If the average American were asked what they imagine the priorities of the feminist movement are these days, most people would likely cite concerns like “fighting abortion bans” or “getting justice for sexual violence victims” or boring mainstays like “equal pay for equal work.” But if you listen in to the world of right-wing social media influencers, they have a different answer. To them, feminists are single-mindedly obsessed with destroying women who identify as “tradwives.”
These are the fantasies of rich grifter assholes like Steven Crowder. They still pretend it’s the 50’s when most households could function on just one salary. The reality is that 95% of American households can’t survive on a single income. This is not the reality for most couples. These ideas are just as unpopular as abortion bans. They live in this weird bubble where they think women want to return to servitude and have prove they “deserve” a divorce. It’s a fantasy. It’s not going to happen, boys.
The reality of feminism, though, is that if a woman truly desired to be that kind of wife, they’d 100% have that choice. That is kind of the entire point of feminism. If that’s the woman they want to be, then more power to them.
But they also want to be sure women aren’t being coerced, blackmailed, etc., into that subservient position. Because that’s the most important part. It must be her decision.
Its partly a reaction against the financial freedoms women have started to enjoy since they started getting closer to male salaries and a career became a more socially acceptable option for women. In the past if you were a woman you had to marry to get your own place, it was also deeply socially unacceptable for women to remain unmarried into their twenties and thirties, so far more women had to marry men who never really the right choice for them, witness the high divorce rates for the tail end of this group as divorce became easier and more socially acceptable. I would also add its also more socially acceptable for people to be out and in relationships now, rather than marrying a beard or playing full on pretend. This further cuts the pool who needed to marry men rather than wanted to marry men.
Now women can remain single or in more flexible arrangements and a large group of men are now struggling to adapt. Large elements of this group have been targeted by the likes of Crowder for rationalisation and end up on the incel pathway. A trad wife is a fantasy that makes everything easy for this group of men, its going to be attractive to them.
They would hate my household. My wife is much better educated than I am and has always made a lot more money than I do and we have had to go down to a single income so I can help my daughter through online school. We can afford it- just barely, but we can afford it. Total reversal of gender roles.
We’ve done it twice before. Once when we kept her home and did online school during COVID and once from when she was a baby to age three. I was the one staying home with the kid those two times too.
They’d probably want to throw me in prison for that or something.
Yeah, reality ends up like my ex, who wanted a tradwife who also makes the bulk of the money for him to spend.
And no, I knew none of that beforehand.
I think the principle is popular enough - though certainly not for everyone (it’s probably not even close).
The impracticality of surviving on a single income makes the idea laughable, and I wonder how much of its popularity is actually a desire to live a comfy life on a single income - maybe a few kids too.
So really, it’s aspirational. Like a hummer in every driveway sort of thing.