I open TikTok and see a video of a blonde woman with a 1950s-inspired bob, wearing a floral apron over a vintage blouse. She’s cooking and cleaning while smiling brightly, saying she is proud to “live her truth.” No, this is not a clip from a retro film – it is content from Estee Williams, a 26-year-old from Virginia, with over 200,000 followers on TikTok and 116,000 on Instagram.
Williams is part of a growing online subculture of ‘tradwives,’ short for traditional wives, who celebrate domesticity, submission to their husbands, and a return to traditional family values. Dictionary.com defines the term “tradwife” as “a married woman who chooses to be a homemaker as a primary occupation and adheres to or embodies traditional femininity and female gender roles, often associated with conservative or alt-right political values.”
When discussing her definition of the term, Williams stated in a 2022 TikTok video, “We [tradwives] believe our purpose is to be homemakers.”
The lifestyle blends vintage aesthetics with deeply rooted ideals of gender roles. While Williams and others frame their choices as empowering, critics argue that the tradwife phenomenon is tied to a resurgence of conservative, and in some cases alt-right, politics.
Consider Alena Kate Pettitt, founder of The Darling Academy, a platform dedicated to traditional domesticity. The self-described traditional housewife from the United Kingdom has decorated her Instagram with posts celebrating housewifery, often using hashtags like “#MakeTheHousewifeGreatAgain.”
In an interview with the BBC, Pettit described her routine as “submitting to spoiling her husband like it’s 1959,” emphasizing that she always fixes her clothes and lipstick before he comes home, because “tracksuits and greasy hair” isn’t a good look for wives.
The impact of the tradwife movement is not confined to social media platforms. Junior and political enthusiast Alex Kritzer, commented on the broader cultural implications of this trend for his generation. He said, “I get the appeal of having a stable and monogamous existence, but it’s totally different than subscribing to this 1950s-revivalist stuff.”
The appeal of this traditional lifestyle – part aesthetic, part ideology – has brought figures like Pettitt and Williams into the limelight. Yet, they are far from alone. Hannah Nelleman, known online as “Ballerina Farm,” left a promising career as a Juilliard-trained ballerina to embrace Mormon farm life in Utah with her husband.
Now a mother of eight and a homesteader, Neeleman has amassed 22 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. She rose to fame after a video went viral showing her unboxing a gift from her husband. In the clip, she jokes that she is hoping the gift is tickets to Greece – only to reveal that it is an egg apron, a present she accepts with apparent satisfaction.
Nelleman’s content showcases everything from homemade mustard-making to shepherding her flock, all presented with an air of calm and grace. She even graced the cover of EVIE Magazine, what the New York Times described as a “Cosmopolitan for conservative women.” Neeleman exemplifies a tradwife lifestyle grounded in family-centered values.
However, not everyone views the tradwife trend through rose-colored glasses.
Senior Ella Greenfield, co-leader of GALS, the feminist and women’s rights advocacy group at Masters, said, “I think in a lot of those [tradwife] cases, it’s a bit of internalized misogyny. Of course, you can’t just say, ‘they’re to blame,’ but they’ve been taught this is what they’re supposed to do.” She discussed how the social validation that tradwives receive online, especially from men, reinforces these roles and stimulates a feedback loop perpetuating traditional gender norms.
The tradwife trend began to popularize online in 2020, as the pandemic led people to find solace in domestic routines. Tradwives often draw inspiration from 1950s-era American culture, Christian values, and conservative politics, with some blending choice feminism and neopaganism, a modern spiritual movement inspired by pre-Christian beliefs, into their narratives. Nonetheless, the tradwife movement also reflects a larger-scale cultural and political shift toward conservatism.
Vice President J.D. Vance has popularized the idea of the nuclear family while condemning elements of the sexual revolution and divorce. Interestingly enough, his wife, Usha Vance serves as a counterpoint: a Yale-educated lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk who resigned from her progressive law firm after Vance’s nomination for Vice President.
Kritzer highlighted how he grew up with the ideals of the “nuclear family,” and how in early education children are often taught about traditional family dynamics and what makes a family. “They [nuclear families] probably are the backbone of our society. But it’s not worthy of forcing people into any sort of mold.” He continued, “The whole point of a constitutional system is that you’re not forcing people into that social structure. You’re affording them the kind of freedom to parse it out.”
Many openly express their conservative political beliefs. For example, “Woke up this morning. Baby on my hip. Making some fresh sourdough. My husband is hot. Trump is the president of the U.S. Life is good,” said tradwife Jasmine Dinis in a TikTok video.
Despite criticisms, the tradwife trend continues to dominate Instagram and TikTok feeds. Perhaps it is not about a widespread desire to live this way, but rather the spectacle and aesthetic appeal, much like reality television.
Greenfield noted, “Of course, the tradwife trend doesn’t destroy the feminist movement, but it causes damage by filling a lot of people’s feeds with content that is anti-feminism.”
The allure of the tradwife may not lie in the lifestyle itself but in the fantasy that it represents – a curated, idealized version of domestic bliss that contrasts sharply with the complexities of modern life.
