Given that TikTok is the social media platform favoured by Gen Z, it may be assumed that its content leans towards the modernity and progressiveness for which ‘zoomers’ are famous, which is what makes it all the more intriguing that a trend of late last year and early this year was ‘tradwife’ content: homely, cosy videos of young, married women advertising their role as the ‘traditional wife’, tending the home and taking care of their husbands and young children. Modern TikTok filters, music and editing are used to disguise the subtly conservative nature of the content itself: that these women appear to subscribe to the model of the nuclear family championed by the political right. They are in agreement that a wife’s role in a family unit should primarily concern the home. 

Despite decades of feminist work to dispel this once-prevalent belief, ‘tradwife’ content has found its audience on TikTok. Certain female users, disillusioned with working long hours for meagre wages, have credited the trend for opening their eyes to an alternative, more ‘simplistic’ lifestyle. There have been arguments made that notions of ‘tradlife’, despite outward appearances, are indeed acceptable according to the tenets of feminism, because at its essence, the feminist struggle is largely considered a fight for women’s freedom to autonomy; their freedom to choose whichever lifestyle they wish to live by, including the ‘tradlife’. 

‘tradwife’ content has sparked an engaging debate about what feminism actually involves

Like all the best controversial online trends, ‘tradwife’ content has sparked an engaging debate about what feminism actually involves. A loaded word, and one whose true definitions may be unclear to many. Rather, we may have constructed our own personal idea of what it means, on account of what we have read or seen, and experiences we have had. Is feminism a set of hard rules? A group of theories grounded in evidence? Is it the choice to make choices?

young ‘zoomer’ women appear ideologically progressive, while their male counterparts have steadily become more conservative

After all, the arguments presented against ‘tradlife’ must ponder these questions also. Critics have pointed out that the lifestyles presented by ‘tradwife’ influencers typically require a healthy income to maintain, and are therefore only available to a privileged few members of society. Can it really be established as a tentpole of the female experience, when it is accessible to so few women, even the ones who find it an attractive prospect? There is also the issue that social media content so rarely reflects real life, as many ‘tradwife’ influencers in fact have jobs. Working as a content creator constitutes a job in itself, so by monetising their daily lives, these influencers would not fit the dictionary definition of ‘tradwives’. Perhaps the gravest danger of the trend is the possibility that it trains an impressionable audience of teenage girls to believe that total financial dependence on a spouse is a wise idea.

Shortly after the peak of the ‘tradwife’ trend’s numbers on TikTok, a study was published which documented the apparently diverging political views of young women and young men. The study was shared widely on X, (formerly Twitter), for it painted a strikingly similar picture in numerous countries around the world: young ‘zoomer’ women appear ideologically progressive, while their male counterparts have steadily become more conservative, even gaining on ‘boomer’ men aged 45 and up. Could certain young women’s adoption of traditional, conservative principles be an attempt to appear more attractive to the increasingly conservative men of the generation? The link between the two phenomena is unproven, but it remains food for thought. 

to criticise the potentially harmful nature of particular lifestyle choices is not an attack on women’s autonomy

So, is the chief principle of feminism to provide women with an array of lifestyle choices, or to protect them from the harms caused by patriarchal norms? Feminist work of the past has been assertive about women’s autonomy, while simultaneously criticising practices which have the potential to cause harm, such as over-dependence on a spouse. Criticising certain feminised lifestyle choices need not diminish women, but rather, it seeks to enrich women’s rights, securities, and ultimately, autonomy itself. 

This reasoning can be applied to the ongoing argument over ‘tradwife’ content online: to criticise the potentially harmful nature of particular lifestyle choices is not an attack on women’s autonomy. Instead, doing so reminds women that their rights are richer and more complex than autonomy’s simplest definition of choosing one lifestyle over another.

 

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The Aestheticisation of Journalism: From Andy Sachs to Jenna Rink 

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