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Back in 1963, a book changed the world profoundly:
“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question: ‘Is this all?’”
And by giving voice to that question in The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan kick-started the fightback against housewifery.
Half a century later, women’s exodus from the home into the workplace is well advanced. Some three quarters of UK mothers with dependent children now work. But, in its turn, housewifery is now fighting back — complete with its own digital subculture and hashtag. The #tradwife movement rejects Friedan’s call to each housewife to “find herself” via “work of her own”, in favour of staying at home to care for children and the household and, as tradwife Alena Kate Pettitt sets out in articles on her Darling Academy website — submitting to their husband.
A flurry of press articles has seen tradwives accused of being nostalgic, anti-feminist and even alt-right. No one, however, seems to question the notion that they are ‘traditional’. But the problem with the ‘tradwife’ is that this role is not traditional enough. ‘Tradwife’, in fact, is about as ‘trad’ as the ‘paleo diet’ is a return to the eating habits of the Paleolithic.
Paleolithic Age Britain did not contain many avocados, dates or coconuts — to name three anachronistic, imported ‘paleo’ staples. And, for most of human history, none but the very wealthiest households ever contained women who were disengaged from economic life.
The #tradwife division of labour, between a male wage-earner outside the home and a non-earning housewife within it, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Prior to the industrial era, households were conceived of as economies. That is, until very recently it was normal for all members of a household to contribute, according to capacity, to a common enterprise that might include craft, agriculture, animal husbandry and other productive activities as well as the care of the dependent young and very old.
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SubscribeBrilliant piece. I’ve always thought this common idea of the 50s housewife being treated as some universal historical female experience was really unfounded.. I meet so many people who seem to think this is some kind of norm when clearly it isn’t. Of course women got depressed spending most of their time alone with young children.. it’s not because they don’t like spending time with their children, but traditionally women would be working and socialising with other adults at the same time as doing childcare, which ticks all the boxes of a fulfilling life. Even in tribal societies you don’t see women working all alone in a hut with their kids, they are in groups of women chatting and working while older kids help look after younger ones. Communal parenting is the way to go, and projects that allow a combination of childcare and other pursuits.
The suburbs are very empty and lonely places during the day. I can see why a wife would want some interaction other than a courteous ‘hello’ at the grocery store checkout.
I wish I could assign this piece to approximately six tradfriends and several dead popes, as well as to all the dudes who write for OnePeterFive.
I agree with the analysis, but the suggested solutions seems to fall short – where is the husband and extended family in the ‘tradewife’ model? Where is the shared household / family enterprise?
Excellent article! Even more relevant now, four years later. Please write more about this topic, MH! If only you weren’t so prescient–this article would be really hitting the spot if it had only just been posted.