Trad wife content has been a recurring social media sensation for many years. But the amount of backlash the trend receives at a given moment varies.
A trad wife (short for traditional wife) is a woman who prefers to take on a traditional role in marriage. These women tend to identify themselves as conservative Christians and believe the woman’s place is as a homemaker.
There are different categories of trad wives portrayed on the internet. From women who cosplay in traditional 1950s housewife attire to those who wear more modern clothing with a full face of makeup, every trad wife posting aesthetically pleasing content has one thing in common: their appealing videos depict their lifestyle as refreshing and simple.
Avant trad wife content viewer, Gabi Ragins finds the content particularly calming. “I see many aesthetically pleasing trad wife videos that help promote this lifestyle. They typically have soothing music and cooking ASMR that pleases the audience. Because of these properties, personally I find their videos extremely calming and often will fall asleep to them,” Ragins commented.
Trad wife content has experienced a recent surge in both popularity and backlash, with Tik-Tok content creators Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm on the receiving end. These conventionally pretty and wealthy influencers depict cooking elaborate meals, cleaning and tending to their children. Their aesthetically pleasing posts are often paired with a caption claiming how much joy and freedom this lifestyle brings to them.
However, the underlying religious values of the trend are hard to ignore. The doctrine of trad wives demands women give up their agency to their husbands, an idea directly tied to extreme religious values.
Although not all trad wives identify themselves with a particular religion, the most popular ones align with Mormonism. Popular Tik-Tok influencers like Nara Smith and Hannah Neelman, better known as Ballerina Farm, identify themselves strictly as Mormon. While the two popular influencers don’t openly discuss how their religion defines their gender roles, it is obvious their religion holds a strong influence over their relationship dynamics. The women abide by strict biblical interpretations and subservience directly derived from religious fundamentalism.
The sharing of their aesthetically pleasing content depicts their religious traditional lifestyle seems like a breath of fresh air from modern day worklife. These posts have a way of painting working women as haters who resist their true purpose, a homemaker.
Senior Sophia Foad has observed a change in her female peers’ future aspirations. “I have noticed more of my friends not wanting to pursue successful careers and instead lean more towards wanting to be a stay at home mom. I think trad wife content has played a huge role in this shift, ” said Foad.
Although the lives of trad wives are portrayed as being calm and aesthetically pleasing, this isn’t always the case. Women who choose to stay at home and play the role of the traditional housewife pose the risk of not being able to leave the relationship if necessary. After a woman decides to devote herself to the house she is now financially dependent on her partner, putting herself in a vulnerable situation.
English teacher Dr. Lynne Lundberg believes many trad wives could find themselves trapped. “One of the major dangers of relying on another person financially is that in the all too common case of divorce, a property split doesn’t guarantee that a partner who hasn’t worked professionally for years will be able to support herself as well as she could have done if she had built a career. Entry level jobs don’t pay for the one-third of childrens’ college costs or other expectations of middle aged financial life,” Lundberg expressed.
Being financially dependent on a partner doesn’t only limit the ability to leave the relationship successfully, but also puts women in a dangerous situation. Women are more likely than men to suffer from domestic violence. Each year approximately 500,000 women are physically assaulted or raped by a intimate partner compared to 100,000 men. Being financially dependent on a partner leaves women little room to leave the relationship if needed.
However, the negative effects of the trad wife lifestyle doesn’t stay within the relationship and instead has started to branch out on a much larger scale. The influencers’ videos have become a main talking point fueling gender inequalities around the globe. Their short form videos are used as propaganda for politicians in countries lacking gender equality. The videos strengthen past gender roles and create new imbalances.
Through their romanticization of the past, influential trad wives create a narrative that denies young girls the future they deserve.
