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A tradwife (a neologism for traditional wife or traditional housewife) is a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles and marriages. Some may choose to take a homemaking role within their marriage, and others leave Career woman to focus on meeting their family's needs in the home.
The traditional housewife aesthetic has since spread throughout the Internet in part through social media featuring women extolling the virtues of being a traditional wife.
As a hashtag and aesthetic, #tradwife has gained a lot of traction on social media, particularly TikTok. Many creators have gone viral for videos performing domestic labor such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. The videos often involve an aesthetic that is reminiscent of a 1950s housewife.
Tradwives are diverse demographically, and may have a variety of cultural inspirations. Influences on trend range from 1950s-era American culture, Christian values, conservative politics, choice feminism, and neopaganism.
One key aspect of appearing to be a tradwife is reclaiming – or at least appearing to reclaim – some leisure time, as women, and especially mothers, who earn an income often have a double burden.
Her house may be decorated in trendy pastel colors. The tradwife aesthetic has a significant influence on home decorating.
Others may prefer a back to nature appearance.
According to algorithmic research conducted by Media Matters, the tradwife audience is likely also viewing conspiracy theory videos, as recommendations for conspiracy videos increase concordant with tradwife viewership.
The rising success of contemporary tradwives is driven by clever and active use of social media and persistent positioning as online Influencer. Videos such as 'a day in my life' showcasing activities such as cooking from scratch, cleaning, caring for children, packing the lunches of their working husbands advocate for gender roles wherein the man holds social and political power, and women for the most part are confined to the home as a wife and mother.
A report in America magazine, a Catholic Church publication, has also reported that some Catholic tradwives have adopted the practice of wearing veils at mass, a practice embraced by some Catholic women as a means of reverence and empowerment.
One suggested reason for the criticism of tradwives is that they are reviled for appearing to truly live out an idealized home life in practice, when most social media users only achieve the superficial appearance, e.g., through a decision to wear a retro dress or to buy a trendy kitchen item.
However, many of the tradwife internet celebrities earn an income outside the home, in addition to running their influencer businesses on social media. For example, Hannah Neeleman runs food-related businesses with her husband, and Nara Smith is a professional model.
“Tradwife” ideals advocate against wives and mothers working. However, this ideal fails to address the work and labor that is involved in the home and in raising children. People that make the choice to stay at home rather than participate in the workforce make a significant contribution to the functioning of society and remain unpaid for this labor. Domestic labor includes cleaning, cooking, laundry, childcare, household, maintenance, and significant emotion work. The performance often seen on social media of “tradwives'” social media performances rarely display the amount of tedious and difficult labor that goes into being a stay-at-home parent or homemaker. The nature of social media creates an environment where the content that is circulated is an idealized and carefully curated image that does not portray the effort and labor that goes into the work being done as well as the work of creating content itself.
“Tradwife” ideals hold that wives should be financially dependent on their husbands. There is a certain element of deception to this claim because high-profile “tradwives” may generate financial gain through creating social media content. Furthermore historically, and currently, “tradwife” is an ideal that can only be accomplished through a certain amount of wealth. The amount of wealth required to support a family, particularly to the aesthetic standards that the “tradwives” display, is significant. However many of the “tradwives” that portray life as a homemaker generate wealth that they frequently do not talk about.
Many influencers have monetized their life of performing the “tradwife” through brand deals and partnerships, merchandise, and promoting products for which they receive a commission. Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman have jobs yet they perform as tradwives. Hannah Neeleman, who has been referred to as "Queen of the Tradwives," espouses wanting a different lifestyle from the aforementioned “girlboss”, similarly to the other “tradwives”. However, Neeleman is co-CEO of her and her husband’s company Ballerina Farm. Their work, as well as other influencers, includes real labor of making videos and marketing themselves, however they perpetuate a narrative that discredits and hides their influencer careers. Furthermore these influencers having their own sources of income cannot be compared to the housewives of the 1950s who were unable to acquire their own money, or even have a credit card in their own name. It perpetuates misinformation about the “tradwife” lifestyle as well as discrediting the work they do.
Despite the link to extreme right-wing ideologies, not all tradwives endorse extreme ideas and ideology is not an integral part of the subculture. Prominent British tradwife influencer Alena Pettitt posted on social media in 2020 that she was "dumbfounded" by the media's "smear campaign" against tradwives, arguing they were all being unfairly linked to extremism. Some commenters have noted that people should avoid "denouncing all tradwives as far-right extremists, holding them accountable for views they may not hold and demonising what is, for many women, an extremely personal choice".
Seyward Darby discussed the tradwife aesthetic in her 2020 book, Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism, and shared interviews with women who call themselves traditional. She found that some women in the movement espoused tenets of the American political far right, including white supremacy, antisemitism, populism, and other ultraconservative beliefs.
Though many of the “tradwife” influencers do not directly address politics or outright endorse any politicians they have contributed towards an alt and far right shift by virtue of being “apolitical”. Many of the “tradwife” far right influencers are either not outwardly speaking of politics or state that once they get married and start their family they will stop speaking about politics. Though this is seeming apolitical it functions as a tactic to perpetuate the right’s ideologies of traditionalism, white supremacy, and misogyny. By virtue of being influencers, defined as “a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media”, “tradwives” and other people on social media influence people into following their lead whether that be purchasing a specific product or mimicking their entire lifestyle. Though many “tradwives” insist that they have no political agenda or that they have nothing to do with the alt and far right, their impact says otherwise. As stated by British journalist Hadley Freeman, “It is especially popular among white supremacists, who are extremely down with the message that white women should submit to their husband and focus on making as many white babies as possible”.
Critics often stipulate that tradwives embody what has been described as "toxic femininity", or internalized sexism.ABC News, Bridget Judd, February 23, 2020, Tradwives have been labelled 'subservient', but these women reject suggestions they're oppressed , retrieved October 2, 2020, "...Others have likened it to an extension of white nationalism, propagating the belief that women should focus on their "natural" duties of childbearing and housekeeping..."Jones, Sarah, October 28, 2020, New York Magazine, Trump's Base Isn't Housewives, It's Tradwives , Retrieved January 2, 2022, "...The tradwife is going to stick with Trump and the Republican Party. ..."
27. Bower, Laura J. "The thorn in feminism’s side: black feminist reconceptualization and defence of #tradwives and the #tradwife movement." Journal of gender studies, 2024, pp. 1–17, doi:10.1080/09589236.2024.2423198.
28. Elmhirst, Sophie. “The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife.” The New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2024, www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-trad-wife.
29. Gaylor, Averyl. "New 'clean girl' and 'old money' aesthetics on TikTok make the same old link between hygiene and class." , 2023.
30. Leidig, Eviane. The women of the far right social media influencers and online radicalization. Columbia University Press, 2023, doi:10.7312/leid21016.
31. Moskin, Julia. “The Woman behind Ballerina Farm, Hannah Neeleman, Makes Her Own Path - The New York Times.” Nytimes.Com, 3 Dec. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/dining/ballerina-farm-hannah-neeleman.html.
32. Sykes, Isabel. "From ‘girlboss’ to #stayathomegirlfriend: The romanticisation of domestic labour on TikTok." European journal of cultural studies, 2024, doi:10.1177/13675494241285643.
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