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.
Enlightened feminists (and all enlightened people) understand that everyone is brought up differently and had a different childhood. That pretty much determines what you are happiest doing in life.
I for one would have been miserable without a career. I fully realized it only after I had started one. There are many more like me now than there were when I started out.
To each her own. Domesticity is an art and a science, like anything else.
No interspecies or intraspecies rivalry for me.
My wife and I discussed the issue of working with kids. She insisted that she stay home to raise the kids because of the cost/non benefit of day care and we didn’t want strangers raising our kids. I took a travelling sales job and was gone a lot to make good bucks. She did a great job raising our kids and I kept the bills paid. She is a small east Texas town and was raised the same way. Been married 32 years now.
Definition of Heaven:
American salary, British house, Chinese cook, and Japanese wife
Definition of Hell:
Chinese salary, Japanese house, British cook, and American wife
And in every single one of those movies, she gets her “sassy outspoken ways” spanked right outta her by the leading man and winds up finally happy.
= = = = = = = =
Go watch John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in McClintock.
You said 1940s.
After college, but before entering the workforce, I wanted to see some of the world and thought I’d spend a year teaching English in Asia...
where I met a perfect woman who would become my wife.
I must have been good - really good - in a previous life.
If a white woman marries someone of her own race, it is implied on the left that she is racist.
Trad wife? Independent thinking woman.
I grew up in a working class neighborhood in the 1950s. My mother, and all the other women in the neighborhood, stayed home. The men's occupations included fireman, policeman, auto painter, breadman, security guard, glazier, etc. Living on their salaries meant raising their families of 2-4 children (one family had 5 kids, another had 7) in 900-1000 sf houses, one car, no air conditioning, and so forth. I suppose they could have put thier wives to work in order to afford some of those things but it seemed like no one questioned that, all-in-all, women's role as homemaker was accepted and honored.
My point is not that your observation about today's cost of housing is wrong. OTOH, we just might want to re-examine our priorities.
Yes I had a treadle in the seventies. Treadles have been the machine of choice for fine tailors for many years. Motors happened in the 20s on. Occasionally.
We were so compatible, I wanted more children (4 but open to more) then he did (2 maybe) which should have been my first clue but I was in lo-ve. And still a bit dumb.
Things came to a screeching halt when he brought up "the cost of daycare". Daycare? For our precious bundles of joy? You mean, leave them for hours with stranger every day? How about No.
What followed was what my grandfather would have termed a "hellofarow".
There was no room for compromise, I was a "leach", a "drag", if I was not putting in a fifty hour week at an office. Raising kids was something that could be safely left to dumb people.
Relationship ended.
Good for you, for walking away.
When I was first married, I earned a little more than my now-ex, and I had money stashed away, whereas he had student loans to pay off. So, the first few years, I paid the rent, while he paid the smaller utility bills. When I became pregnant, he found a higher-paying job. I wanted to stay home with my newborn. He looked panicked. He insisted I needed to work. I didn’t want to put my baby in daycare, but I was willing to work part-time at night while he watched the baby. I showed him the math: I could earn more part-time with no daycare, than I would earn full-time minus the cost of daycare. He agreed. I ended up working nights until the third was born. I was so exhausted. Now, I know we could’ve made it on his income alone. I should’ve refused to return to work after the first baby.
“You said 1940s.”
I missed that part, sorry. (Someone else posted 1940s)
Right. You were replying to someone who said 1940s. But then you answered with old stars who were probably 1940s and 1950s? Anyway, it wasn’t the 2020s, that was my point. Times have changed.
In some rare cases, it might make sense for the roles to be reversed. The man stays home with the children and takes care of the household while the woman goes out to make a living to support the household. This is known as a female led relationship (FLR) but is the exception and not the rule.
In either case, it is the stay at home spouse, almost always the wife, who shoulders most of the household responsibilities. This should be an incredibly rewarding experience.
The feminist movement has demonized the "housewife" role for women, resulting in mostly dysfunctional families. Putting children in daycare is never better than having one of the spouses, almost always the wife, be home with the children full time and running the household.
In fact, I would argue that women who choose a domestic role are far more "liberated" then their "have it all" counterparts. They do not need to make a living in the outside world because they have a husband to do that for them.
It is also a false premise that these days you need two incomes to run a household. If a wife is thrifty, she can run the household on the husband's income alone. Maybe a smaller home, maybe only one car, and of course a lot of home cooking with raw ingredients as opposed to eating out or buying processed "easy to prepare" foods at the supermarket. Perhaps mending and even making clothing at home. It can be done on just about any income.
Going back to traditional ways, and finding a path where one income is sufficient for a family so that one works, and one stays home, would be a real recipe for a lot of happiness.
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The creation of the central bank in 1913 and printing of money made that a lot harder.
Gloria Steinem has a lot to answer for. She encouraged so many women to make the false choice of feminist “independence” now so many women are living alone with only their cats for companionship. As anecdotal support, check out all the web sites promoting dating in your 50s, 60s, and 70,s.
“Loves her family, race and country in that order”.
“Knowledgeable about her European roots.”
That is some actual racist/nazi bullchit right there.
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