TRADWIFE content is DESTROYING young Women—Here is Why

[00:00:00]This cooking and cleaning thing isn't bad. Like, I just don't understand why we wanted to work.

[00:00:04]>> Cut this [ __ ] out. You are working. This framing that there are women who work and there are women who don't work because men have gifted them the opportunity to stay home and cook and clean for them. You're both working. It is fine to want to stay home and do those things, but that is not a gift of no labor. You are both working and when you're doing it exclusively in the home, you're working with no rights, no protection, no safety net. You're providing services that if you weren't around that man would have to pay multiple to get cuz it's work. It's valuable work. But your job security in doing that is entirely contingent on that man deciding to keep you around. As your youth and your beauty, two things that are very protective of that job security to a certain point, start to fade. Just because it feels fulfilling and free to not go to work every day does not mean you are free. All the comments on this video are like, "This is feminism. Making a choice of the life you want to live is feminism." No.

[00:00:57]Feminism is collective liberation for all women. Feminism is women having the resources to not have to depend on men.

[00:01:04]Feminism is freedom from oppression and freedom from oppression is having choices. Without money coming in that is yours, if that relationship ends, your job ends. You'll have no money, you'll have no resume, you'll have no references, no roof over your head, no unemployment check. You will have no choices but to find another man to support you. You need to make this man be paying you for the services you're providing as if you had a real job so that if that marriage ends, you have something to fall back on. Say if I forgo working outside of the home to stay home and take care of this family, I get this percent of everything if we break up. If he says no to some type of agreement like that, then him allowing you to not work is not about letting you have the life that you've always dreamed of. It's about making you dependent on him and exploiting your labor. I'm rewatching Mad Men right now and I just got to the point where Betty wants to divorce Don cuz he's been lying and cheating and gaslighting her. And she's been a homemaker for their two kids for 10 years. She's also been exploiting the labor of black women to help her with that, but she has had no work and no money of her own. She goes to a lawyer and she's like, "You know, what can I do?" And he's like, "You should stay married. You'll get no money. He'll probably get the kids cuz he has all of the resources." And she cannot leave that marriage until she has another man lined up that is willing to fully support her. And she was a rich woman.

[00:02:16]Her husband was worth millions of dollars, but none of it was hers. And that's the part that you don't see with all these tradwife tradwife light videos. It looks lovely and empowering and free to not be some loser feminist who has to go to work until their man changes their mind. Or until you change your mind. Like, "Oh my god." And then you will have nothing. He will have all the money you allowed him to make in his career, and he'll get everything he needs from the next woman in line itching to take your place because she was brainwashed by tradwife [ __ ] on the internet.

[00:02:44]>> Where are they hiding the 47-year-old tradwives?

[00:02:47]That's what I want to know. That's what I think about every time I see one of these videos from like a 19- or 20-year-old um talking about having no job and no degree and she loves it and it's amazing. Where are the tradwives that are my age, that are 47, that are 50? Why are they not out there espousing um how amazing this this lifestyle is?

[00:03:05]I think we know. I think other women my age probably know because we have been on this earth long enough to see what happens when you tie yourself for life to an ultra-conservative ultra-misogynist movement. It does not end well. You end up destitute and divorced um because you had no financial security, you had no job history, um or you end up with a life that is not particularly appealing to young women on Instagram and um TikTok and and Pinterest. And I realize that that sounds mean and maybe it is mean, but I'm just trying to be realistic here. Like, there is a reason that conservatives are asking 19- and 20-year-olds to recruit other young women. They know if they put a video out with like the average middle-aged tradwife and showed what her life looks like day to day, what she gave up her her rights for, what she gave up her freedom for. I do not think that most young women in this country would be so eager to sign up.

[00:04:02]>> I still don't understand why women who have very conservative values to the point where they don't want women to have the 19th Amendment, which is the right to vote, or have rights over their own bodies, um why they have opinions. Like why are you on Tik Tok posting your opinion?

[00:04:16]Like why isn't your husband posting your opinion for you? Like I just don't understand because why aren't you like sticking to what you stand for? Like you're on social media right now having an opinion.

[00:04:29]Like that's you're not sticking to what you stand for. I truly hate to break the bad news to all the super conservative women out there, but if you're on social media right now, you're a feminist. Like you have feminist values. Sorry. Posting anywhere on social media, you have feminist values because feminism fought for these things for you. I don't know if these women aren't educated enough or something, but you're literally being a hypocrite by coming on social media and stating your opinion. No, but I actually just want to point out how these uh women actually have feminist values and they don't even really know or recognize it. Being able to be a woman and have an opinion online is already a form of feminism. And if you don't believe in that, then just don't post your opinion online. Have your husband do it for you or something.

[00:05:11]>> Where are they hiding the 47-year-old tradwives?

[00:05:14]>> In the ground.

[00:05:16]At the bottoms of lakes and rivers and seas, in burnt-out houses and cars, in apparent accidents with firearms or machinery or vehicles, domestic disputes and family tragedies. I've seen some speculation on here about what you do if you were turned out of the house with no place to live, no income, and a bunch of kids to take care of. That is the happy outcome. If that happens to you, you should celebrate. So this is one of my peeves with all of this masculinity versus femininity divine masculine versus divine feminine bio essentialist nonsense results in us seeing each other as incomprehensible aliens that we can only kind of figure out through all sorts of sneaky little tests and psychological games. Well, if we were to understand that we are merely 8 billion flavors of the same species, we may start to understand that if you want a guy to be taller than you so you can look up to him, you're likely going to find a guy who wants you to be shorter so that he can look down on you. If you look for a guy who is a provider because you want him to give stuff to you, you're unlikely to find a guy who enjoys the fact that you don't have anything and that he can decide whether to give you things or not. If you are purposely looking for a relationship based on a power imbalance and you are willingly entering that relationship as the submissive party, you are going to find lots of guys who love relationships based on a power imbalance and love entering those relationships as the dominant party. And what is the picture that emerges from those characteristics? It's a picture of someone who loves coercive control.

[00:06:57]Femicide is called the most predictable crime of all because all of those abusive relationships based on coercive control only get worse and they only end one way. Now, we are still in the early stages of taking this seriously and gathering data. But what we do see is that femicide happens in the younger age categories. If you marry at 18 as these tradwife influencers proudly claim, half of your life is already over. But I can change him. No, you can't because he does not want to. And you purposely selected him to be higher than you, remember? He's not going to be changed by you. In fact, I'll go one step further and say you are changing him but for the worse. Every time you comply, there is more space for him to become more controlling and coercive. Every time you feel that the relationship is getting better, he feels like he actually can get whatever he wants.

[00:07:53]Abusive relationships are always escalating. It might be too slow for you to notice, but it is happening. The periods that you consider happier are just there so that you won't leave and they can continue their coercive control. But I can appease him. No, you can't. Because what coercively controlling people want is impossible.

[00:08:14]They want to always override the other person's free will. Well, if they want that, then why don't they get a mannequin or a doll? Well, they want you to have free will so that they can deny you that free will. They want you to be a person, but they want you to live as if you are not a person. That is never going to happen because that is not possible. So, in the end, they will always be disappointed and they will always bury you. And then they start the next cycle with somebody else. Now, there's one more really important point to make here.

[00:08:46]All of the horrible things that he is going to do to you, he is going to do to your children as well. Those children did not choose to be there and they can take less damage than you. Anyone trying to convince women to have children with this kind of man is promoting child abuse. There is no such thing as an abusive man being a good father for children. And if you're thinking of all kinds of excuses for him right now, would you be making those same excuses for your best friend's husband? For what he does to her? For what he does to her children? And so, the only way out is up. Increase your own agency, secure your own income, and find a partner with whom you can see eye to eye. If you don't [clears throat] want those horrible things to happen to your child, the first thing you need to do is prevent them from happening to you.

[00:09:39]>> If stay-at-home mom would be such a great role, men would already fight to have it.

[00:09:46]Some men believe that women have similar capabilities and maturity of a child, which honestly is one of the dumbest takes ever.

[00:09:55]They view themselves only compatible with someone they deem as vulnerable and in need of guidance.

[00:10:02]Hello everyone. My name is Anthony. I I'm the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

[00:10:08]>> A common mistake that wives make when it comes to sexual intimacy is taking a very selfish approach to intimacy. It's all about my body, my choice. Can only get some if I'm in the mood, and if I'm not in the mood, don't look at me, don't touch me. This is so problematic in marriages because a lot of women thinks that it gives them the license to reject and hurt their husbands, to turn down their husband's advances.

[00:10:29]>> I think what's selfish is thinking that marriage entitles you to someone else's body whenever you want it. What's selfish is expecting access to another human being even when they're emotionally drained, mentally exhausted, or just not in the mood. What's selfish is trying to turn the idea of intimacy into obligation. Let me make this clear.

[00:10:49]Marriage is not a contract of permanent consent. You don't get to cash in sex like it's marital debt. The idea that a woman is hurting her husband by honoring her boundaries is not marriage advice, it's manipulation. No one is entitled to intimacy, not husbands, not wives, not anyone. Real, genuine intimacy comes from mutual respect, communication, and yes, consent every single time. If this is what Christianity is promoting, marital repackaged as submission, count me all the way out.

[00:11:22]>> This morning I asked my toddlers what they wanted for breakfast, and they both said cereal. So, cereal it was, and we got started right away.

[00:11:28]>> Have you ever asked yourself why it is that tradwives and other conservative female influencers who promote traditional gender roles have all the time in the world to make cereal from scratch, but somehow never seem to record themselves doing essential domestic labor like vacuuming, trying to get a particularly nasty stain out of a shirt, or scrubbing a toilet. When they are performing labor in these videos, it's always something that strictly speaking is unnecessary, and they are doing it the hardest way possible. Because the answer is that it is for show. It is all a performance. In his remarkably prescient 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen coined the terms conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure, suggesting that those with wealth and power no longer having any economic production to contribute themselves, instead contribute to the production and consumption of leisure. And those consumption practices, those leisure activities, are conspicuous precisely because that is how the leisure class signals their difference from the working class, signals their exceptionality, and their superiority.

[00:12:34]They're not better than us because they can make their children cereal from scratch. They're better than us because they are so wealthy and well-off that they have nothing more important to worry about. And if we were to ever see tradwives perform essential productive domestic labor, or see their husbands perform any domestic labor at all, that would in fact mark them as failures as tradwives. As Veblen wrote in 1899, again he could have written it yesterday, "Application of productive labor is a mark of poverty and subjection. It becomes inconsistent with a reputable standing in the community."

[00:13:08]Because these videos are not instructional, they are maybe inspirational, but they are always performative. This is not real labor, this is symbolic labor. It is nothing more than social signaling that this woman and her family belong to the leisure class. And it is also how she builds and signals her value if you are the sort of person who operates within an exchange economy that assigns high and low value to human beings. Because her value to her husband is not in her ability to care for the home or care for the children, right? Anyone who's able to engage in this level of conspicuous leisure has somebody that they are paying to do all of those things. No, her value is instead in her ability to perform the role of trophy wife and to be the ultimate realization and personification of her husband's socioeconomic prowess.

[00:13:57]Because tradwives are conspicuous consumers, yes, but it is the audience's consumption of tradwives that truly makes them valuable to their husbands.

[00:14:06]>> And it never bothered me once that my financial security was dependent on that man being love with me. I never realized that him liking me or not liking me or finding me sexy or attractive or interesting determined whether or not my children could eat, whether or not I could buy myself a [ __ ] >> That was a former tradwife who was talking about how her whole financial livelihood and her life in general was dependent on her husband. And how that all fell apart when he decided to divorce her.

[00:14:40]Because she had not gone to college. She didn't have anything in her name. She didn't have her own bank account. She didn't have her own checking account.

[00:14:47]She didn't have any um business stuff on her resume that she could utilize to get a job when he decided to leave. And I'm seeing more and more and more tradwives coming out and talking about this very thing that they did it.

[00:15:02]They were in it for the long haul. They birthed four, five, six kids for that man to decide one day he was going to up and leave. Because like she said, he didn't love her anymore. He didn't find her attractive anymore. There wasn't anything there anymore. So he held all the financial power and decided to leave and he took that with him, and he took that away. Nobody plans on getting divorced when they get married, but you have to cover your own ass. You have to look out for you because nobody else will. So, if you're not married yet, and you have an idea that you want to stay at home and raise children, wonderful.

[00:15:38]Get a pre-nup. Put it in there that you are to be paid X amount of money a month or a year, like a salaried employee. You get benefits. You get 401k. You get retirement. So, that you at least have something to fall back on if you don't have any time while you're raising children to do a side hustle, to work, to bring in your own income. Or even make sure you have your own bank account where you're taking out money to put aside for you in the off case that something like this were to happen. It is never a safe situation for women to be solely financially dependent on another human being in their life. But especially a man who can change his mind at the drop of a hat and take everything out from under you and take everything away.

[00:16:26]>> We're talking about tradwives again today, and oh my god, do I have a story for you. TikTok ruined my husband of 12 years. Now, he wants a tradwife, and we're getting divorced. I'm going to go through and summarize the article.

[00:16:36]Basically, that like they got married, they were never a traditional couple, they both worked, they both had the same hours at work, and all of a sudden he started watching tradwife content and idolizing a specific content creator, and started making like mean, nasty, comparative comments to her, and talking about how now he wants a submissive tradwife. Even though she said she never wanted to be a homemaker or stay-at-home mom, and they had been living 12 years of their marriage with a very, very equal dynamic, and all of a sudden he's becomes verbally abusive. He says he wants a submissive wife, that he deserves better, and yada yada yada. He ends up contacting other women, having emotional affairs, and now they're getting divorced, quote unquote, because he deserves better.

[00:17:15]Now, as someone who does have like a semi-50s aesthetic and is a stay-at-home mom, I often get lumped into this idea of being a tradwife. But, I want to start off by saying there's nothing wrong with having traditional gender roles as long as it's something as the woman you want to participate in and you feel safe and supported in doing so.

[00:17:32]Same thing with dressing modestly. I don't think there's a problem with a woman choosing to dress modestly or a woman choosing to stay home with her children because that's how she feels the most fulfilled. I think the problem comes in when that's the type of woman a man is searching for because usually they're doing that to search for somebody who they can be dominant over.

[00:17:51]And tradwife content can kind of lean into the fantasies of men like this, these men who are wishing to have this submissive dominant role within their marriages. And what you see online absolutely has an element of fantasy and cosplay that gets lost in the social media literacy of some of these viewers.

[00:18:11]That is one of the reasons I take a lot of issue with tradwife creators on TikTok who talk about this being the idealized and natural role of a woman.

[00:18:22]Because although that might be right for you, making that a broad generalized statement can do some real harm to actual women and actual marriages like in that article.

[00:18:33]>> The reason so many women are drawn to becoming tradwives is because they don't want to take responsibility for their own freedom. And as someone who's taught college feminist philosophy for many years, I can see this reflected in Simone de Beauvoir's theory where she explains that freedom is something that causes immense anxiety for people. Now, people usually think of freedom as a good thing, and it is a good thing, but it's not an easy thing. And this is Simone de Beauvoir's point. And I see this reflected in this video.

[00:19:01]>> I asked my ex-husband if I could be a stay-at-home wife is because I was lazy, incompetent, and did not want to change.

[00:19:07]Simply wanted him to bear the burden of being an adult so I did not have to. And I suspect for the vast majority of people who want to be stay-at-home wives, stay-at-home girlfriends, I'm not talking about stay-at-home mothers, that's a separate topic. I think their motivations are simply that they do not want to become competent adults within their own right. They just want to be taken care of and baby forever.

[00:19:23]>> And what this woman is saying about why she wanted to be a tradwife makes so much sense to me because Beauvoir says something really similar to which is that becoming an adult requires a level of responsibility in taking account of oneself that is very uncomfortable. And within the system of patriarchy, women don't actually have to do that because they can stay within what Beauvoir calls a more childlike state where they are not afforded agency, but they will be taken care of by a man. At least this is what patriarchy promises that the man is the one who gets to go out and do the work and make money, whereas the woman stays home and does the housework. For Beauvoir, freedom is inherently uncomfortable because it means that you are suddenly responsible for every choice that you make in the world. And I think this is magnified today where we're seeing increasing economic anxieties and financial precarity for so many young people. And so it doesn't surprise me that there are so many young women who are more interested in having a man take care of their needs rather than having to worry about it themselves. But ultimately, this leads to a state of stunted self-development where a person stays within a kind of infantile stage according to Beauvoir.

[00:20:32]They never reach their true potential because they're too nervous and scared to take it up for themselves. In other words, they take the easy way out.

[00:20:40]>> Freedom isn't easy, but denying it is.

[00:20:42]>> I've had plenty of provider men, and let me tell you that [ __ ] is the same as clocking in to a [ __ ] 9-to-5 job. Do not let these women on the internet that are making videos, that are in the comments talking about, "Yeah, my man paid for XYZ and I didn't have to do anything and he bought me a car, and he bought me a house, yada yada yada." A lot of the time, that's the ca- that's the carrot that they're going to dangle in front of you.

[00:21:10]Okay? That is going to be the carrot that they decide to dangle and say, "Oh, well, you know, how are you going to keep up with those payments if I take if I decide that I'm not going to help you anymore?" Oh, some of these men, they'll get you a brand new they'll buy you a brand new house, they'll put it in your name, they'll get you the nice luxury car, and they'll put it in your name, and then they'll leave your ass high and dry. They won't give you an allowance anymore, they won't give you any money.

[00:21:33]So, then here you are, now you're going to be responsible for your 3K a month mortgage. You're going to be responsible for your 1K a month luxury vehicle with your insurance monthly that you're going to have to pay off. Every time I had a provider man, there was this like invisible contract essentially. I'm pretty much using Unpunishable Woman's tagline here, but it really is an invisible contract that you have with these provider men, and it is, "I will give you whatever you want as long as you do what I say, and you do it exactly when I tell you to do it. You have to act a certain way in order for you to um receive these things, or to be able to keep these things, or to be able to feel confident knowing that I will cover these things. And then if you don't do what it is that I want you to do, I will take these things away from you.

[00:22:31]I will make your life harder.

[00:22:33]It's very rare that a man is providing for a woman simply because he likes the woman.

[00:22:40]It's very rare that a man is providing for a woman because he actually wants to help the woman. You have to think in terms of power dynamics. Men are not taught how to be empathetic. Men are not taught how to be nurturing. Women project that ideal onto men, so they correlate providing with empathy. They correlate providing with nurturing and caring. Men correlate providing with control, power, dominance.

[00:23:12]You go to work and you work a 9-5. So, you're trading in your time for your money.

[00:23:20]But, if your employer wants you to get on board with something that they're doing or they want to put you in check, they're going to start bringing you into the office and they're going to start writing you up for just very nonsensical things and they're going to start trying to condition you and groom you to train you to say, "Either you're going to act a certain way or we're threatening you essentially with discipline to fire you if you don't get in line." It is the same exact thing. You don't work a job because the job wants to take care of you.

[00:23:53]You work a job because the person that created the business, the CEO, they want to maintain power and do that through have having employees for them to be able to make money.

[00:24:07]And then in order for them to do that, there is a power dynamic. There is a power dynamic between the CEO and the CEO's employees. Everybody knows that.

[00:24:15]It's the same exact thing. Okay? Having a provider man is just a different type of employment. And I'm not knocking anyone doing it because [ __ ] I used to do it. Okay? I used to do it. But, at least when you work for employment, you have employment with a 9-5, if you have if you have a case with discrimination, you can get a lawyer and file a case for discrimination. You have the EEOC.

[00:24:40]It's really not much you're going to be able to do if your provider man decides to just leave you asked out.

[00:24:47]You have more protections under a company, right? They have to get insurance, they have to get lawyers, they have HR.

[00:24:54]Like they have all of those things.

[00:24:55]That's just something to keep in mind.

[00:24:58]That is the number one reason why I just quit dealing with providers because even though no job is stable, there is a much higher lack of stability when dealing with provider men. It There you just don't have a good foundation with a provider man. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't use the resources while also have having your money. Go on ahead and do that, too, [ __ ] Have your money and take their money, too. But, I think to just get comfortable and to think like, "Oh, this is what I have." A lot of the time you have it until the man decides he doesn't want you to have it anymore, and it's really that simple.

[00:25:34]>> Young women who define themselves as tradwives in the modern hypercapitalism system and cos play little house in the pride in their videos are in for a very big shock.

[00:25:48]If they get ill and these men expect them to do all the child care, cooking, name them.

[00:25:54]Or maybe they grow old, or maybe they lose their libido, or God forbid they are infertile, and their husband becomes interested in someone young and more exciting.

[00:26:06]Imagine investing all your life into the tradwife lifestyle, and then finding your purpose as a working womb is doomed.

[00:26:16]I believe the rejection these ladies face from their men is the reason they all changed their perspective about marriage in the ages of 40.

[00:26:25]And then they realize that their value lies in more than just their reproductive organs.

[00:26:32]Since time immemorial, tradwives who can't conceive meant you might get you might get a sisterwife, or a you would get one of the slaves to it.

[00:26:43]In short, the society has always been is been and will always be brutal to women.

[00:26:52]Tradwives movement is composed of women who drive in a fantasy than the reality of life.

[00:26:59]I am not arguing that they don't exist, but most conservative men who happen to be their husbands are poor or losers who don't have the charisma to have a wife, and if they have one, they don't have enough money to support a stay-at-home wife and kids.

[00:27:19]There are only two groups where tradwives exist.

[00:27:23]One, the upper middle class, where women can stay at home because their husbands have high income, and the poorer couples who hardly make ends meet.

[00:27:35]And it would be a net loss to pay for daycare for their usually multiple kids.

[00:27:42]Tradwives cannot and will never exist in the majority middle-class space.

[00:27:48]It is the glorification of a supposed past time that never really existed.

[00:27:55]Women have always worked even in medieval times, either as farmers, gatherers, workers, name them.

[00:28:03]Even the noble women of the feudal era were accountants and managers.

[00:28:09]On the first On the surface, it all looks not that bad, but in reality, the tradwife ideal and most of the tradwife movement is family associated with white supremacy, religious and social conservatism, and misogyny.

[00:28:28]The tradwife content downplays how much work it takes to be a stay-at-home mother.

[00:28:36]It ignores how many how much many of these tradwife influencers come from money, which allows them to one, not work, and to hire help to do the donkey work tasks of a stay-at-home mother.

[00:28:55]What these tradwives influencers do is performative labor.

[00:29:00]I am for the freedom of choice for all the young ladies out there because that's what feminism advocates.

[00:29:09]If you want to be a tradwife, well and good, but make sure that you have your name on the utilities and the lease.

[00:29:19]Study hard in school and get that job.

[00:29:22]It's okay if you only want to be part-time when your kids are small, but never leave the workforce.

[00:29:29]He may leave you. He may die. Or he might have an early stroke and be unable to work. You don't want to end up poor because of a man.

[00:29:41]Tell me your thoughts in the comments section. So, ama, what I usually say nice to meet you."

[00:29:47]Thank you for watching my videos. Stay alert. Stay focused. Don't fall for the government sayop. Until the next video, thank you for your attention to this matter.