A new study out of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa found that women from a number of different backgrounds believe that being a “tradwife” offers more freedom and fulfillment than corporate life.
The study, The (Anti)Feminism of Tradwives, looked at anti-feminist themes within the TikTok trend “tradwife,” which is short for "traditional wife." The term refers to a woman who embraces a lifestyle centered around certain gender roles.
A pre-social media idea, the traditional wife stems back to a 1950s American lifestyle typically associated with conservative, religious white women living in the suburbs. She may wear a dress and apron, her hair is pinned up, and her home is decorated with pastel colors.
The study's authors said today's tradwives believe that feminism is at odds with femininity, feminism harms women, anti-ideas sometimes escalate to gender-diverse exclusion — and that they're rejecting “boss babe” culture and capitalist pressures.
The study highlighted the challenges women face in a society where the expectation of being a wife, a mother and a good worker at the same time can feel unsustainable.
“This has been identified by many cross sections of women from conservatives to progressive women,” said Rebecca Stotzer, co-lead author of the study and a professor at UH Mānoa’s Thompson School of Social Work and Public Health.
“But rather than identifying those systems that are in place that make it difficult for women to be successful, they identified the feminist movement, feminist thinking and feminist philosophy as the problem.”
The pop culture phenomenon of tradwives grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic when many people were laid off from work and had to stay inside.
Some tradwife social media influencers promote a family-centered lifestyle, sharing daily routines of home-cooked meals and more. Influencers considered tradwives include Hannah Neelman (@ballerinafarm), who is known for homemaking, farming and raising eight children; and Nara Smith (@naraaziza), who is known for making food from scratch with her full glam hair and makeup looks.
The UH study did find that tradwives are more diverse than before and still lean toward women in their 20s and 30s, according to Stotzer.
The study found that nearly half of the women surveyed were women of color, including Black and Latina. It looked at 61 TikTok users who used #tradwife or #tradlife in their posts since 2020.
“A lot of our social media representations of tradwives have been the more politicized tradwives,” Stotzer said. “They’re often associated with either white nationalism or deeply conservative.”
Stotzer said that the term was appealing to a broader community of women. She added it’s not that much different from a stay-at-home mom arrangement.
Some women wanted to be tradwives due to their religious beliefs, while others did so for economic reasons — but not because they were well-off enough, according to Stotzer.
“When we think of needing two parents to work in order to have enough income to raise children, often the women who were choosing to stay at home lived lives that they tried to have self-reliance,” she said. “Like having their own gardens, doing their own cooking, or doing their own sewing.”
Stotzer said the crux of the study is that tradwives have been blaming feminism and “boss babe” culture — similar to hustle culture where women are career-driven, aiming to climb the corporate ladder.
“They were verbalizing ‘I choose to stay home’ without recognizing that it was the feminist movement that gave them that choice in the first place,” she said. “Because women didn’t have a choice at all.”
Stotzer said she’s planning another study about ex-tradwives.
