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.”
This is their real fear. And that if women are given a chance to live their life in freedom, the men might actually have to offer something on the relationship table that they might not be able to manage.
I think the “men” here is them specifically because they don’t have confidence in themselves, thus the need for an outside force to determine their status. If you know of the Steven Crowder article on how they got married the “right” way, that’s a great glimpse in to this mindset, especially now that him and his wife are separated. He makes it a point to highlight how they’re so much better than others, that he’s proud to say that, and how he’s writing the article while presumably on his honeymoon. Not even all these tradwife guys want to wait to marriage for sex either, like at least Crowder supposedly followed through with that part of it. I feel like the commodified tradwife brand is sort of just a secular fantasy of what religious traditional marriages would be but without the actually hard things that come with that.
Surely it’s easier to demand a submissive partner who won’t talk back rather than spend time on grooming, personal hygiene, and not being a fucking massively immature man-baby though?
It’s funny cause I grew up where the traditional husband and wife arrangement was what you were expected to perform, and I still have some friends who’ve followed through with it into adulthood. I’m talking 3+ kids, wife might be part time involved with the church, and the husband is just working so much, plus he’s involved in church activities and “leadership” stuff. I’ve basically seen the best cases of this working and worst cases too.
The thing that turned me against this initially, is it just sounded so fucking miserable as the husband, you’re expected to demonstrate leadership in the community, provide for your family, budget your household and wife’s spending, know how to be a handyman around the house, do all the yard work and heavy chores, provide your wife the “tools she needs” ie renovate and get the fancy stuff. You never see your friends and it becomes your whole life, plus you don’t even see your kids as often as you might if you were trading time with a working spouse. Oh and you likely are part of a church men’s group and bible study where you have hosting and leadership tasks, and you are as a group working through problems in marriages and providing support.
That’s not the arrangement these tradwife fetish guys want, they imagine it like the husband is just this individualist dom sex pest and the wife does all the boring stuff so they can go be “men” in a juvenile fantasy way. They don’t realize in these traditional arrangements that actually work, the commitment goes both ways and you are giving up those man fantasies. They don’t think about how you’re involved with a whole community that provides structure to your life.