeners aware of the online phenomenon and its potential dangers. Our main message is that we strongly advise you to inform yourself and have your or like create your own opinion with the goal to not be blindly influenced. Especially to all of the young girls listening please be critical about what content you consume online in general but in this case especially with the Treadwise trends and inform yourself well before engaging with these trends. Thank you for listening and goodbye to everyone.