Why The TradWife Movement Will Fail | Mary Harrington

Chris and Mary Harrington discuss why the TradWife movement is destined to fail. Why doesn't Mary Harrington believe in standard gender roles? Why does Mary Harrington think TradWives aren't trad enough? What does Mary Harrington believe men really want from a TradWife?

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[antonia]

Trad wife is not a trend. We’ve always been around. The trend is the fact that people are talking about it again. But since the vocation goes against the feminist narrative, it isn’t often depicted in modern television or movies. And when it is, it tends to be shown in a negative light. Something like 30% of wives are homemakers even today. Most of us are just busy, holding up tradition, caring for our families and minding our own business. But I think it’s great that there are women who are proud of what they do, and are outgoing enough to show it on camera. And for what it’s worth out of all the women I know, the homemakers tend to be the happiest. And more importantly have the most stable families.

[terrarium_minded]

It's not a movement. It's a few blondes who figured out a different algorithm niche to get attention. Real trads don't have tiktok

[vryc]

"... everything you do, you do it for the team." THIS, right there is the underlying code that is missing in way too many modern relationships.

[jimjohnson]

Agreed, it will fail. When men say they want a wife with traditional values, we are not saying to dress up in a 1950's dress, listen to Buddy Holly, and bring the paper and slippers when we get off work. That is all meaningless window dressing. What we want is a woman with integrity, a set of morals, and who is willing to work as hard to fulfill her role as wife and mother as the man is willing to fulfill his role as husband and father.

[db]

I don't know how it became the trend that when a man say's he wants a tradwife, women get the idea in their head that they should dress and act like a woman from the 50-60's era or live some colonial lifestyle.

I think most men simply want a woman who prioritizes family over career and is a helpmate rather than a parasite in the relationship.

If women expect the men to earn and provide, all we ask is that you do the daily chores, i.e.. cook, clean, do laundry, organize the household & affection; which may seem like menial tasks but have great importance in maintaining a functioning household.

Again we're not asking for slaves but we don't want leeches either.

[HD-jbju]

The trend will fail as a trend because it's just another thirst trap. Being a loving wife with traditional values isn't something you record for clout

[Ctchll]

What's actually happening right now (and that the media seem reluctant to even discuss) is that a large portion of men are intentionally avoiding long-term relationships and marriage with women who lack traditional qualities. The popular narrative surrounding the "dating crisis" seems to be that women are rejecting a large percentage of men who do not meet women's high standards for attractiveness. This is indeed the case. However, the other side of the coin is that men are also turned off by modern women who are aggressive, contentious, disrespectful, egotistical and promiscuous, and men are now concluding that many women no longer qualify as wife material. It's reaching a point where men and women are no longer aligned in the relationship market.

[joethemig]

"What works best for them"

We'd been told for decades that non-parental childcare was ok, but now we understand it to be deeply deleterious.

It's also insanely dishonest to try and take the tradwife argument and dial it back to its most extreme - aggrarian poverty.

Some progress is good. Not all progress is good.

[TreeTrinity]

Im in my early twenties. I grew up in a community of what would be considered ”trad-wives.” All of my mom’s friends and my friends moms were SAHMs. All of them seemed happily married to middle class husbands and had multiple kids. To this day I have not seen any divorces among them. I just have to say that for those couples who are not performing, the traditional gender rolls work very well in my observations. This wasn’t a cult or a small town. I lived in a city and everyone largely went to different churches. These were just the families my family associated with. All traditional, happy families. That’s what I want to surround myself with kids with.

[annatardlordofderps]

"What do you mean by 'women need to develop a strategy that isnt having it all'?"

To normal people thats called "maturing".

[pperrinuk]

You don't have to 'legislate' for trad wives - you just have to make sure the option is available for those who want it. One mans pay should be enough for a house, car, wife, and kids.

[paulmryglod]

I think that a home with two parents, and nearby extended family, that is able to keep a stable home for the children, where each parent is actively engaged with the children is the optimal structure for raising children. This does include relatives being involved too, as this was the structure going back millenia.
We should, as a society, create incentives to benefit people who live this way, as the next generation will be less violent, have less mental illness, and have a stronger connection to community
We are lucky that today we have so much for so little labor and we need to appreciate this.
My grandparents were pulled from school in the 3rd grade to work the farm, or the whole family may starve in the harsh Canadian winter. It was not too long ago that children needed to work or were put out. We need to appreciate the advantage todays society is capable of providing.

[dk]

Stereotyping the tradwife as a woman who weaves and knits and sits awaiting her husband with a pipe and a hot meal is an obsfucation of what it means to be trad in this day and age. Its not a predefined set of activities but a mindset and a predisposition to live a moral and virtuous life, for both women and men.

[MichaelGeoghegan]

Young people can’t afford to rent let alone buy family housing. We have fundamentally failed as a society.

[AegisRick]

Why are we pretending that being a traditional wife, even in modern times, is some kind of confusing term that's very dynamic between couples? It's very simple actually. Housework, vs breadwinner. Who's staying at home, minding the household and everything within? Who is going off to their job to handle finances? Sure, you can feign ignorance and pretend that those roles are interchangeable, or that both spouses can do either or, but then we aren't being traditional are we? You'd actually be considered very abnormal to the general populace with a male homebody and a female breadwinner. Most males wouldn't want to associate with a man like that, and most women wouldn't be able to maintain this relationship happily for long.

As far as whether or not the "movement" will fail, well, I tend to look at history and actual data. As it turns out the traditional nuclear dynamic of male breadwinner, female homebody is a tale as old as time itself. Biologically wired to be this way even in caveman days for obvious biological reasons and thus why it's been the dynamic regardless of country, culture or creed. It's an unfortunate time we live in where modern women think they are so much better than all the prior women of history, and the declining marriage rates, and exploding divorce rates are proof enough that it's not working.

[billcynic]

I think many of the trad-wife influencers take up such a 50s aesthetic is because that's the only substantive reference they have for a tradwife. Most SAHMs who grew up with more traditional mothers are not social media influencers. I suspect most of the social media influencer trad-wives did not grow up with traditional mothers, realized the modern narrative wasn't working for them, and want a more traditional role. But the only reference point they have is popular culture, and the last time that was portrayed widely and positively was the 1950s. It is, in a sense, a larp, but for many I think it's a larp that wants to be more but is unclear as to how.

[fionacarroll]

I grew up in the late fifties and early sixties. It was a very middle class, catholic upbringing. Very few women worked, only women solicitors, doctors and teachers went to work. The men went out to work and women did everything else. Most of the women couldn't even drive (that did change gradually). A few of the women were happy, most were not. Most of the men either had affairs, beat their wives or did both. The women stayed because they had large families and could not cope without support from their husbands. The men knew they could do exactly what they wanted to and that their wives were completely powerless to stop them.

[randycliff]

This discussion segment, with others like it, are missing details for men needing to step. I'm a grandfather, married 40yrs, that remember our mom being home each day to prepare lunch, maybe through gr.7 or .8. But even before our parents divorced, our father was pretty much only an occasional presence. My conclusion growing up regarding feminism was that it was largely a failure of men not stepping up to lead the household. The reasoning, in part, was other wives who had basically enough money, had reasonable autonomy of the home, had choices for health/exercise opportunities, and occasional social activities, where not looking for another job -- because they already had one which was recognized and mostly fulfilling. It appeared to me that men abusing women, or abusing children, or abusing their authority, were too often the problem -- maybe because they were just selfish, or maybe because they were not trained to lead, or maybe because they became uncoachable -- so much of this is men just not putting in the little extra effort to lead their families.

[agrxdrowflow]

This "trad" thing is cyclical. Every 80 years people tire of the "anything goes" culture and desire a firm foundation.

[Movincool]

Very true. Many women have never held a baby until their first child including my wife. A big problem in our country is the removal of home ed where they used to baby sit, and shop where kids created things.