Ina TikTok videowith more than 1.6 million views,tradwifeinfluencer Estee Williams explains what the buzzy term means.
We believe our place…our purpose is to be homemakers, she says.
It doesnt mean that we are trying to take away what women fought for.
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Tradwives also believe that they should submit to their husbands and serve their husbands and family, she says.
Williams is not the only woman to embrace thetradwife aestheticwith its patriarchal undertones and flowing dresses.
Tradwivesat least in their TikTokified imagebake homemade bread with perfect manicures and keep spotless homes.
If it sounds performative, its because…well, it is.
Tradwives also proudly declare themselves anti-feminist.
To some, this jot down of message seems purely retrograde.
In short, they had extremely limited economic and legal power.
That prospect felt, in their words, so 1950s.
At my ob-gyns practice, a physician asked me when Id return to work after maternity leave.
I told her I planned to stay home with my twins.
Oh, sorry, she said.
I guess you cant assume, even in 2018.
It was implied, I felt, that I was indulging in sentimentality for simpler times.
And then, during the pandemic, I watched as those perceptions shifted.
We realized thetrue, essential value of unpaid labor.We started to confront thelogistical minefield of American motherhood.
The lack of a sufficient system of support for caregiving pushes women out of the labor market.
And then came the tradwives, whose content leans heavily into the old tropes.
So there was the girlboss, now theres the tradwife.
Tradwives are not all mothers, and theres a clear distinction between tradwives and stay-at-home moms.
People who opt out of paid workdoface a degree of financial vulnerabilitythats nothing new.
But both tradwives and many detractors seem unconcerned with actually addressing that issue.
The reality is theres ever-increasing fluidity between the old dichotomy between boss babe and homemaker.
They worry theyre going to be deemed traditionalist or not feminist.
