Posted by makerdiety 1 day ago
It's a tiny niche organic thing from social media, but drew significant backlash and opposition from mainstream media because it was so opposite to the views of the writers and editors of those publications on multiple axes (urban vs rural, career focus vs family focus, independence vs partnership/community, etc). I've seen anti-tradwife content at a 100-to-1 ratio of any actual tradwife content.
It took common leftwing, anti-capitalist ideas like "working a BS job to create shareholder value while barely affording rent sucks, spend your time doing meaningful things instead" but because those meaningful things were raising kids and gardening instead of yoga, matcha brunches and ayuhuasca retreats it got conservative-coded instead of liberal-coded along culture lines.
It's a modern echo of "Tune in, turn on and drop out", but for a new generation of women raised in a post-feminist world, rejecting the default path society expects of them and who are reclaiming aspects of femininity which have been stigmatized, but because it has a veneer of similarity to pre-feminist norms it's seen as regressive rather than progressive.
If I was younger, I'd be doing a sociology thesis on it. So many fascinating bits of nuance and interaction between different groups.
I also think that there’s more generally a weird flip in that, who you could consider to be “liberals” are not liberals at all, and are a weird new breed of conservative. In my view, there’s nothing wrong with the brand of tradwife I’ve seen on social media, that isn’t driven by religion. In fact, much of the content I had seen about it had no focus on the husband at all, which was interesting.
Are you unaware or trying to whitewash? Trying to blame liberals while trying to distract from what non-liberals are?
That is absurd claim. Yes, guardian (and generally liberal or progressive media) have articles about domestic violence or abuse in other groups.
The claim is not that this is the only place where it happens. But, believes of this subculture ensure it will happen and members will support the abuse.
Muslims in general would be equivalent of christians in general. The article is not about christians in general, but about tradwifes.
YOU want to frame the situation as just an aesthetic choice. Or "having kids" choice, as if having kids necessitated submission to husband.
You are being disingenuous here. The primary and most important thing it did, was religion driven complete submission to husband and complete dependence on him.
> who are reclaiming aspects of femininity which have been stigmatized,
Which would primary be that submission and dependence part. Not gardening vs yoga, plenty of progressives have gardens and don't do yoga. Also, having kids is not stigmatized.
> but because it has a veneer of similarity to pre-feminist norms
If he beats you, it is your fault for not being obedient enough is definitely pre-feminist norm. Which is part and parcel of the culture these women embraced and are from.
Maybe I'm only seeing the cottagecore, homesteader end of the spectrum and you're only seeing the religious fundamentalist end of the spectrum, but both are happening under the same label on various TikToks, Instagrams and Podcasts.
I suspect the way you've framed it is very misleading, and represents only a tiny sliver of content, but, as I conceded in my first statement, I've seen a whole lot more commentary about tradwife content than the actual content itself, so there is a real possibility I am wrong and I've only seen the friendly tip of the iceberg but it's actually full of badness underneath.
I’m envious that you have avoided that rabbit hole, but it absolutely exists and is not niche.
Does not imply tradwife. Tradwife has submission as unambigous part.
But also, the article is all about tradwifes influencers who were presenting beautiful life while being abused, controlled and part of religious cult. And in some cases white supremacists.
And THAT or risk of that was also primary criticism all along. Except critics talked about it as "risk" or "likelihood" rather then "you are actually lying about your reality".
She said that the tradwife movement, one she initially thought was about a “return to strong family values”, has “become indistinguishable from the current wave of the red-pill manosphere”
The manosphere, the white supremacists and the Bible-thumpers all say the same things about women, just with different language.