Media's Moral Panic Over 'Tradwives'

Have you heard about the terrorist group comprising those who hold a 'traditional' view of wives as mothers & homemakers, focusing on raising children. They’re called tradwives. Beware!

Have you heard about the terrorist group comprising those who hold a 'traditional' view of wives as mothers and homemakers – stay home mums, you know, parents. Focusing on raising children. A woman who believes in marriage.

They’re called tradwives. A woman who holds the beliefs that they personally do not lose anything by "choosing" to stay at home and by doing so can support their family needs better – including their children.”

A woman ‘s choice. Pro-choice and all that.

But everybody is concerned about tradwives – even Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call expressed concerns about this terrorist group of women – and a couple of months ago the NZ Herald really panicked about it.

So much so that they even did a podcast on it.

And for some light humour in this episode, we’re gonna to have a listen to a few bits of it.

So the media have been obsessed about the concept of tradwives.

Here’s just a few examples from the past year or two

Stuff - The online trend of 'tradwives' changing the meaning of feminism

Stuff - 'Submissive wives have happy lives': Inside the tradwife movement that wants to turn back time

Woman’s Day - The dark side of trad wives

Radio NZ - What a 'Tradwife' on Married at First Sight tells us about a growing trend

Radio NZ - From Tradwife to 4B: The ways we were told to be a woman in 2024

Radio NZ - The business of tradwives

Radio NZ - The growing tradwife trend

Yes your taxpayer funding is certainly going into a lot of coverage of tradwives on the state broadcaster.

NZ Herald - Top divorce lawyer Deborah Chambers KC on tradwives and the cost of ending a marriage

NZ Herald - With a tradwife in Married at First Sight Australia, a nostalgic vision of womanhood takes centre stage

NZ Herald - A harrowing memoir that tradwife fans need to read

NZ Herald - I swapped my career for life as a traditional wife (for a week)

Even AUT had a special feature on it for their students… What is a ‘tradwife’?

Phew!!

These tradwives are a major threat!

A couple of months ago, this very disturbing article

Rise of ‘tradwife’ movement reflects youth shift to conservative values

Now at the time I did mention the article but I wasn’t aware of the accompanying podcast.

Wanna be happy? Be a conservative

A few years ago, commentators and analysts often raised the idea of a ‘youthquake’ — young, first-time, left-leaning voters coming in and shaking up the political landscape. In 2019, the number of elected officials under 30 doubled in city and district council elections in New Zealand, according to the Guardian. It was after events such as the School Strikes 4 Climate and the rise of politicians including Jacinda Ardern and the US’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But recently, there has been a shift to more conservative views among our youngest voters, a yearning for the “good old days” has seen trends such as “tradwives” and a “return to traditional family values” skyrocket online.

Auckland University of Technology senior lecturer in communication studies, Christina Vogels told The Front Page she’s not surprised, but alarmed.

And the article was filled with phrases such as

“growing trends towards conservative and the faaaaaaaar right…”

“… the ‘tradwife’ movement, which dovetails with the faaaaaaaaar-right women’s movement…”

“she is an ultra tradwife…”

“The only thing that is a concern is what’s happening with the faaaaaaaar-right movement. Because what we’re seeing in America is a new state of political play. This post-democratic America…..”

So as a special treat today, let’s have a listen to a couple of sections of this podcast from the NZ Herald and learn a bit more about this terrorist group of …. er….. tradwives.

So the interviewer starts of by talking about this new trend towards young men becoming more conservative – and is our resident “expert” from AUT surprised?

I'm not surprised, but I am alarmed. I must admit I'm not surprised because there is a famous shift to a more far right etiology through the Western world. And, you know, people are talking about America being the post-democratic state at the moment. So we are seeing a very, very quick shift to the far right

“Faaaaaar right etiology.”
“very, very quick shift to the faaaaar right”
“America is post-democratic.”

Don’t tell our resident expert but the current President was duly elected – democratically. Even CNN admitted that – so it must be true eh.

If Kamala Harris had won, it would be democratic, but because Trump won, it’s post-democratic.

By the way, “etiology” means “the cause, set of causes, or manner of causation of a disease or condition”.

Yes – so conservatives are now a “disease”. 😊

But the real concern is that women have this disease of conservatism…you know, focusing on family life.

What we are seeing at the moment is also being complimented by a rise in young women taking on conservative gender roles. And we see that particularly through the midwife movement, which dovetails with the far right women's movement and simply desires a return to this ultra status feminazi which is completely subservient to men, as well as promoting white male privilege. It's an alarming trend at the moment.

“Faaaaaar right women's movement”
“ultra status femininity”
“white male privilege”

Oh – so it’s only white tradwives? Or tradwives married to white men? Can a non-white woman be a tradwife is she wants to focus on raising her children fulltime?

Anyways, a bit more discussion…

Now remember, if you can mention Nazi or Trump, you get bonus points.

Now you mention the term trad wife, and that's been trending since about 2020. Hey, that's a traditional wife who stays at home while the man goes to work. You see them online making bread from scratch and doting over their kids. I mean, what's going on here, Kristina? Why are we seeing this traditional lifestyle coming back, do you think? I think there are a range of reasons, but I keep on coming back to this idea of ontological security.

A very famous sociologist called Ansley Gittins was coined the term a few decades ago. And what he said was that when time is uncertain, when life seems to be confusing or problematic like it is today, we think about all the things that people are trying to deal with globally. You know, we've got climate emergency, we've got a post-democratic Trump America.

We've got the digital world, which seems to be almost going into a post digital world with artificial intelligence. People are feeling a great sense of unease, which means that they want to return to an ontological security, which is a fancy word for a stable identity. We see this with people entering cults.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, “Ontological security is a stable mental state derived from a sense of continuity in regard to the events in one's life.”

Stable mental state.

Sounds perfect.

Anyway we need to talk about this “baking bread” thingy. (I’m feeling peckish.)

You talked about, you know, the idea of baking bread and mending clothes and tending to children. This is a very confined and simple identity for women to hold. And in a way, I can see why it makes sense. You know, I'm a single mum. I work full time. On any given day, my identity changes, my sense of selfhood changes. And, you know, we talk about this idea of the juggle of motherhood and the modern world. So I think what's happening for trad wives is that all people that are supporting them online is this kind of nostalgic sense of simplicity. The problem is, is when it dovetails with this complete subservience to men and the giving over of things like decision making, financial security, or a right to choose what to do with one's life.

Nostalgic. Simple.

What could be worse!

Now just finally, our resident “expert” is hopeful that we’ll all come out of this nightmare of families focusing on the needs of ….er…. families. And marriage, and other nasty things like that.

Now just a warning - There’s a lot of binary talk about two genders and masculinity and femininity etc. Quite shocking actually.

I am hopeful that we will come out of this. I say that because history tells us that the only thing that is a concern is what's happening with the far right movement. Because what we're seeing in America is as a new state of political play, this post-democratic America, is this something that we haven't seen before and the Western world in this space.

So that in itself is concerning. So to be able to predict as this wave is going to, you know, obviously go down and then we will return to a much more liberal gendered space, I'm not sure, but history tells us that we have to come out of that, that we have to then have the next wave of how we make sense of masculinity and femininity and how should we go about educating our kids on these kind of gender roles, the masculine, the feminine?

Can we find a way to do that without I suppose, ostracizing one gender or the other? I think there are two things there. One is around having conversations about social media and what people are saying on social media. Social media, obviously, in terms of the trad wise movement has been huge. I mean, some of these trade wives have gotten millions and millions of followers.

Yes – millions and millions of followers.

They don’t actually discuss WHY it’s becoming more and more popular. They just panic – and hope that one day very soon, the nightmare will end.

But it’s not just the NZ Herald that’s panicking about this.

In November 2023, Jacinda Ardern and French President Emannuel Macron held the latest meeting of the Christchurch Call in Paris. In the Statement at the end of the Paris meeting, leaders endorsed a number of actions including “counteract ONLINE misogyny and anti LGBTQIA+ hatred as a vector for violent extremism.”

Leaders welcomed the report on Misogynistic Pathways to Radicalisation: Recommended Measures for Platforms to Assess and Mitigate Online Gender-Based Violence which included the following:

Structural gender inequality and gender norms can also lead to internalised misogyny. An extreme example is the emergence of Tradwives as an influential online community, showcasing the reinforcing elements of far-right ideology, Christian Nationalism, white supremacy, and patriarchal gender norms. Tradwives embrace a highly hetero-normative rendition of the ‘wife and mother’ role, in opposition to feminism, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, and gender equality. Researchers highlight that Tradwives “use their presence on social media to offer a powerful female in-group association” and “successfully infiltrated mainstream social media with their anti-globalist, anti-modern approach to life.” While women’s role in violent extremist ideologies and communities varies, research finds that women-only forums have also “served as gendered sites of ideological contestation,” where women are asserting “agency in their everyday practices despite otherwise constraining gendered ideological constructs.”

Golly – they don’t seem to like women, do they. Somebody please call the Disinformation project. Help.

Oh wait. They’ve been shut down – for peddling disinformation.

But – you know, I’ve just got to play this clip from a documentary about disinformation – and featuring the Disinformation Project telling us all that the real risk to the fabric of society is – tradwives.

To the women watching, please note – according to the experts, if you’re a trad wife, white, christian, into cooking with your children, on Instagram or Pinterest, interior design, knitting, children’s clothing, healthy food for children – then you’re being drawn into white nationalist ideas. You are the problem. Have a watch.

That is a classic.

The tradwife movement is making a comeback, because conservative values, getting married, going to church – surprise surprise – makes you happy!

Just one more thing before I go. To all the women watching – adult human female – you’ll appreciate this research.

Conservative women are perceived as both prettier and happier than left-wing women, at least according to artificial intelligence (AI). An AI model gave conservative women high “attractiveness” scores, according to a March study published in the journal Scientific Reports, which is owned by Nature.

“For females (though not males), high attractiveness scores were found among those the model identified as likely to be conservative,” the study said.

“We also found that expressing happiness is associated with conservatism for both genders,” the researchers wrote.

A 2022 survey found that conservative women are much more likely to be “completely satisfied” with their lives than liberal women. About 31% of conservative women ages 18 to 55 are “completely satisfied” with their lives while only 16% of liberal women are, according to the American Family Survey from YouGov and Deseret News. The survey also found that conservative women are 24% more likely to be happy with their family life.

That’s really gonna blow the mind of the Tradwife alarmists.

I’m not sure which is more scary.

Climate alarmism or tradwives.

But why are the left wing media and cultural elite so threatened by women choosing to be full time mothers, to raise their children full-time, for women to be the managers of the home, and to be loving wives to their husbands? To be homemakers.

Shouldn’t women have the right to make a choice? I mean – the mantra is a ‘right to choose’, isn’t it?

Well, not when the decision reflects traditional biblical values of upholding and strengthening the nuclear family in parenting and marriage.

No no no – we can’t have that. That goes against the culture’s promotion of abortion and radical sexuality and gender confusion. That’s what the Christchurch Call admitted was the basis of their opposition.

Ignore them.

If you want to be healthier, happier and have better mental health, become a social conservative.

Better yet – live your life according to biblical morals and values.

Your kids will love you for it!