What is a tradwife? All about the trending lifestyle and why it's so controversial

Social media trends come and go, but few have the same consistent and polarizing influence as the tradwife.

The term has gained a lot of traction on social media in recent months. It's short for “traditional wife,” and in the broadest sense it refers to women who practice traditional gender roles in relationships. But on TikTok and Instagram, the trend is manifested through popular content creators who have built large followings by showcasing life as a housewife, from elaborate homemade meals to 1950s-inspired wardrobes.

In July 2024, Hannah Neeleman, known to over 9 million followers on Instagram as @ballerinafarm, was born in the UK. The Sunday TimesThe article detailed Neeleman's daily life as a mother of eight on a farm in Utah. The article garnered attention from both fans and critics of the often-controversial “traditional wife” lifestyle. Neeleman, in particular, said she doesn't identify with the term, despite the internet labeling her as one of the biggest “traditional wife” influencers.

“We're traditional in the sense that we're male and female,” the content creator said of her relationship with her husband, Daniel. “We have kids, and I feel like we're blazing a lot of trails that no one has been on before, so I'm not sure I identify with being labeled a traditional woman,” she added.

The term has been around since at least 2018, but it continues to evolve, polarize audiences, spark controversy, raise questions, and sometimes serve as a comforting piece of content for people who just really, truly want to know how to make something from scratch.

Here's everything you need to know about the tradwife lifestyle, its massive social media presence, and the underlying controversy surrounding the term.

What is a tradwife?

The term is generally understood to mean a woman who asserts traditional gender norms in a relationship, but there is no clear definition. Essentially, the most basic aspect of a tradwife is domesticity and the maintenance of the traditional roles of housewife (for women) and breadwinner (for men).

However, the lens through which “traditional” gender roles are defined in this context is also different, with some analysts pointing to a trend that clearly emerged in the mid-20th century. mad menSome point to the code of honor, while others notice that influencers like Neeleman exude a 19th century farm wife vibe.

Whatever era the content is supposedly “mimicking,” its essence is generally clear among traditional wives: in 2021, researcher Mariel Cooksey defined “traditional wives” as “part aesthetic, part ideology, a movement that encourages women to embrace feminine traits like chastity and submissiveness, trading in a patriarchal vision of gender norms for feminist empowerment,” according to social justice and research strategy firm Political Research Associates.

Estee Williams, one of the movement's biggest participants and boasting more than 300,000 followers on both TikTok and Instagram, defined the term in 2022 as “a woman who favors traditional or ultra-traditional roles in marriage, including the belief that a woman's place is in the home.”

The origins of the term are unclear, but it can be traced back to an anti-feminist Reddit page called “Red Pill Women,” which was launched in 2013. Guardian. The online community is like a female version of the male-dominated and highly misogynistic Reddit forum, “Red Pill.”

The traditional wife trend eventually spread beyond Reddit, especially on TikTok, where creators like Williams documented their daily lives as housewives.

Why is it trending on social media?

The TikTok hashtag “tradwife” has around 30,000 videos posted to it, and at first glance, the hashtag collection seems like a massive collaboration between thousands of users, featuring lots of flowers, bows in their dresses and hair, and most often standing in front of a kitchen counter or stove, often holding a vacuum cleaner.

While some creators, like Williams, are explicit that the term “tradwife” is part of their identity and content, others aren't, leaving viewers unsure how much of it reflects their real-life values ​​and how much is just for fun.

Nara Smith is perhaps the most famous nontraditional wife, having risen to fame on TikTok for her “from scratch” videos in which viewers watch her make everything from homemade bagels to bubble gum. Like Neeleman, Smith also married young and was pregnant for much of her social media popularity, expecting her third child in April 2024 at age 22.

Many viewers have called Smith a traditional wife influencer, though the model has never claimed the title. Either way, her painstaking homemade cooking continues to fascinate viewers: A recent video documenting her making Coca-Cola from scratch has been viewed more than 32 million times and counting.

Why is this term controversial?

The mainstream “traditional wife” movement has received so much attention in 2020 that one of the movement's early founders, Alena Kate Pettit, was featured on the BBC speaking about her decision to serve her husband as a traditional housewife.

The BBC video was released in January of that year, before many people began spending more time at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns two months later. As a result of the pandemic, many people have become more family-centered and spent more time with their loved ones, but some experts say some people have taken it to an extreme.

“The dark side of the pandemic has been the recycling of this old idea of ​​the 'banana bread tradwife,'” Fair Play author Eve Lotsky told CNBC in April 2024. She added that the decision to become a tradwife is a “huge financial risk” for women.

Other critics point out the problem of glamorizing a time when women became housewives because they didn't have the option to work outside the home, and many worry that those showcasing the traditional wifely lifestyle undermine progress made towards improving women's individual rights and go against gender inequality.

In a video explaining Traditional Wives in 2022, Williams said it's “not a movement, it's not something that anybody is promoting,” and she stressed that it's a personal belief that she and others of her generation “are meant to be housewives.”

“We're not trying to take away what women fought for and won,” she added.