Are you a Tradwife? Hood investigates this intriguing new phenomenon

The problem with Tradwives? Nothing, says Hood editor Maxine Eggenberger. The real problem is the promotion of submissiveness…

Recently I was asked what the first scary film I watched was. In 2004, on the cusp of turning 15, I had already made my way through the classics – It, Misery, Psycho – as well as genre-defining films Scream and The Blair Witch Project. None of these, however, formed my response. 

“Stepford Wives,” I replied in all seriousness. Today, standing before you as a 30-year-old woman, I’m not ashamed to admit the remake of the 1972 satirical thriller petrified me, and continues to do so. If you’re lucky enough not to have wasted two hours of your life watching this film, let me quickly bring you up to speed.  

Nicole Kidman plays Joanna, a top TV executive who, in the aftermath of a stress-triggered breakdown, moves her family from Manhattan to the upper-class suburb of Stepford in Connecticut. With a veneer that bears a startling resemblance to a dystopian 1950s, Joanna soon discovers that the men are replacing their wives with cupcake-baking, apron-wearing, feather-dusting robots. These wives, as it turns out, were once at the top of their respective fields—neuroscientists, astrophysicists, CEOs. The one thing they all had in common, however? Husbands fed up with living in the shadow of their success. Husbands who would stop at nothing to bend their spouse to their own submissive will.

Now, I love to bake. I also have a collection of cute aprons, mostly from Anthropologie. I also get an excessive amount of happiness from dusting. What I can’t get on board with, however, is submissiveness. And that’s the biggest concern I have around the language surrounding the emerging Tradwife collective—a group of female homemakers who focus on the joys of living your life by way of a “traditional” domestic setting. “Traditional” being where the male goes to work and largely controls the finances of the family. At the same time, the female stays at home and tends to her children, while overseeing the household domestics, such as cooking and cleaning. 

You’ve likely seen interviews with Tradwives in the Daily Mail, The Times, on the BBC, and This Morning over the last few weeks. However, one Tradwife who seems to be leading the charge is Alena Kate Pettitt. Pettitt runs something called the Darling Academy, a newsletter and YouTube channel that “celebrates British etiquette.” It also encourages you to harness “the best of what made Britain great; that time when you could leave your front door open and know that you were safe, and you knew your strangers in the street.” Without a doubt, Pettitt has become a poster wife for the movement, and, like many successful women, she’s using social media to help her reach a broader audience. 

Of course, the entire reason women have fought and continue to fight so arduously is to have the choice to live her life the way she so desires. That’s feminism. So, if you want to be a homemaker, go right ahead. If you’ve set your sights on developing the next tech unicorn, go for it. If, like me, you want to devote your life to keeping print journalism alive (even if the rest of the market trend is in decline), let’s chat. 

My writing of this piece coincided with my rereading Yes Please! by Amy Poehler, in which she devotes an entire chapter to the fact women are allowed to want different things. “Good for her—not for me,” she surmises. And she’s right. We need to put less energy not judging others for the choices they make and instead, channel that energy into something more productive. 

While I’ve come to live by this motto, I struggle to apply it to Pettitt, who, in her own words, said part of her role as a Tradwife is “submitting to and spoiling her husband like it’s 1959.” My problem with that sentence? “Submitting.” And thus, this brings the crescendo of this article. The term “submit” is now laden with sexual connotations (we have E.L. James to thank for that), but, generally speaking, it means to “yield to a superior force or the authority or will of another person.” 

Let’s make one thing crystal clear, to be a homemaker, a stay-at-home-mum, whatever you wish to call it; you do not need to be submissive. You don’t. No person, regardless of their gender, career, age, ethnicity, or social status, should need to sacrifice their own identity to appease that of another. I have friends who have carved incredibly impressive careers, some of whom are willing breadwinners, while others dream of being a stay-at-home mum but, at present, are unable to do so simply because they don’t have the finances to do so. Like any group of women, we each have different wants and desires, but respect and value the choices we each make. However, any pressure to submit, be it at home or in the workplace, is one thing none of us would tolerate, particularly in one another. 

Tradwives are in a very privileged position to even have the option of living in a one-income household, but what of others who don’t have this option? Every couple and family should be able to manage their work and relationship exactly how they want, as long as they can live within their financial means. There is no ideal or perfect configuration for a family. To make this happen, we need governments to set policies that allow options. We need to be supported by parental leave and fair taxes, for example, the same tax breaks for “non traditional” couples, be they married or not, heterosexual or not. What this movement has failed to acknowledge, too, is race. The term Tradwife is particularly controversial because of its associations with the far right, especially in the United States. Still, it seems that the Tradwife we’re discussing seems to be seen in predominantly white households, probably because this demographic is the one with the most privilege and choice. 

Whatever your opinion of Tradwives, raising children, cooking, and cleaning are essential, meaningful jobs that we should treat with respect and consider with equal status to any formal occupation. But submissiveness? That belongs in Stepford.