REPORT

Runaway tradwives

THE TRADWIFE MOVEMENT SET UP AN IDYLL OF MOTHERHOOD AND WIFEDOM: ALL FRESHLY BAKED BREAD AND AND HAPPY HORDES OF CHILDREN. NOW, SOME ARE TRYING TO LEAVE THE LIFESTYLE BEHIND, USING A SOCIAL MEDIA WHISPER NETWORK TO ESCAPE THEIR OPPRESSION

WORDS BY SARAH STANKORB

The tradwives log on to the private video group call from all across America. One folds herself into a corner of her bathroom, claiming a few solitary moments. Another is barely visible, sitting outside a bedroom door in a darkened hallway, waiting out a child who refuses to sleep. They are spread across time zones — as one woman cooks dinner, her phone propped on the counter, earbuds in, multiple kids skittering through the kitchen, another nurses an infant who has just woken up from a nap. Others go on walks to get out of their husband’s earshot. Many hop on while running errands, using the confines of their car as a sanctuary. One woman’s camera is always off; she says she is hiding in the laundry room.

Here, there’s none of the purring servility typical of tradwife content. On live calls, and in video messages they send back and forth throughout the day using the chat app Marco Polo, the women admit feelings of overwhelm that they’ve never told anyone else. Secrecy is paramount. Some husbands monitor their phone calls and text messages, so their wives delete their Marco Polo accounts or chats every day.

Many of the women do not have access to family bank accounts or their own credit history, nor do they have job experience, and some don’t even have driver’s licences. They are supposed to be cheerful exemplars of women’s place inside the patriarchy: submissive wives, serving their husbands and raising children. Meals: cooked from scratch. Single-income budget: managed by thrift and coupons. Except these women are done submitting; they’re done being ‘perfect’ wives. They want out.

Social media abounds with figures like Hannah Neeleman, the Juilliard-trained ballerinaturned-tradwife and mother of eight, who milks cows and sheep on her family’s 133-hectare farm and sells protein powder to her more than 10 million Instagram followers. There’s also platinum blonde Estee Williams, who wears vintage-style dresses and coos about notions of gender roles as old-fashioned as her frocks. And Kelly Havens Stickle, who showcases a rustic ideal as she irons, crafts with her children and labours for God’s kingdom. Such content suggests that with the right approach — submission to one’s husband — and domestic skills, women can fulfil their ‘natural role’ and enjoy a peaceful, happy family life.

What’s less visible behind the highly filtered portrayal of 1950s or prairie-style homesteading is the flipside of the movement — an increasingly vocal ecosystem on Instagram and TikTok of former tradwives who became unhappy with their patriarchal lifestyle and left, and who now use their own experience as a model: they got out, and so can you.