When the female members of the graduating class at Benedictine College, Kansas, gathered in the auditorium for their commencement ceremony, they were probably expecting their guest to give the usual graduation speech spiel: work hard, dream big, etc. What I doubt they were expecting was for NFL player Harrison Butker to specifically address the women in the audience:
‘How many of you are sitting here now […] thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?’ he asked them. ‘But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.’
The students’ reaction? An uncomfortable silence. Butker went on to add that ‘life truly start[s]’ for women when they ‘embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.’ When he stepped away from the podium, there was a large round of applause from some members of the crowd. Others, understandably, had walked out before the speech concluded. And reactions to Butker’s message were even more polarised online. But he is hardly the only person tooting traditional values.
It’s a Hoax!
Across the internet, the tradwife movement has recently gone viral, popularised by female influencers like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman, whose homemaker content has garnered them 9 million and 7 million TikTok followers respectively. If their social media posts are anything to go by, they spend their days as doting wives baking sourdough bread, collecting eggs and whipping up soda from scratch. They float about their homes in ’50s-style gowns or rustic prairie dresses, their makeup flawless, as they daintily dice vegetables on $260 chopping boards. Or at least that’s what they want you to believe.
The reality of their lives is likely very different. If they were truly the ‘angel of the house,’ purely confined to the domestic sphere, then why haven’t we seen a video of a tradwife scrubbing a toilet? How come they never post about doing the laundry or taking out the trash? Because they don’t need to; they’re part of an elite leisure class. This is the idea that wealthy housewives can occupy their days with frivolous chores like baking elaborate treats and cleaning silverware, all of which are still technically housework, but not the essential, unglamorous chores everyone else has to do.
But how can Smith and Neeleman afford this lifestyle? Well, they’re both the wives of millionaires. Whilst Nara is married to the successful model Lucky Blue Smith, Hannah’s husband, Daniel, is the son of David Neeleman, who owns multiple commercial airlines. We must also remember that being an influencer is a paying profession. With millions of followers on social media, these women must be earning six figures a year from their tradwife content, in addition to regular brand sponsorships. Most recently, Smith was sponsored by Marc Jacobs, whilst the Neeleman family own a farmhouse where they sell produce.
As media critic Caro Burke puts it: ‘These women are homemakers but they’re also businesswomen profiting off [their] performance of homemaking.’
Why Do People Enjoy It?
Now, we can criticise tradwife influencers all we want, but it’s ordinary TikTok users, liking and sharing their content, who are behind their sudden rise to fame. So why do people enjoy watching these videos? Why do they find that traditional lifestyle so appealing? The answers can be found in the viewers’ anxieties.
Terms like ‘hustle,’ ‘grind’ and ‘#girlboss’ permeated pop culture in the noughties, promoting the idea that for women to succeed and be rich, they just needed to work harder. But now, one credit crunch, one global pandemic, and one cost-of-living crisis later, those aspirations seem laughable. With soaring childcare costs and wages not keeping up with inflation, even those who are ‘working harder’ still struggle to make ends meet. When it comes to women and the workplace, this has always been a hostile environment for female employees. In particular, mothers and women in general often feel like they are hamsters on a wheel; putting in the extra effort without getting anywhere. But tradwife videos offer us a glimpse into a world of luxury. Forty-seven per cent of Britons are currently worried about their finances, so it’s understandable why people are living vicariously through TikTokers whose only concern in life is what type of bread they are going to make that day, not if they’re going to be able to afford this month’s rent. The tradwife movement fuels our collective desire for a life without responsibilities. But what these TikTok videos don’t show is the dangerous side of being a tradwife.
Dangers of Tradwifery
Behind the shiny kitchenware and glamorous clothes is the uncomfortable truth that tradwives have chosen to hand over their freedom — or at least pretend to have done so for social media. Whether they’re genuinely dependent on their spouses or merely making money from cosplaying as Stepford wives, they are romanticising an era of sexism and teaching young women that to be happy is to be submissive. This is incredibly problematic.
Just weeks after the tradwife trend began to gain momentum, women came forward to share their stories and expose how dangerous this lifestyle can be. These women include Lauren Southern, whose husband treated her like a ‘slave,’ Brianna Bell, whose conservative marriage led to her mental breakdown and Enitza Templeton, who warns women of the ‘power imbalance’ in traditional relationships. Even the ‘queen of tradwives’, Hannah Neeleman, admitted to having little autonomy and abandoning her dreams of becoming a ballerina to please her husband.
While everyone is entitled to live their life the way they want to, it’s irresponsible for influencers to promote this ‘outdated and misogynistic’ lifestyle on the internet. In a world where female rights are still under fire and violence against women is commonplace, tradwives are merely reinforcing dangerous gender ideology. But what do they care? They’ll have the last laugh. While we lament their behaviour online, they’re probably sitting in their luxurious homes, counting their money and laughing about how they’ve conned us all.
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