Posted on 03/15/2023 1:58:43 PM PDT by george76
It started with young women half-joking about being angry with the feminist movement for “liberating” women so they now have to get up to go to work to pay their own bills.
The BBC made a skit off the back of this complaint that, while meant as a joke, ended up being a perfect way that described how many women felt about their “liberation.” They say the left can’t meme, but this skit proves they can do so ironically.
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Then a trend on TikTok began emerging that gained traction very quickly. It was women simply posting their daily lives as traditional housewives. They cooked, they cleaned, they looked nice for their breadwinning husband, and they took care of the children during the day.
It’s a trend being called “tradwife.”
As you can see in some of the TikToks, there are quite a bit of aesthetic choices taken from the 1950s, from the hairstyles to the manner of dress.
You know in the western world of the modern day, this wasn’t going to fly with many, many people, namely women. The reasons are varied. Some are wives who don’t want their husbands to see a woman doing something that would make them look bad or set “unrealistic expectations” about their marriage while some called this TikTok content a “kink.”
But for feminists, this trend is dangerous because it invites a return to the sexism and racism of old. As Fox News reported, various mainstream publications have now jumped on the trend, attempting to discredit and excoriate it as evil:
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according to the young women who .. may accept the “ultra-traditional” role that the woman’s place is in the home, they aren’t saying that other women need to follow their lead. They just chose this for themselves, especially after work/life balance became hard to maintain in the post-COVID age.
However, the media is acting as if this is a contagion that needs to be suppressed and destroyed ASAP. People on TikTok are going after these women as if they were social pariahs, denouncing and belittling them at every turn.
While I won’t deny that there are some performative aspects to this growing TikTok trend, as I suspect everything on TikTok to be at least a little theatrical, I don’t see these women looking down on others for not being like them. Moreover, I don’t see them spreading or endorsing any kind of evil. There are bad apples in every tree, but I haven’t seen enough to convince me this is the breeding ground of racism and bigotry like some have claimed.
The question I have to ask is why these people are reacting so negatively to this traditional wife trend.
The answers are nuanced from group to group, but they all share the common thread of being threatened by these women. Why are these women so threatening?
Because men, for the most part, love the idea of a traditional wife, and for many young women, being in a committed relationship is one of their heart’s greatest desires. If they find out that this is what men like, then they’ll begin the process of making themselves into more traditional women.
And more traditional women don’t really have too much time for feminist ideals, and women who don’t have time for feminist ideals don’t tend to be easily swayed to advocate for certain political policies. It’s definitely a lot harder to instill those political positions into their children as well.
When the mainstream left and its feminist allies say there’s a danger…that’s the danger.
At the end of the day, the choice to be a traditional housewife or a working woman is up to the individual. Every choice has its pros and its cons and each person handles these aspects differently.
But there is no denying that traditionalism when it comes to homemaking has a particular magic to it that seems fulfilling. Men love being breadwinners and having loving, caring wives. Women want to feel safe, provided for, and admired. The nuclear family scratches all of these itches and traditionalism seems to intensify the validation for a growing number of women.
I remember an older male relative half a century ago commenting that his only concern with “Women’s Lib” was that women might lose the option to stay home and raise a traditional family.
He had it pegged precisely.
I prefer a trophy wife.
Finding a trad-wife was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, over two decades and six kids later (all of them homeschooled, btw), life is good. All I have to do now is convince my kids to find trad-wives and trad-husbands—but they are pretty hip (in a good way) and see the destruction caused by the “non-trads”, so I’m not too worried about them.
It might be difficult to qualify for a mortgage on one income, but it is doable. Set your sights on a home that you can afford, not some fancy schmancy house with a bunch of upgrades before you even move in. I believe they are called fixer uppers.
Live within your means. This may mean adhering to a strict budget and few frills. Buy slightly used clothing at resale shops for your kids. That’s what we did until we were able to save enough to fix up the house, and then move to a nicer neighborhood.
Few seem to understand that you don’t have to “have it all” right out of the gate. We are on our 4th house, and it took us some 30 years to achieve this beautiful home that we live in now.
I am all for non-working wives and working wives.
Then there are those that cross both, often helping in a family business.
I am a fan of all of these women.
I knew. The ‘e’ was a typo.
I’d rather be a trophy husband.
I’m retired; I watch the wife go to work every day. I’m good.
When feminists are furious angels get their wings.
it’s making them NERVOUS...
I totally agree. There are quite a few 1940s movies with “career girls” in them, sassy, outspoken characters played by actresses like Rosalind Russell, Maureen O’Hara, Katherine Hepburn, etc. Women have always had the right to have careers, and some have always chosen to. It’s just that most women didn’t choose that. Now, women “have to” work because they can’t make it financially even with two incomes, or feminism has persuaded them to be single mothers or whatever. Feminism has taken choices away from women instead of giving them choices. I welcome this “trad wife” trend. I hope more young women wake up to what a bill of goods they have been sold.
One of my son’s friends say he pays more for daycare than he does for his mortgage
The real secret is that being forced to stay home for 2 years made many women realize that being a “stay-at-home” wife/mom was more gratifying that trying to compete in the rat race. So the lefty lockdown policy backfired a bit in that way.
Yeah, I got the “reject all feminists” part covered. It’s the “find a tradwife” part that is a little trickier.
It’s also hot... just sayin’
‘Anyone calling their wives “trade-wife”...’
Umm, it’s the women themselves who started using that phrase to describe themselves.
It was a struggle 20 years ago. I bet it’s only gotten 10 times worse nowadays. Good luck young man.
Now that wages have fallen for men to the point that a middle-class life often requires two wage earners, women do not have much choice.
“This issue doesn’t get talked about much, but one reason so many wives work nowadays , is because it takes both of their incomes to qualify for a mortgage to buy a house.”
It’s a chicken and egg situation though. Are women forced to work because incomes are too stagnant for most single income families to own a home? Or are incomes stagnant because women entered the workforce en masse and devalued the price of labor?
“In many places in America, supporting a family on one income would be extremely difficult because of the cost of housing nowadays.”
A clue that it is a poor place to live.
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