A Former #TradWife on Dismantling the Patriarchy
Executive orders, pardons, and the Christian nationalist playbook to reshape America
On day one of the Trump Administration, the website ReproductiveRights.gov was taken down.
On day two they took down all references to abortion on the HHS website.
Trump also issued an Executive Order reinstituting the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits government funding of abortions, including through Medicaid, and reinstated the global gag rule which blocks funding to any organization that provides, counsels, refers, or advocates for abortion in their country, even if they are using non-U.S. funding to do so. According to Politico:
A 2022 study by The National Academy of Sciences estimated that Trump’s anti-abortion restrictions on foreign aid led to 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries over the four years of his first administration…Another study by Stanford University researchers found that the narrower version of the [global gag rule] that several GOP presidents enacted prior to Trump caused the number of abortions to increase across sub-Saharan Africa because so many women lost access to contraception.
Trump also repealed a Biden policy that encouraged government agencies to look for ways to protect and expand access to birth control and emergency contraception. He pardoned 23 people who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act - for harassing and attacking people at abortion clinics.
In his anti-trans Executive Order, Trump defined “male” and “female” as beginning at conception, an assault on abortion and IVF. “It is not a coincidence that they are using language about ‘at conception,’ defining a person at conception. They are going to try to sneak in that fetal personhood language anywhere they can,” the writer of Abortion, Everyday
explained on her Instagram.All of this is a very clear path to dismantling women’s rights in this country. This is an administration that does not believe women are fully autonomous beings. We are mere vessels. The case to institute fetal personhood as part of our Constitution has already been filed, you can read more about it here.
This administration is a pact between the broligarchy and far right Christian traditionalists to re-institute what they see as the proper hierarchy. And a key part of that is rolling back women’s rights.
Vice President JD Vance told the audience at the March for Life rally over the weekend, that Trump will be “the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.”
Women like Tia Levings know what “pro-family” really means when Christian patriarchy is dictating the rules. Tia lived the life of a traditional wife in the Christian patriarchy. She was stripped of her agency, she had her rights taken away, she was abused and exploited.
But in order to save her children and herself she escaped. And now Tia is speaking out about the very real and very imminent dangers of letting the Christian patriarchy dismantle women’s rights in her excellent newsletter and her book A Well-Trained Wife.
She doesn’t mince words about how the #tradwife influencers like Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith are a gateway drug meant to seduce women into a life of subservience and submission. She wants us all to wake up to the reality of what we are facing. In our candid conversation Tia explains the slippery slope of #tradwife influencers, the tools the patriarchy will use to wear us down and the ways that we can fight back and stand up to it all.
EYP: At the end of last year, Jo Piazza and I had a debate about Ballerina Farm on our podcast and here on the substack. The brand is such a massive lightning rod in the culture wars right now and it feels like everyone has an opinion. I think about the rise of #tradwife influencing a lot more than I probably should, but it is incredibly concerning because it is so effective at swaying young women politically. What concerns you the most about the tradwife trend on social media?
TIA: Tradwife content isn’t real; the curated imagery and idealism oversimplify very complex issues. A lot of people find it lovely and relaxing to watch, without an intent to become trad wives themselves. That sounds innocent enough until we spend more time under trad anesthesia than in solving the exhausting problems in reality. It’s been covered numerous times before, but the abuses, messy realities, and religious motivations are hidden on purpose in trad social media content. The tradwives aren’t presenting honest solutions and what they’re selling isn’t safe.
But the most immediate danger of any harmful trend is for those under its influence, who emulate and copy the role models in sincerity. Young women are vulnerable, and even more so in a society without social safety nets. It’s the “wanna-be Hannahs” that worry me. The women without Daniel Neeleman’s money or Hannah’s visibility; the quiet ones at home who are sweeping broken glass as they grasp the realization that sourdough and longer skirts didn’t solve their family’s problems--and now they don’t have a job. I also fear for the children brought along for the ride of their parents' antiquated choices, who don’t have a voice, and who will suffer the consequences, because of a social media trend (of all things!).
EYP: You were recruited into the Quiverfull movement as a young wife,