When we think about a “traditional housewife,” images of pearls, nicely fitted dresses, and
updos might come to mind. Women stuck in a perpetual cycle of domestic work with
limited freedoms and rights might also come to mind.
Most are familiar with advertisements and propaganda from the Cold War era depicting
women in a sexist, stereotypical, and devaluing way.
Notions of who women are have been shaped by such imagery, reducing women to one
aspect of their lives: domestic labour.
First-wave to fourth-wave feminism has tirelessly fought to reconstruct the narrative of
women beyond the post-World War II rhetoric. Though colonial rule has been recognized
and will continue to be actively fought against, Western societies have a deeply ingrained
ideology towards women being subservient to men – particularly playing out in the
domestic sphere.
Little girls today are still being taught to cook and clean while their brothers are
encouraged to pick up more ‘masculine’ activities and participate more in house
responsibilities than their fathers.
There is a new form of instilling this traditional female role onto young girls through the
trend of trad wives on social media.
Short for traditional housewives, trad wives first appeared during the COVID-19 lockdown
and have since flooded social media, taking hold strongest on TikTok.
A trad wife shares her domestic responsibilities with followers while subtly showing off her
wealthy lifestyle. Analogous to Cold War ideology, the freedoms of domestic labour were
afforded to predominantly white and affluent families, those of whom dominate the trad
wife sphere.
Take everyone’s favourite trad wives: Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith.
Hannah Neeleman, a white Utah-based Mormon and former Juilliard ballerina turned
homestead housewife, posts cleaning videos, beauty pageant get-ready with me’s, and life
on the farm vlogs with her 8 children and billionaire husband.
Nara Smith, a South African and German model based in LA, posts cooking and baking
videos where she makes everything – and I mean everything – from scratch. She wears
couture dresses in her quiet home with her three children and millionaire husband.
Make no mistake, these videos are meant to depict modern women choosing to lead the
domestic sphere with ease and grace. The invisible wealth, nannies, and struggles behind
closed doors are not shown and can be misleading for young girls and women who want to
follow in their footsteps.
Being a housewife is a privileged job that not everyone can afford. The economic
requirements are far more extensive than depicted in the videos created by trad wives. Not
only are they trad wives, but they are also influencers who generate income from their
videos. Influencer trad wives have greater financial freedom than trad wives without an
independent source of income and create dual income for their households.
Trad wives are accused of setting the women’s liberation movement back by falsely
representing the responsibilities of running a household and portraying a lifestyle
historically exclusive to white, middle-class women.
Being a housewife demands intensive labour, always being on the clock, and sometimes
not reaping the rewards of the job. Regardless of the benefits, it must be labelled as such,
a job.