When Donald Trump took the debate stage and dodged the question about how he would handle helping families pay for childcare in America, my women friends were righteously pissed off. I was also served a series of conservative memes on Instagram saying that the government wouldn’t need to pay for childcare if women just stayed home. Friends told me they saw the same kind of content that night, many for the first time.
When Harrison Butker took the stage at Benedictine College and told the crowd that women are on the receiving end of “diabolical lies” about their ability to find fulfillment in the professional sphere rather than fulfilling their vocation in the home, there was a righteous uproar from nearly every woman I know.
It wasn’t just about Harrison. It wasn’t just about Trump. It was about the endless stream of tradwife content we’ve been receiving online—posts admonishing us for feeding our children food not grown by our own two hands, calls to turn over financial decision-making to our husbands, posts with millions of likes exhorting women’s only role as that of a mother.
I’ve received hundreds of messages talking about how these viral videos are the harbinger of the downfall of democracy and women’s rights.
And yet the very same people who get so angry about the Harrison Butkers and the tradwives have also told me they are so burnt out on politics they are checking out this election cycle because they have totally lost hope.
Too many people I know are great at a private DM, or whispering to someone whom they know already agree with them, but are unwilling to speak publicly or take action. And if that continues, the Butkers and the #tradwives and (more importantly) the well-resourced conservative movements behind them that want to take away women’s agency and rights… are going to win. And it will be our fault too.
The kinds of conservative forces behind Butker and the tradwives are good at tapping into young women’s insecurities and desires in a way that those on the left are not. At the recent Turning Point USA young women’s leadership conference, sundress-bedecked “cute-servatives” flooded Barbie-pink rooms to strategize about how to win the “culture wars.” (“At home!” they all cheered in unison!)
Last year their leader, Alex Clark, said that the most important thing about the conference was that she convinced women to go off birth control. This year, the stakes were bigger, better and pinker. Leading up to the event their socials were sprinkled with beautiful hand drawn pastoral scenes calling on the attendees to “embrace tradition.” The political organizations publicly posted a Valentines Day card that said “buy me chickens and tell me you don't trust the government.”
The Tradwife movement is more than just eye-catching images of open land, barefoot kids, chickens, and sourdough perfectly cultivated for an Instagram grid. It’s a cultural movement to influence young women to willingly check out of the workforce and give up their rights and agency.
The Tradwife movement is about lulling women into submission by lying to them with beautiful aspirational images. And they will win. Here is how.
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