No, You Are Not a Tradwife Just Because You Like to Cook or Crochet
Or how Tradwives are masters at weaponising gendered activities for their own agendas
I preserve food, make bread, crochet, and grow vegetables. Does that make me a #tradwife?
No. Of course, it doesn’t.
But these are considered traditional female activities that heavily feature in the disturbingly popular tradwife social media trend. White women who promote traditional gender roles by tending to home, kids, and garden often whilst spouting alt-right, white nationalistic political views.
Make no mistake. Being a tradwife is a political statement. Which means everything they touch is politicised and thus weaponsied.
Including any activity they promote, from baking bread to wearing makeup.
But what if crocheting blankets signifies nothing other than it helps your mental health? What if you want to preserve food because you believe in sustainability, not white supremacy?
The weaponisation of any supposedly gendered activity is a problem because it continues to push damaging narratives.
Like certain activities are inherently male or female.
Like you’re implicitly aligning yourselves with a movement by engaging in said activities.
Tradwives are masters at manipulating narratives like these and that’s exactly what makes them so dangerous.
Tradwives conscript through cooking
One of the cornerstones of Tradwifing — according to new research into the trend — is to establish itself as a legitimate lifestyle. One way to do that is to recruit more women into the movement.
For this, Tradwives make big use of the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline.
The crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline theory suggests that the political left and right are not on a straight line but on a horseshoe. Which means the extremes are much closer in ideology than you think.
Crunchy denotes the stereotypical left-winger making their own granola as well as investing in ideologies like alternative medicine, chemical-free cleaning, homeschooling, and back-to-the-land living.
Sounds a lot like a Tradwife too, does it not?
Underpinning these supposedly left-wing activities are some rather alt-right-like constructs like a distrust of the government, survivalism, and individualism. And whilst not all Tradwives directly align themselves with the alt-right or white supremacy, the lifestyle cozies up rather nicely to the far right of politics.
Or is that the left?
This makes the crunchy left a breeding ground for alt-right recruitment, which is exactly what happens.
This is what makes traditional female activities so dangerous in the hands of a Tradwife.
Whilst you might make your own bread because you don’t believe in pumping your body full of ultra-processed food, now you have to wonder if your desire to make sourdough aligns you with the alt-right.
And makes you a terrible feminist.
Much of this lies in an outdated notion of what feminism is. Tradwifery pushes the narrative that all feminists are angry bra-burning women who don’t wear makeup, shave their legs, or engage in any other “feminine” activities, lest they lose their membership to the feminism club.
The fact that we are even talking about this is a big problem. It means those activities are being weaponised by people who have no business weaponizing anything.
But if there’s one thing Tradwives are good at, it’s spinning yarns to suit their own agendas…
Tradwives are masters at twisting the narrative
Tradwives are great at making you believe it’s feminist to follow them because you are making a choice.
A recent thesis in Tradwife culture by a Doctor of Philosophy at Elon University (one of the top colleges in the US) suggests that:
Many self-identified tradwives use feminist rhetoric to frame the movement as a choice they are making about how to live their own lives as empowered women.
This is exactly what Tradwives will tell you through their beautifully curated social media posts.
Is a big tenet of feminism not to have control and choice over your life, they ask? Does that not include activities like homesteading, gardening, wearing make up, or knitting? Did feminists of yore not die to give you the right to choose your own life path, even if that path is a traditional one?
I’ve been down enough Tradwife rabbit holes on social media to see how these arguments look in action and I see how, if you watch enough of them, they could start to look extremely convincing.
You might not agree with it all but damnit, you agree that you as a woman have a right to choose.
Tradwives are capitalising on what is known as Choice Feminism — the idea that feminism doesn’t (only) mean equality, it means having the right to choose.
It’s a clever tactic. Especially because many female-led activities look like a welcome respite from our busy modern world.
There aren’t many women I know who aren’t exhausted by what they’re expected to take on. Tradwives know this and offer a sugar-coated equivalent.
They ask you:
Wouldn’t you prefer to slow down than be a working mum? Aren’t you tired of trying to have it all? Wouldn’t you prefer to stay at home and engage in some delightfully female activities?
Is that not what feminism is supposed to let you do?
Weaponising traditional female activities is another way Tradwives spin their warped version of reality. One that is binary and unnuanced and says if you bake bread you’re with them.
Except, you’re not.
The real danger doesn’t lie in making jam, it lies in genderising making jam
As I write this article, my husband is in the kitchen making marmalade from a bunch of oranges a friend gave us from her garden the other day.
If he were female, wore a pretty dress and lived in the countryside, he could make a nifty little video and probably get a viral hit.
But he’s male and lives in a one-bedroomed city centre apartment. What he does have to deal with however is the misguided notion that making jam is a female activity.
The manosphere would have a fit if they could see him right now.
This is the biggest problem of all. We still consider certain activities the realm of either males or females.
Knitting, gardening, and baking? That’s for women (85% of food blogs are female-written).
Fixing trucks, fishing, mountain biking? It’s all for men, dude (84% of hobbyist mountain bikers are male).
This is what we are up against. A misguided societal construct that still says women shouldn’t fish and men shouldn’t make jam.
If Tradwives want to make jam, they can go right ahead. But by saying activities like these are only the realm of women, we have a problem that shouldn’t exist in this modern world.
It reminds me of the old meme that went around a few years back:
Activities are the same. You don’t have to own a vagina to enjoy cooking just as much as you don’t need a penis to enjoy mountain biking.
We should be beyond this by now. Whatever Tradwives say.
I’m mad that Tradwives are so manipulative. I’m mad that they are weaponising what should never be weaponised.
I’m mad that it’s working.
They’re right about one thing though. Modern life is too busy. It is overwhelming. It would be nice to have more time to engage in slower activities.
I mean, why do you think the sourdough movement was so popular during Covid?
The answer however does not lie in becoming a submissive housewife. It does not lie in pushing the narrative that certain activities are gendered.
I hate that this is what Tradwives say. I hate the influence they have, especially on younger generations. I hate that they are twisting narratives to suit their own agenda.
What they say is simply not true. You are not more of a woman because you can knit. You are not less of a feminist because you like to cook. That isn’t how this works.
The world is not as binary as Tradwives like to make out. Which means you don’t have to listen to them.
A knitting needle doesn’t have to be a weapon, it can just be a knitting needle. The sooner we truly understand that, the better.
Charlie Brown is a British wine pro and niche-avoidant writer living in Portugal. She writes about everything from food and wine to feminism to cultural commentary. More here.