I am one of your olds (upper end Gen X) and this post made me think of two things: first, there's a post on Tumblr about how to do crunchy/wellness lifestyle stuff while avoiding tradwife/pipeline to the right resources. I feel like maybe that's something useful to a lot of folks in this discussion.
Second, and I don't remember who said or wrote this, but it really stuck with me, as someone born and raised in Texas, but the gist of the comment was: these women don't want to be 1950s housewives, they want to be plantation mistresses. I.e., they don't want to do the hard work; they want to be Marie Antoinette playing at shepherding kinds of things, and look pretty doing it. That means someone else is doing the scutwork and that is part of the fantasy they're selling.
Does anyone know why someone who is not trad wife has been influenced by MaHa? Like Kelly Slater is for RF. k jr? I am also all for crunchy lifestyle but I also like the EPA, vac c I nes, the FDA the cdc …. Etc
As a liberal millennial who happens to be a stay at home mom, I feel like the tradwife thing really gives me a bad name! I almost feel the need to prove to everyone I’m not one of them 😅
A fellow Sarah in the same situation!! I also hate the polarization of making food healthier. Like all of us want less unnecessary chemicals, hate that this became a MAGA issue. Slowly but surely reading and trying to understand how it happened so I can have good, productive discussions around it 😩
The whole “Europe bans all these things we allow” conversation by this same group makes no sense either because who do they think regulates food in Europe??? It sure isn’t benevolent corporations…
Right?! I wish I had been more aware of this whole world before the election so I could have been like "and how are the people that you want to elect going to ban all these things since they want to remove regulations?" It's the same as when there is a shooting and all the gun guys or Republicans in office are like "actually this is a mental health issue. We shouldn't be banning guns, we shouldn't be punishing law-abiding citizens, we should just make sure that mentally ill people can't access guns." And it's like yeahhh, how do you think we do that?? With the background checks and regulations that you all oppose! <eyeroll>
Same girl! I even homeschool my youngest but it actually started because in 2020 I didn’t want to send my oldest to K yet because of Covid and all the crazy moms arguing about not wearing masks or vaccinating. And then I realized how much money I saved on preschool and just kept doing with the other 2. My older girls are both at public school now.
I read this and thought I wouldn’t lump you in with them because you are a SAHM because that is what works for your family and not trying to shill & guilt people into thinking that is what they should do.
I keep coming back to the cold hard truth of this all. In America, somebody has to be subjugated. Over the course of many decades, subjugation has lost its immediate visual cues - namely outright bloodshed, violence, murder. Before, Americans literally had to forcibly deploy violence to make it possible (ie slavery, indigenous erasure, etc). It’s now taken on the life of something truly more subversive that it’s very victims can’t recognize it - it’s served up via glossy, nostalgic, simplistic “lifestyle” marketing. American women have now opted into their own subjugation, no blood spill even necessary. How convenient and effective. Almost like an AmazonPrime subscription to more quickly deliver your own downfall. If it wasn’t so disgusting and horrifying, it might go down as the most effective use of social media propaganda, ever.
How does no one following these women ever ask them “um hey, why are you creating content on social media and selling serum, I thought your husband was providing everything for you and btw who’s watching to your babies while you set up your ring light and record and post all of your content?”. If they were true “tradwives” you would never see them on the internet.
Or with Clark, why are you listening to a woman who is talking about things that don’t even apply to her life. I’m not going to you if you don’t have kids or a marriage and think you are the voice I should listen to.
I’m still totally off social media, so maybe this is something you’ve been discussing there, but have you all heard about women waking up at 3 am the morning after the election? Apparently it’s a phenomenon that happened across the USA - was just discussing with my sister and several of her friends; we all woke naturally around that time. I keep my phone away from my bedside so I read on my kindle for a few minutes and went back to sleep, was horrified about 2 hours later when my alarm went off. My sister and others were restless for a while or just woke up for the day fully. Anyone else???
This absolutely happened to me. I was in a hotel room and used my phone to navigate to the bathroom and that's when I knew. Didn't fall back asleep until maybe 10:30 that night.
I *was* a first generation homeschooled K-12 absolutely raised to fulfill my Betty Baker traditional wife and stay at home role who learned alllllllllllllllllll the things: sourdough bread baking, sewing, farming and raising chickens, buying Raw milk, fuck! I even learned how to cook outside over an open fire with cast iron for the hell of it, hand churned butter, and “saved money,” by cloth diapering my kiddos and wrapping Christmas presents in brown paper bags from the store. Geez.
Is it ALL a bad way of living life? No. But the framework of Christian Fundamentalism and Patriarchy (literally was told feminism was bad take wedding vows of submission) was nasty, and has tried every which way to pull me back in after I divorced it, and took on a solo parenting journey with a lotta trad wife baggage.
Learn to do more than cook, ladies. You’re gonna need more skill sets when the reality sets in and the shine of this “trend,” wears off.
Good for you!! I was homeschooled with a lot of those skills too, managed to barely squeak out of there and off to state college, but my mom cloth-diapered us and wanted (still wants) those vows of submission for me. Can’t wait (/s) for her to visit at thanksgiving and see my husband cooking and doing dishes and lovingly (disposable) diapering my child alongside me, as she looks askance. 😬
I went to my local Dems election watch party, I'm in Washington State, rural community north of Seattle. As we watched numbers roll in in favor of trump and older women, maybe late 50s, whose is very active in the local Dem org, said, how can this happening? I turned to her and I said misogyny is a hell of a drug. She scowled at me. I then said, do you not know about MAHA and tradwives? She literally stopped talking to me. It was very weird. I feel like the older Dems are so out of touch and they make joining their org kind of unbearable. I participate nonetheless, but I don't particularly enjoy their company.
I am in a more suburban community just north of Seattle. I was inspired to join my local Dems group after reading Democracy in Retrograde. So far I’ve only been to one Zoom meeting but my community is very driven by the “Old Guard” so I will be curious if my experience is the same. Maybe we can compare notes at some point. 😁
Good for you! As one of those elders - keep spreading the word. Maybe throw in that it’s the working mom v stay-at-home mom’s issues from the 70’s-80’s, repackaged and prettified. I’ll help.
Let’s do it! Definitely get her book, I recommend a paper version. I found it hard to do the work sections on a Kindle so I ended up with both versions. 😂
Yes!! What part of North Seattle are you in? I'm in Mount Vernon. Maybe we could find a location that is in the middle, to include Krysta from the comment above as well.
I hate that I can’t do research on things like cloth diapering or making bread without my algorithm taking me into this hole. I do WORK to keep this shit out of my TikTok FYP. Maybe I just want to DIY a Halloween costume without being fed conservative BS, Becky!
It’s funny how growing up in a right-wing home, my dad pushed for me to be independent. Until I started resenting & hating him for parentifying me. He kept pushing this old misogyny, that as the oldest daughter I had to raise the kids. I started throwing back as the dad & husband to my mom, he should be paying the bills, but he was the definition of a deadbeat. My mom paid for everything. But he still claimed to be the “head of the house”. Stealing from my mom. It got to the point where he wanted to use anything to control me. He even said he would take me back to his country to find me a husband from one of his friends, I said getting stuck with anyone like him is my nightmare. The last thing was my car insurance that he insisted on paying for me, but used that as a threat to take away if I didn’t comply with his demands. I came back after 10min & told him to cancel it, I got my own now. Then I moved out once I felt financially stable enough to pay it all on my own, he said I wasn’t allowed to b/c that’s not what daughters do in his country. I always remind him, you wanted me born in the USA. Every time I hear tradwife, I think of being under 100% control of him.
In my book IN DEFENSE OF THE PRINCESS - I go through all the traditional fairytales and Disney movies and point out the progressive feminist messages that are almost always overlooked. I always tell conservative women that I believe a woman's role is to look after the home and children - but I go a step further. The PLANET is our home, and ALL children are our children. It can't stop at your front door.
In my book ROYAL RESISITANCE, a progressive princess defeats an evil tyrant and kicks him out of the white house. There are so many traditional fairytale metaphors that can be flipped to reach these traditional women. Feminine power should be working WITH the progressive cause. Not against it. Make these women feel welcome on our side - I see their dreams and relate to them, but that doesn't mean giving the power to men and certainlty not Trump.
First, we're almost coming full circle on the whole anti-abortion thing. In that woman's quote she admittedly did make the baby murderer argument, but it also became an argument against women themselves daring to make their own decision because "who do they think they are, how selfish of them" which immediately made me think of Phyllis Schlafly.
Second, I think of the whole tradwife thing as being tied to both traditional family values and individualism in the sense that a woman keeps the home and a man just wants to protect his family [ostensibly without the inference of government]. Which makes me think of how many times Heather Cox Richardson has reiterated that this lifestyle that certain people are nostalgic for more or less never existed. Government services and funding played a big role in people's lives back then and woman worked.
Third, I also thought about that article about Ballerina Farm (who I had never heard of until the article) which to me seemed to basically be calling out all of this. And then there was this backlash to the article railing against liberal women, being like "how dare you judge her for wanting this life?" And I just found myself thinking, 'sure, if she wants this life, then that's great! But (a) don't ignore the fact that she is out there *selling* this life, and (b) does she want this? I remember seeing a video where her husband is like "I have a birthday surprise for you!" and he gave her an egg apron. And admittedly I hadn't even heard of her until the article, so for all I know that might be the best gift that he could have given her. But I remember it watching the video and it seeming like her cover slipped and she was disappointed just for a second before correcting herself, and he had to convince her this was a good gift, saying something like "remember, you said you wanted one." So yes, if this is what she wants, then great, power to her, but *does* she want this? I get that I could totally be reading into that video as a result of the article And I get that the article had a story that it wanted to tell, but, frankly, so does she. Also from what I remember her husband is incredibly wealthy which definitely changes things considering that all of her posts are about selling that kind of lifestyle when they're so flipping rich.
As as divorced, mid forties mom, I am having a hard time understanding how these two influencers you've cited made a career promoting the tradwife lifestyle and they have never been married. And that people listen to them. It just does not compute in my brain. And it makes me wonder if this draw is partially from women frustrated with finding a man they want to partner with. Do women feel these influencers are selling the solution to the "how do I find a man" problem? Is this the new "He's Just Not That Into You" guidebook for a new generation?
I have seen people say that we should have seen this coming with all the recent trends of prairie dresses and beige rainbows and so on... No idea if that's true, but it does make me feel vindicated in hating basically every clothing and decor trend of the past few years and never being able to find a GD dress I actually want to wear anymore. 😂
"Women want exceptions to abortion bans because they are selfish and men 'hate that'". Because they're too used to being the only ones who get to be selfish? They can't stand the competition? I am never going to understand generic "men love / men hate" as motivation for a woman to do any damn thing. Now, a specific man I am have a relationship with, that may (or may not) be influential. But I cannot be arsed to worry about what the world of men wants from me.
It’s like reading Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie and longing for those “simple” times - forgetting about how everyone was dying or starving or being ugly to non white Christians.
I want to buy my eggs from the grocery store (we pay $6 in my town) and I hate cooking.
What’s ultimately ironic about these influencers - and the women who want to be them - is that they will ultimately do what’s necessary to be healthy or enjoy the life they want. They get the vaccines they need to visit other countries or go to certain events. They get fast food when it has been a long week and they do not want to cook another meal. They go to the hospital and take antibiotics when they get Covid. They won’t show that online, of course. They’re just ✨blessed✨ to be taking that trip or to have healthy kids once again.
I am one of your olds (upper end Gen X) and this post made me think of two things: first, there's a post on Tumblr about how to do crunchy/wellness lifestyle stuff while avoiding tradwife/pipeline to the right resources. I feel like maybe that's something useful to a lot of folks in this discussion.
Second, and I don't remember who said or wrote this, but it really stuck with me, as someone born and raised in Texas, but the gist of the comment was: these women don't want to be 1950s housewives, they want to be plantation mistresses. I.e., they don't want to do the hard work; they want to be Marie Antoinette playing at shepherding kinds of things, and look pretty doing it. That means someone else is doing the scutwork and that is part of the fantasy they're selling.
Oooh this one hit a nerve. I agree. Wow.
Does anyone know why someone who is not trad wife has been influenced by MaHa? Like Kelly Slater is for RF. k jr? I am also all for crunchy lifestyle but I also like the EPA, vac c I nes, the FDA the cdc …. Etc
Yes this exactly
As a liberal millennial who happens to be a stay at home mom, I feel like the tradwife thing really gives me a bad name! I almost feel the need to prove to everyone I’m not one of them 😅
A fellow Sarah in the same situation!! I also hate the polarization of making food healthier. Like all of us want less unnecessary chemicals, hate that this became a MAGA issue. Slowly but surely reading and trying to understand how it happened so I can have good, productive discussions around it 😩
The whole “Europe bans all these things we allow” conversation by this same group makes no sense either because who do they think regulates food in Europe??? It sure isn’t benevolent corporations…
Right?! I wish I had been more aware of this whole world before the election so I could have been like "and how are the people that you want to elect going to ban all these things since they want to remove regulations?" It's the same as when there is a shooting and all the gun guys or Republicans in office are like "actually this is a mental health issue. We shouldn't be banning guns, we shouldn't be punishing law-abiding citizens, we should just make sure that mentally ill people can't access guns." And it's like yeahhh, how do you think we do that?? With the background checks and regulations that you all oppose! <eyeroll>
Same girl! I even homeschool my youngest but it actually started because in 2020 I didn’t want to send my oldest to K yet because of Covid and all the crazy moms arguing about not wearing masks or vaccinating. And then I realized how much money I saved on preschool and just kept doing with the other 2. My older girls are both at public school now.
I read this and thought I wouldn’t lump you in with them because you are a SAHM because that is what works for your family and not trying to shill & guilt people into thinking that is what they should do.
I 100% agree with you! I am a SAHM because I CHOOSE to be!
I keep coming back to the cold hard truth of this all. In America, somebody has to be subjugated. Over the course of many decades, subjugation has lost its immediate visual cues - namely outright bloodshed, violence, murder. Before, Americans literally had to forcibly deploy violence to make it possible (ie slavery, indigenous erasure, etc). It’s now taken on the life of something truly more subversive that it’s very victims can’t recognize it - it’s served up via glossy, nostalgic, simplistic “lifestyle” marketing. American women have now opted into their own subjugation, no blood spill even necessary. How convenient and effective. Almost like an AmazonPrime subscription to more quickly deliver your own downfall. If it wasn’t so disgusting and horrifying, it might go down as the most effective use of social media propaganda, ever.
How does no one following these women ever ask them “um hey, why are you creating content on social media and selling serum, I thought your husband was providing everything for you and btw who’s watching to your babies while you set up your ring light and record and post all of your content?”. If they were true “tradwives” you would never see them on the internet.
They just delete the comments calling them out
Or with Clark, why are you listening to a woman who is talking about things that don’t even apply to her life. I’m not going to you if you don’t have kids or a marriage and think you are the voice I should listen to.
Off topic:
I’m still totally off social media, so maybe this is something you’ve been discussing there, but have you all heard about women waking up at 3 am the morning after the election? Apparently it’s a phenomenon that happened across the USA - was just discussing with my sister and several of her friends; we all woke naturally around that time. I keep my phone away from my bedside so I read on my kindle for a few minutes and went back to sleep, was horrified about 2 hours later when my alarm went off. My sister and others were restless for a while or just woke up for the day fully. Anyone else???
YES! It happened to me, and many others I know. I think it was just a natural cortisol spike + some deep intuition.
It happened to me too.
Same! I woke up around 4:00.
This absolutely happened to me. I was in a hotel room and used my phone to navigate to the bathroom and that's when I knew. Didn't fall back asleep until maybe 10:30 that night.
This also happened to me!
👋🏻 me too
Excellently written! ✊🏻
I *was* a first generation homeschooled K-12 absolutely raised to fulfill my Betty Baker traditional wife and stay at home role who learned alllllllllllllllllll the things: sourdough bread baking, sewing, farming and raising chickens, buying Raw milk, fuck! I even learned how to cook outside over an open fire with cast iron for the hell of it, hand churned butter, and “saved money,” by cloth diapering my kiddos and wrapping Christmas presents in brown paper bags from the store. Geez.
Is it ALL a bad way of living life? No. But the framework of Christian Fundamentalism and Patriarchy (literally was told feminism was bad take wedding vows of submission) was nasty, and has tried every which way to pull me back in after I divorced it, and took on a solo parenting journey with a lotta trad wife baggage.
Learn to do more than cook, ladies. You’re gonna need more skill sets when the reality sets in and the shine of this “trend,” wears off.
Good for you!! I was homeschooled with a lot of those skills too, managed to barely squeak out of there and off to state college, but my mom cloth-diapered us and wanted (still wants) those vows of submission for me. Can’t wait (/s) for her to visit at thanksgiving and see my husband cooking and doing dishes and lovingly (disposable) diapering my child alongside me, as she looks askance. 😬
I went to my local Dems election watch party, I'm in Washington State, rural community north of Seattle. As we watched numbers roll in in favor of trump and older women, maybe late 50s, whose is very active in the local Dem org, said, how can this happening? I turned to her and I said misogyny is a hell of a drug. She scowled at me. I then said, do you not know about MAHA and tradwives? She literally stopped talking to me. It was very weird. I feel like the older Dems are so out of touch and they make joining their org kind of unbearable. I participate nonetheless, but I don't particularly enjoy their company.
I’m old and unfortunately know about stupid MAha and tradwives!
I am in a more suburban community just north of Seattle. I was inspired to join my local Dems group after reading Democracy in Retrograde. So far I’ve only been to one Zoom meeting but my community is very driven by the “Old Guard” so I will be curious if my experience is the same. Maybe we can compare notes at some point. 😁
Easier said than done, but I’d pull together a group of people and take it over!
I would love to brainstorm with you. I need to get Emily's book. I was reading via Kindle but I want to take notes.
I'm not sure what steps to take at this time but maybe we could start a little subgroup of Washington Dems?!?
I’m in Seattle, would be down to work on this too!
Sent you a DM!
Andrea & Danielle not sure where you two are but I’m in north Edmonds (near the Edmonds/Lynnwood/Mukilteo connection area). Would love to connect!
I sent you a direct message on here!
I'm in Mount Vernon! Totally willing to travel once a month to meet in person if we need to!
I am in Edmonds!!
Sent you a DM!
Good for you! As one of those elders - keep spreading the word. Maybe throw in that it’s the working mom v stay-at-home mom’s issues from the 70’s-80’s, repackaged and prettified. I’ll help.
Let’s do it! Definitely get her book, I recommend a paper version. I found it hard to do the work sections on a Kindle so I ended up with both versions. 😂
Yes!! What part of North Seattle are you in? I'm in Mount Vernon. Maybe we could find a location that is in the middle, to include Krysta from the comment above as well.
I hate that I can’t do research on things like cloth diapering or making bread without my algorithm taking me into this hole. I do WORK to keep this shit out of my TikTok FYP. Maybe I just want to DIY a Halloween costume without being fed conservative BS, Becky!
I was fed a pro-RFK video on TT today and watched it 1.5 times waiting for the stitch responding. It was just giving it to me. 😮💨
Then I proceed to doom scroll though the comments because why not cry more 😂
Oh god too true. I only made it through a few and had to nope out.
It’s funny how growing up in a right-wing home, my dad pushed for me to be independent. Until I started resenting & hating him for parentifying me. He kept pushing this old misogyny, that as the oldest daughter I had to raise the kids. I started throwing back as the dad & husband to my mom, he should be paying the bills, but he was the definition of a deadbeat. My mom paid for everything. But he still claimed to be the “head of the house”. Stealing from my mom. It got to the point where he wanted to use anything to control me. He even said he would take me back to his country to find me a husband from one of his friends, I said getting stuck with anyone like him is my nightmare. The last thing was my car insurance that he insisted on paying for me, but used that as a threat to take away if I didn’t comply with his demands. I came back after 10min & told him to cancel it, I got my own now. Then I moved out once I felt financially stable enough to pay it all on my own, he said I wasn’t allowed to b/c that’s not what daughters do in his country. I always remind him, you wanted me born in the USA. Every time I hear tradwife, I think of being under 100% control of him.
In my book IN DEFENSE OF THE PRINCESS - I go through all the traditional fairytales and Disney movies and point out the progressive feminist messages that are almost always overlooked. I always tell conservative women that I believe a woman's role is to look after the home and children - but I go a step further. The PLANET is our home, and ALL children are our children. It can't stop at your front door.
In my book ROYAL RESISITANCE, a progressive princess defeats an evil tyrant and kicks him out of the white house. There are so many traditional fairytale metaphors that can be flipped to reach these traditional women. Feminine power should be working WITH the progressive cause. Not against it. Make these women feel welcome on our side - I see their dreams and relate to them, but that doesn't mean giving the power to men and certainlty not Trump.
Added Royal Resistance to my tbr list. Thanks!
As I was reading this, three things came to mind:
First, we're almost coming full circle on the whole anti-abortion thing. In that woman's quote she admittedly did make the baby murderer argument, but it also became an argument against women themselves daring to make their own decision because "who do they think they are, how selfish of them" which immediately made me think of Phyllis Schlafly.
Second, I think of the whole tradwife thing as being tied to both traditional family values and individualism in the sense that a woman keeps the home and a man just wants to protect his family [ostensibly without the inference of government]. Which makes me think of how many times Heather Cox Richardson has reiterated that this lifestyle that certain people are nostalgic for more or less never existed. Government services and funding played a big role in people's lives back then and woman worked.
Third, I also thought about that article about Ballerina Farm (who I had never heard of until the article) which to me seemed to basically be calling out all of this. And then there was this backlash to the article railing against liberal women, being like "how dare you judge her for wanting this life?" And I just found myself thinking, 'sure, if she wants this life, then that's great! But (a) don't ignore the fact that she is out there *selling* this life, and (b) does she want this? I remember seeing a video where her husband is like "I have a birthday surprise for you!" and he gave her an egg apron. And admittedly I hadn't even heard of her until the article, so for all I know that might be the best gift that he could have given her. But I remember it watching the video and it seeming like her cover slipped and she was disappointed just for a second before correcting herself, and he had to convince her this was a good gift, saying something like "remember, you said you wanted one." So yes, if this is what she wants, then great, power to her, but *does* she want this? I get that I could totally be reading into that video as a result of the article And I get that the article had a story that it wanted to tell, but, frankly, so does she. Also from what I remember her husband is incredibly wealthy which definitely changes things considering that all of her posts are about selling that kind of lifestyle when they're so flipping rich.
As as divorced, mid forties mom, I am having a hard time understanding how these two influencers you've cited made a career promoting the tradwife lifestyle and they have never been married. And that people listen to them. It just does not compute in my brain. And it makes me wonder if this draw is partially from women frustrated with finding a man they want to partner with. Do women feel these influencers are selling the solution to the "how do I find a man" problem? Is this the new "He's Just Not That Into You" guidebook for a new generation?
I have seen people say that we should have seen this coming with all the recent trends of prairie dresses and beige rainbows and so on... No idea if that's true, but it does make me feel vindicated in hating basically every clothing and decor trend of the past few years and never being able to find a GD dress I actually want to wear anymore. 😂
"Women want exceptions to abortion bans because they are selfish and men 'hate that'". Because they're too used to being the only ones who get to be selfish? They can't stand the competition? I am never going to understand generic "men love / men hate" as motivation for a woman to do any damn thing. Now, a specific man I am have a relationship with, that may (or may not) be influential. But I cannot be arsed to worry about what the world of men wants from me.
It’s like reading Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie and longing for those “simple” times - forgetting about how everyone was dying or starving or being ugly to non white Christians.
I want to buy my eggs from the grocery store (we pay $6 in my town) and I hate cooking.
What’s ultimately ironic about these influencers - and the women who want to be them - is that they will ultimately do what’s necessary to be healthy or enjoy the life they want. They get the vaccines they need to visit other countries or go to certain events. They get fast food when it has been a long week and they do not want to cook another meal. They go to the hospital and take antibiotics when they get Covid. They won’t show that online, of course. They’re just ✨blessed✨ to be taking that trip or to have healthy kids once again.