Meet the Uberwench, the Hot Chick, and the Troll, just three of the lovely ladies from the online world of trad wives. Beyond the grifts and lifestyle porn, there is an objective truth to trad, perverted through the algorithm though it may be: most women want meaningful work, family, and a home.
After a motorcycle crash in 1966, Bob Dylan canceled the remainder of a tour, and according to legend, went into seclusion for almost seven years. In actuality, that "seclusion" amounted to moving upstate to the small town of Woodstock, New York, not touring, doing very little press (although he did find time to let his home be photographed for a feature in The Saturday Evening Post), and basically just being a work-at-home dad. He also recorded five albums. Career as a famous musician aside, why did anyone think Bob Dylan's quiet, domestic Woodstock years were so remarkable? Because he's Bob Dylan.
Much like a "recluse," sometimes a "tradwife" is just someone living a very conventional life. It's only eccentric when there's an audience.
For the uninitiated, the term "trad" (short for "traditional") emerged from the alt-right internet culture wars to name and valorize an ostensibly familiar, wholesome nuclear family arrangement that its proponents believe hearkens back to better days—when men went to work and women kept a home and cared for the children. The children are essential here: in the trad imaginary, all wives are also moms, and the ones that aren't are presumed to be "trying." "Tradwife" may have been coined by millennial NEETs, but it's women who actually created the sprawling world.
Most of the big accounts aren't really that politically or socially didactic, and the ones that are seem to message some fairly idiosyncratic ideas, usually in passing. Whether it's "I cured my chronic Lyme with a vegan diet" or "I cured my long Covid with a beef and butter diet," it's usually "I" statements, very little "you should." When they do make a prescription, it's cheeky and meme-ified enough to indicate that they are not sermonizing so much as innocuously participating in the discourse. "Here's your sign to start raising pygmy goats," or "don't start drinking Black Cohosh tea (unless you want balanced hormones and perfect skin)!" The words themselves are beside the point, which is why they tend to favor brief, image-heavy, language-light videos over print, podcasts, or extended Vlogs. Trad just doesn't really lend itself to how-to or long-form.
What's the difference between a homemaker and a tradwife? Homemakers make homes; tradwives make content. Or, to put it another way, yes, a tradwife is a housewife, but she also plays one on TV. Work determines who is a housewife; the Internet decides who's a tradwife. Other than those somewhat flexible guidelines, there's really nothing else tradwives need to have in common to receive the label.
