What started out as a BBC joke/skit wherein working women complain about having to work has blossomed into a trend on TikTok called #tradwife. “Trad wife” is slang for traditional wife (i.e., a stay-at-home wife with kids), and the videos are generally of these women going about their day. Many of them are religious. The more theatrical among this set have chosen to go the extra mile (it is TikTok, after all) and actually dress up like 1950s housewives. And it’s making the radical feminists and the wokesters angry.

How dare these women post about being satisfied being wives and mothers? Women fought hard for the right to work and be outside the home. This trend, to feminists, is like a social contagion that needs to be suppressed at all costs.

What happened to women supporting women? Why are they so threatened?

Here are some thoughts.

Trad Wives Are Great!

By this we mean that traditional wives are great, not necessarily the hashtag trend on TikTok (every trend has its wackos). But here in the real world, society needs women who, if they have the means and inclination, are homemakers. We need women who are cooking, cleaning, and raising children. It is dignified good work.

Not all women have this option. It is very hard to survive financially on one income. Some moms are hybrids who stay at home with children but also work. This is also good and necessary.

Not all women have the inclination or desire to marry. Not all wives are called to have children. That is also okay.

What is ridiculous is that instead of respecting the choices these women have made — a good and societally necessary choice — the screaming masses are tearing these women to shreds.

Critiques of the Trend

It is interesting that the mainstream media have been reacting so strongly to this TikTok trend. The usual mudslinging ensued. This trend is racist, sexist, homophobic, and trans/gender-nonconforming-phobic.

It’s racist, you see, because many of the women in these videos are white. It’s also particularly racist because some of these trad wives dress in 1950s clothing — didn’t you know that during the ‘50s there was Jim Crow and segregation?

Honestly, some of these people need to get off their screens and go outside and touch grass. Being traditional doesn’t mean retrograde. These critics are looking for something sinister in something that simply is not.

It also overlooks the fact that there are plenty of women of color who are also traditional wives. We suppose, though, according to the woke, that adhering to and agreeing with an institution such as heteronormative marriage is akin to being a racist, but you’re still going to have to square that circle.

The sexist accusation is baffling. Can women be sexist against themselves? Leftism is so confusing. On the one hand, they tell us if women/girls don’t act girly enough, we must actually be men. Then when women embrace their femininity in a traditional way, they are raked over the coals for not being like men. Honestly, we can’t win. Perhaps that’s the point of this circular illogic.

According to them, trad wives are homophobes, transphobes, and/or nonbinary-phobes because being in a traditional nuclear marriage (one man, one woman) is bad.

Conversely, being in a monogamous traditional marriage is fulfilling a purpose — family and security — and is satisfying to both partners.

The Tell That #Tradwife Is Actually on to Something

The fact that these radical feminists and leftists are reacting so strongly to this TikTok trend is a tell that the trad wives might be on to something.

Perhaps these women looked too happy. Because “traditionalism when it comes to homemaking has a particular magic to it that seems fulfilling,” argues political analyst Brandon Morse. “Men love being breadwinners and having loving, caring wives. Women want to feel safe, provided for, and admired.”

Perhaps these women’s choices threaten the Left because they’re subversive to the woke rhetoric, upholding the institution of marriage and family at the most basic units. Being a wife, mother, and homemaker throws a wrench into the works of this ideological takeover. If a wife is at home carrying out everyday duties, she might notice if something awful comes home from her child’s school (like a pornographic book from the library). She might not be as reliant on convenience items and instead she might garden, bake, create, and sew. She might even be teaching her children to be religious like herself. This, of course, is probably the greatest threat.

Being a religious wife and mother in a committed marriage is now an act of extraordinary courage. Sharing it on TikTok is an act of rebellion to the woke.