In an era when what it means to be a woman has become more restrictive, the rise in ‘trad-wife’ content on social media is a worrying sign, critic Aimee Walsh argues
What makes a modern woman? This debate has been doing the round since at least the 1950s. There’s a myriad of ways to describe modern femininity. Having a freedom fund to escape an abusive relationship, perhaps. Or expecting the same wage for the same work as a male colleague. Safety and security issues too come to mind, not least the ability to walk alone at night without fear of harm.
Each of these aspirations face outward, to society’s treatment of women and call for the basic rights of living to be met: safety, security, equality. Yet a growing number of women are turning their backs on this. Instead, they are embracing conservative traditional values through TikTok’s so-called “trad-wife” trend by prioritising domesticity.
Cooking and cleaning are the basic components of caring for yourself and others. Pre-first wave feminism, this was what the patriarchal society envisioned for women: apron on, cooking for the family, mopping up after everybody else. All the while being demure, kind, and placid. The epitome of “no thoughts, just vibes”. This, to my mind, is nightmare fuel and – horrifyingly – this feeling is not universal.
Feminist critic Betty Friedan wrote about the particular loneliness and emptiness of the 1950s era housewife in her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. She called it “the problem which has no name.”
She wrote: “Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries… she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – ‘is this all’?” Or in other words: there has to be more to life than folding laundry and serving the man of the house’s desires. And there is.
But the recent trad-wife trend on social media would have you believe otherwise. It would have you salivating over the idea of making a meal totally from scratch – and no cheating with a jar of sauce!
In one video by popular trad-wife influencer Nara Smith (@naraazizasmith), she makes her husband a fizzy drink from its base ingredients caramel sugar and zested lemons, limes, and oranges, when he asks for a Coca Cola. The house is spotless and she is decked out in a sequin covered gown.
Nara says in the video after taking a sip: “It tasted exactly like coke.” You may wonder then: what is the point? The point is this: it fills women’s time by keeping them busy in fulfilling men’s desires.
Somehow, this video alone has amassed 4.7million views, while her Tiktok page has 11.7million followers. According to the Greater London Authority, that is more than the population of London.
The trad-wife trend keeps women from bubbling over with rage about the erosion of our rights here in the UK and across the Atlantic in the USA. Roe vs Wade was repealed in the States in 2022, while just this year the definition of a woman in the UK was ruled by the Supreme Court to be reductive and restrictive.
We are living through a shrinking of women’s rights. Buy the fizzy drink from your local independent shop. Concentrate on what matters: equality and liberty.
However, there are many different stripes to this trend. While Nara’s trad-wife image is glittering, polished, and so very modern, there is another strand which presents a rose-tinted gaze back to the post-war period. Take Alena Kate Pettitt’s website The Darling Academy for example. Pettitt’s brand of tradwife celebrates “homemaking, motherhood, and vintage inspired living.”
In an article on her website, Alena writes: “In a world that glorifies career ambition and independence from men above all else, the presence of a contented housewife can challenge the deeply ingrained belief that a woman’s worth is measured by her pay check, and ability to survive on her own.”
This sentiment is a world away from Friedan’s. As a modern feminist, there is cause for concern here. The issue is not with the individual enacting domesticity online. Each to their own. Individual right to choose is a core tenet of feminism after all.
But what does it say about our current political moment when trad-wife content gains millions of views? To be clear: the trad-wife trend operates by evoking a subdued kind of womanhood that echoes with an era when women did not have equal rights.
In a recent interview with author and cultural critic Sophie Gilbert about her new book Girl on Girl, we discussed this strand of the trad-wife. Gilbert describes this looking back as “weaponised nostalgia” that “really work[s] hard to serve men’s desires.”
This “weaponised nostalgia” is a huge threat to the modern woman. It warps the realities of the past, when women were contained, silenced, and treated as second-class citizens. In response to Friedan’s “problem that has no name”, 2025 calls back that the problem is now not only named, but it is trending, with millions of views under the trad-wife hashtag.