Myth: The tradwife movement empowers women by affirming traditional gender roles

If you’ve been on social media lately, you might have seen some content about the tradwife movement and from tradwives themselves. Popular tradwife accounts post photos and videos of an idealized domestic lifestyle – taking care of children, cooking from scratch, baking bread, and keeping a clean and organized house – often with a feminine aesthetic that harkens back to the 1950s. They make beautiful content that showcases the value of “traditionally” gendered households, where men are the bread-winners and women are the bread-makers. It might be easy to think that this movement is simply about empowering women to return to tradition. But, when you dig deeper, there’s much more to the story. In this episode, we speak with researchers to unpack the tradwife movement, what it does, and who it really benefits.

GATE’s Busted podcast is made possible by generous support from BMO.

Further research:

Bower, L.J. (2024). The thorn in feminism’s side: black feminist reconceptualization and defence of #tradwives and the #tradwife movement. Journal of Gender Studies, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2024.2423198

Proctor, D. (2022). The# tradwife persona and the rise of radicalized white domesticity. Persona Studies 8(2), 7-26. https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.873023567302359

Featured Guests:

Dr. Laura Jane Bower, Lecturer in Criminology, Edinburgh Napier University

Dr. Devin Proctor, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Elon University

Produced by: Carmina Ravanera and Dr. Sonia Kang

Edited by: Ian Gormely