A woman cares for two children while checking emails on her phone.
A woman cares for two children while checking emails on her phone. Credit: Vitolda Klein / Unsplash Credit: Vitolda Klein / Unsplash

Trad wives are still trending. But is it actually a reactionary to straight men’s distaste for domestic labour?   

The hashtags “Tradwife” or “Tradwives” have become some of the most popular on social media. Instagram alone boasts millions of such posts – some satirical, and some less so.

It’s clear the Trad Wife Discourse has gained traction. But what does the rise of this new feminine archetype say about society? The answer is more complicated than we think…

For the uninitiated who have somehow escaped this term, Merriam-Webster defines Trad Wife with the following entry:

A tradwife is a married woman who embraces traditional gender roles and values; the word is particularly used for a young woman who chooses to be a homemaker and shares her lifestyle online. It is closely associated with a 2020s social media trend widely viewed as ultraconversative.

On Instagram and TikTok, there are millions of references to #TradWives. As the archetype is constructed, Trad Wives love homesteading, homeschooling, and making home-made Gingerale, from scratch. Such ladies are often pictured in flowing prairie dresses and their drink of choice is raw milk. They typically have long, flowing hair, and perhaps a baby (or two) on the hip. It’s a pastoral fantasy, and in many cases, we know it obscures the realities of a patriarchal home where the man makes all the decisions and gives his family little freedom, but it makes for great social media content. 

Perhaps the most famous so-called Trad Wife is Hannah Neeleman, who goes by the handle @ballerinafarm on Instagram. A year ago, the influencer (who boasts over 10 million followers) was profiled by the New York Times. A Mormon Tradwife who quit a promising career in ballet to raise eight kids on a ranch in Utah with her millionaire husband, Neeleman’s profile cemented the Trad Wife’s place in the public imagination. It also created a full-blown controversy, when Neeleman herself rejected the article’s characterization of her as a textbook traditional woman. Regardless of Neeleman’s discomfort with being labelled the poster child for Trad Wives, the term looks unlikely to die…  

Of course, Trad Wives have plenty of critics. A 2023 op-ed in Her Money refers to the Trad Wife Trend as “flat-out dangerous” because it perpetuates “the completely outdated stereotype that a woman’s place is in the home.” Culture writer Ann-Helen Peterson’s podcast Culture Study devoted an entire episode to talking with a former Trad Wife who bravely escaped the lifestyle she found oppressive. And CBC’s Front Burner also featured an episode on the phenomenon. 

But it’s not just the mainstream, liberal-leaning media that’s talking about homeschooling moms who milk their own cows. The trad wives themselves have even created their own parallel pop culture in the form of Evie Magazine, which is like Cosmopolitan for traditionally attractive women who do not believe in sex before marriage (I’m not being snarky. The magazine has been known to caution unmarried women not to read their articles about sex). The writers at Evie really hate unmarried ladies who talk about sex, especially Charlize Theron… 

As a life-long intersectional feminist, I am terrified of the ascent of Trad Wives; however, I am not baffled by the trend. In fact, it makes a certain sense. I understand why some are actively fetishizing this lifestyle, even if I don’t think it’s the best answer to most women’s angst. After all, let us consider the alternative to Trad Wifery for straight women who are interested in marriage and children. For most, the alternative is something to which I refer as the “Everything Wife.” 

The Everything Wife is the Trad Wife’s overworked, burnout cousin

The Everything Wife is exactly what it sounds like: She works outside of the home, raises the kids, does more than half of the cleaning, schedules doctor’s appointments for her entire family (even her husband), cooks dinner most nights, and does all of the holiday shopping.

The mental load of household management is disproportionately hers, despite the fact that she and her male partner are both financial providers with equally demanding paid work schedules. Sure, her husband likely mows the law or loads the dishwasher some nights, but she likely forgoes brunch with her friends to volunteer at her child’s school Fun Fair while dad tinkers in the garage. Basically, the Everything Wife is the unfinished business of feminism – she has a job but the gendered labour of the domestic sphere remains her domain too.      

Sure, some of us are fortunate enough to have egalitarian marriages; however, statistics show women working women in heterosexual marriages still do significantly more domestic labour than their male partners. Working mothers are basically doing everything for their families, and that’s why The Everything Wife is The Trad Wife’s overworked, burnt out cousin. 

Sure, the Everything Wife makes her own money, but is she truly free? No. She lives in a prison constructed of her family’s laundry – which never seems to be finished. Her energy is depleted by all the extra cleaning or childcare duties she performs while her husband plays golf. Her self-care looks like quick showers before bed and listening to podcasts while sweeping the kitchen floor. And yes, she could theoretically leave her unequal marriage, but online chat groups for moms are full of horror stories of what happens to women who dare flee domestic drudgery. Stories of men who refuse to pay child support or trash talk their ex to their kids abound! The Everything Wife, like all married straight women, has seen those discussion threads… 

The Trad Wife fantasy of traditional gender roles is seductive primarily because it suggests a world where women do not have the weight of the world on their shoulders. For the Trad Wife, gender roles are rigidly defined: The domestic sphere is her only sphere, and while that is limiting, it might feel more manageable for a woman whose other options are working 9-5 and then coming home for the second shift.

Sure, the past Trad Wives want to live in didn’t actually exist (at least, not the way they think it did). But while there is loads of ridiculous misinformation about the glory of the 1950s, one thing is for certain: The modern plight of the Everything Wife is unmanageable. Having a job and doing most of the domestic labour is a recipe for misery. 

As a feminist, I would argue that we should think of a brighter, more egalitarian future, rather than going back in time to a romanticized version of a past where women weren’t legally entitled to own credit cards. But the fact remains that something must change, or more and more women will turn to fantasies of quitting their jobs to churn their own butter while wearing a floral nap dress…

Indeed, the Everything Wife is not a product of feminism, it is a backlash to it. Even those fictional women in 1990s cosmetic ads who boasted they could “do it all” just meant they wanted to have both kids and nebulous jobs as corporate executives; I am quite sure these fictional ladies would not have imagined themselves vacuuming at 4 a.m. because their husband can’t be bothered to help with the household chores.

 It is time for our society to realize Trad Wives are, more than anything, a reaction to bad husbands. If more men were open to truly egalitarian marriages, would so many people be ready to quit their jobs and drink unpasteurized milk? I cannot be sure, but I will posit the answer is no. 

So, fellow feminists, if you’re mad about The Trad Wife trend, don’t slag Hannah Neeleman online. Instead, remind your neighbour to make dinner for his family tonight…