The Dangerous Appeal of the 'Trad Wife'

Tuscan plum tart, wild garlic zucchini lasagne and meringue roulade ... social media influencer Hannah Neeleman라이브 바카라 Instagram feed is a culinary delight. In other videos, the American social media influencer is seen visiting organic farms or picking greens from kitchen gardens. She takes her 10.1 million followers along with her, her husband and their eight children as she juggles her life between her farm in Utah, the culinary school in Ireland where she has enrolled for a course and her visits to exotic locations across England.

On Nara Smith라이브 바카라 Instagram feed, we see the working mother of three make four types of homemade butter, a summer barbeque, milkshakes and more, all while dressed up in designer clothes and perfectly set hair. Her 4.6 million followers seem to devour the kind of content she makes.

American influencer Estee Williams—who, with her blond waves and cinched waist, embodies Marilyn Monroe라이브 바카라 style—tells her followers to “doll up” for men because “they do notice”. Williams teaches her lakh-plus followers “how to attract a masculine man—a provider man”.

There is no dearth of such content on Instagram, but what sets these influencers apart is the aesthetic they present online, that of the trad wife (traditional wives), a social media sensation that has gone viral, roughly since 2020, for its promised return to gendered roles—wives contentedly keep house while husbands control the purse strings and bank accounts. Women making and promoting such content aim to reach women with an “appeal to a soft life”.

While some believe it라이브 바카라 an ideology championed by traditionalists who believe a woman라이브 바카라 worth is tied to her submission to her husband, children and home, others see it as a clash with the feminist movement that challenges oppressive structures that limit the autonomy and potential of women.

“If you put me in a time machine back to the 1950s, I would have made it. Everyone would not be asking me when I am going back to work,” says ‘the original trad wife’, Alena Kate Pettitt, in an interview to The New York Times. She embraced the social media trend “to reject the girl boss ideal”. The author, blogger and advocate for women writes about homemaking, motherhood and traditional living in her blogs. A stay-at-home wife and mother to a teenage son, she says, “she is passionate about inspiring women to embrace their role at home with grace and passion”.

Why is the trad wife concept suddenly blowing up? It isn’t, explains Williams in an Instagram video. “The trad wife lifestyle is not a trend. This has been done since the beginning of time,” she says. As per Williams, this trend has become popular because the distinction between men and women is increasingly getting blurred and a whole generation of women is tired and burnt out of being homemakers as well as providers. “This is what happens when the pendulum swings so far one way. It has to come back down. Many people believe that the trad wife movement is an over-correction to modern feminism. I believe it is just bringing the balance back.”

She also explains how because women have been busy working, a whole generation has banked on ready-to-eat food and junk meals. “This is why ‘make from scratch’ videos are appealing to young girls who are looking at the Internet to teach them these traditional things,” says Williams.

Nothing is devoid of politics. The trad wives are a counter to the independent/financially independent women and “girl bosses” but they have also brought to the fore debates around the politics of feminism. “The overall concept of trad wives is built on a very misconstrued idea of feminism,” according to Yashiba Sanil, who is an expert on violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence and works at Welsh Women라이브 바카라 Aid in the UK. She adds: “Trad wives feel that feminism doesn’t allow women to be feminine, to be part of the household. They believe that the household is strictly something that feminists are against and that they only want women to work and not be family oriented.”

An increasing shift to the right in many countries has led to world leaders openly criticising the feminist movement and has played a key role in the backsliding of women라이브 바카라 rights. During the 2024 US elections, Instagram and TikTok saw a surge in trad wife content. From the aesthetic to an extreme anti-abortion stance, trad wife content on social media represents the ongoing pushback on women라이브 바카라 rights.

Social media feeds are tilting towards promoting the manosphere, a trend that has aided the rise of misogynistic content and the backsliding of equality of the sexes. “The manosphere and its byproducts are also leading to an increase in violence against women. We have no idea how much violence happens because of these narratives,” says Sanil.

Netflix라이브 바카라 Adolescence talks about the influence of the manosphere on young boys and how it further threatens the lives of young girls and women. “From victim blaming to incel lingo, the influence of the manosphere is ranging wide and trad wives are just another projection of this sphere,” she says. While the manosphere may or may not be directly linked to the trad wife trend, the concept of traditional gender norms resonates in this world and presents the idea of what men believe constitutes a “good woman.”

However, in the larger context in the backsliding of women라이브 바카라 rights, the concept of a trad wife represents something far more dangerous, especially for young girls consuming this type of content, say experts. “They may think maybe this is how they are supposed to be and that maybe women are not meant to be working this hard,” says Sanil. Women라이브 바카라 rights activist Brinda Adige says that trad wife content has already started to leave a mark on young women. “Young girls are aware of the tensions women face in the corporate world, the safety issues, pressure of deadlines, and more and with trad wife content in focus, many see this and think of a nice, tension-free life as compared to being a woman in the workforce,” she says.

The concept of a trad wife has not gained much prominence on Indian social media, with the exception of a few such as actor Swastika Vijay, who has drawn controversy over her views. The actor has publicly maintained that her ideal husband should “dominate” her. “I would like to be one step below my husband. That is how I have always wanted to be. I would want to wake up and start my day by touching his feet,” she has been quoted as saying in several interviews.

Sanil raises an important point—the concept of trad wives is deep-rooted in Indian society. “Western women within the global north already existed in a sphere where there was a clear demarcation between private and public. But in India, we still exist within that trad wife concept. We may have gotten more radicalised but we’re not as demarcated with our public and private like the global north has been,” she says.

Both Sanil and Adige mention how Indian women continue to be burdened with work inside and outside the house. “Indian women have still had to come home and work the double shift and be the good daughter-in-law, the good daughter and the good wife,” says Sanil. Adige adds that Indian women, especially from the middle class, continue to face the pressure of being a “good manager”, along with managing her role in the house.

With the ideology of trad wife still deep rooted in Indian society, Adige states that the real question is—who really is a feminist and how do we get there? “How much of the feminism we talk about has really percolated to the last woman? How much of it is elitist? Have we managed to break the barrier of caste, religion, economic status, education?” she asks.

Danita Yadav is a New Delhi-based journalist specialising in international politics

This article is part of 바카라라이브 바카라 April 21, 2025 issue 'Adolescence' which looks at the forces shaping teenage boys today—online misogyny, incel forums, bullying, and the chaos of the manosphere. It appeared in print as 'A Dangerous Appeal.'