Across what has been a truly chaotic social media landscape in 2024, a curious phenomenon has captured the attention of millions of women- the rise in popularity of the #tradwife. These are women who embraces a 1950’s style homemaker lifestyle, focusing on domestic duties like cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing, replete with beautiful frocks and a perfect appearance, while their husband works. The numbers tell an interesting story. Videos tagged #tradwife have amassed over 800 million views on TikTok, with engagement rates that would make most brands envious. This is a vision of a carefully curated domestic bliss. But while the aesthetic might be retro, the psychology driving this content’s viral success is thoroughly modern.
Tradwives: When anti-feminist fantasy meets modern marketing
If we take a look at today’s trad wife movement on social media, we see two very different styles at play. There’s examples like Hannah Neelman of ‘Ballerina Farm,’ who typically keeps things soft and subtle. She’s all about showing off her homesteading life and domestic bliss, and had been steering clear of political statements up until her recent photoshoot with the ultra-conservative Evie Magazine.
Then you’ve got Estee Williams, who’s not shy about where she stands. With almost two million followers watching her TikToks, she’s out there boldly pushing her “feminine NOT feminist” message, questioning whether women should bother with college and how prenups go against the sanctimony of marriage. Same movement, totally different playbooks – one a dreamy homestead (with the occasional revealing collaboration), while the other’s straight-up saying the quiet part out loud.
Tradwives: the complexity of ‘choice’
Despite their different approaches, these women lean on the same response to backlash- ‘we are not political, we are not pushing our views, we are merely showcasing our lives.’ Williams even goes so far as to claim, “‘we are not trying to take away what women fought for… we just believe our purpose is to be homemakers who submit to our husbands.” She wraps her political statements up with the neat little bow of ‘personal choice.’
Yet, psychologist Mark Travers isn’t buying it. He points out that casually dismissing a 50 years gender equality battle with a simple “not for me” tagline, has impact. One he equates to the textbook social media strategy – of using seemingly harmless content to spread more extreme messages.
However, regardless of their political or feminist leanings, the reality is that women from all walks of life are falling down this rabbit hole of scrolling hours of content of perfectly filtered domestic bliss. And there’s a wild irony here – these tradwives are using their hard-won freedom of choice to promote a lifestyle that back in the day, gave women little choice at all.
While we’ve spent countless hours dissecting their stories – from the infamous LA Times exposé on Neelman’s life, to questioning the misogynistic undertones at play, maybe we are missing the real story here. The issue isn’t just about what these tradwives are advocating for or not. It is why this carefully curated vision of domestic bliss has millions of modern women hitting ‘follow’?
Tradwives: The psychology behind the appeal
The appeal isn’t necessarily about rejecting gender progress or historical nostalgia. It’s about something more immediate- the crushing weight on women of trying to “have it all.” As the motherhood penalty continues to widen and workplace support for parents remains stuck in the past, these softly lit morning routines and elaborate meal prep videos aren’t really selling domesticity— they’re selling an escape.
As Reshma Saujani puts it, “we are asking women to function in a workplace built for men with wives at home while still carrying all the burdens of care at home. The system isn’t broken. It was built this way.” Young women today juggle building careers, maintaining relationships, staying fit, and remaining perpetually available online. As millions of these women scroll through endless hours of perfectly curated domesticity, a pressing question emerges- is tradwife content just another form of social media brainrot? Or does this appeal lying in a seductive fantasy of opting out of the modern rat race?
Tradwives: The business model
This fantasy of simplification resonates particularly strongly with millennials and Gen Z. These are generations raised on “girlboss” empowerment and hustle culture, only to face stagnating wages and increasingly blurred work-life boundaries. While successful tradwife content creators run lucrative digital businesses monetizing their image of domesticity, the lifestyle they promote is economically out of reach for most women today. Unlike the 1950s and 60s when a single income could support a middle-class family, the modern cost of living crisis means most households require two incomes just to get by. The irony is sharp. These influencers are selling an unattainable domestic fantasy while simultaneously mastering the very capitalist systems they claim to reject.
Tradwives: The global impacts beyond the filter
While we may reduce its popularity to generational disillusionment with burnout culture, this calculated “traditional values” performance extends far beyond pretty Instagram filters and viral TikToks. As journalist Olivia Giovetti points out in her analysis for Concern USA, there’s a darker side to this seemingly harmless American cultural trend. The glamorization of female submission and domestic “surrender” can reinforce harmful gender norms in societies where women lack basic legal protections, education, or financial independence.
As our daily news feed includes events like women losing the fundamental right to even speak in public in Afghanistan, and we face the ongoing threat to our own reproductive rights here at home, it also demonstrates a stark contrast at play. The reality is western tradwives are afforded this choice. They make it from positions of privilege, able to opt in or out of traditional roles thanks to the very freedoms they appear to reject. A far cry from the millions of women worldwide who remain trapped by patriarchal structures without any choice at all.
Tradwives: The future of this trend
This phenomenon also reveals something more profound about our relationship with social media. In an era of authentic content and BeReal moments, tradwife aesthetics embrace obvious artifice. The filters are visible, and the staging is deliberate. Like the glossy women’s magazines of decades past that sold impossible standards of domestic perfection, these accounts offer a the digital version of the same fantasy. It’s performance art for an audience that understands the game but wants to play along anyway.
What’s next for this curious corner of the internet that is tradwifery? As with any of these media trends, there is of course the risk of oversaturation. Yet the underlying anxieties driving this trend, rooted in a sense of burnout, likely isn’t going anywhere. So perhaps the real story here is not about gender roles or domestic skills, or women’s choice vs. women’s choice – but about how social media continues to evolve as a space where we collectively process our contemporary anxieties through carefully constructed fantasies. What we need to pay closer attention to is how these curated displays of domestic perfection can weigh on our mental health as we measure our own realities against often impossible ideals. And while we scroll through feeds of homemade cereal and hand-calligraphed lunch notes, do we risk losing sight of the deeper systemic barriers that make the notion that women can “have it all” so frustratingly hollow.