February 13, 2024 • 45 mins
Have you seen trad wife content on social media lately? Bridget joins Sam and ANney over at Stuff Mom Never Told You to break down what's behind it.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Have you
been noticing that treadwife content is everywhere on social media lately?
That is content that glamorizes and romanticizes women doing things
(00:26):
like not working outside of the home or submitting to
a man. I joined my friend Samantha and Annie over
at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you to dig
into what exactly is going on here? Have you seen
this kind of content all over your feeds like I have?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Let me know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm welcome to Stuff. I've never told you a prediction
of iHeart Radio and we are thrilled to once again
be joined for the first time in twenty twenty four
by the well traveled, the well rich bridge It Todd.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I mean not well traveled lately, but maybe over the
course of my lifetime moderately travels.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Although I can't really compete with you, Annie, you really
get around.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Here. Your Instagram's like took you all over the world.
You are traveling, traveling for the podcast world, so I
think you're that's understated.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, I guess, I guess the entire year of twenty
twenty three. Maybe recently it feels like like the last
couple of weeks, I've been traveling from my fridge to
my bed to my couch for sure.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But that's really the extent of it. That's about where
we've been for a while. Yes, so what a journey
it's done.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Like you say, the last couple of weeks twenty twenty three,
that's been our journey backyard, couch bed.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Where else do you need to go?
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Well, we haven't gotten to see you in this virtual way.
We are working on some IRL hangout soon. Heince the
discussion we had about traveling previous tour recording just now.
But how was your Weirdo Christmas? Your New Year's, Bridget Grido.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Christmas was fantastic, as always, Lots of bad movies were watched.
We actually did a special thing to watch horror Christmas movies.
I didn't know there were so many, but like ten
out of ten yes, would recommend.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
New Year's was also fun. I feel like i'm a
little I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
January is such a weird time of year because you
kind of start and You're like, this is going to
be new year, new me, and then by the second
week of January you're like, oh, well, turns out it's
still same old me, and maybe that's okay. Just feels
like a little bit of a slow start. It's been
really cold in DC, snowing. I'm doing dry January, so
I'm sober. I broke from Christmas. I'm tired. Like January
(03:02):
is just a slog.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
January is the hangover month. I mean essentially, whether it's
from like spending too much money, being around too many people,
all of those things just kind of recuperating and it
does as any and I talked about early. I was like,
I feel like January and February ends up being the
longest months of the year. Like we did an episode
and I was like, it's still January. I really thought
we had topped into e least February and we're still
(03:25):
nowhere near. And I'm like, why does it feel like
we're in the middle of the year but we just started.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It is dragging. Maybe it's a sobariety.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I don't know about that life, so yes.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, no, Well, we have done several episodes about how
neither of us are big fans of New Year. So
we're right there with you, cause I feel like it's
so anti colimactic. You're like yes, and then you're like, ah,
this is kind of depressing. You like look back on
your past year and be like I gotta change all this.
And then you're like, well, like can't really right totally.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
That takes money and time, yes, And then.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Once the kind of so you have the holidays and
you're kind of like, oh boy, I could really go
for this being over the holidays end, and then you're like, Okay,
now I'm feeling back to the grind, like holidays are over.
There's just a thing that happens after the holiday wind
down kind of wears off that just is So it's
just such a slog. It's a slog of a month,
(04:26):
I think for everybody. So for folks who are listening
and maybe feel like they're a little off, feeling a
little weird z's, I think we're all in the same boat.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's true. It's also dark and again, as you said, cold,
and who likes the cold. It's not me here in
the South.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I prefer gold to hot. But it is dreary, it's
like a and there's not like anything really coming to
look forward to. I don't look forward to like balent
Time's Day, Like there's no it's just like, okay, I'll
wait a couple months for something sunshine.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Just hold on to Saint Patrick's Day every day.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
When is that?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I don't know, because I'm a huge celebrator of Arbor Day.
Uh well, I have to say, you really came in
swinging with this topic, and I have. I have been
thinking about this because I'm actually not on social media
a lot, but I have seen I feel like I'm
one of the only people I know and this I'm
(05:25):
sure it's not true, but I in my circle that
watches a lot of YouTube and YouTube there's something going
on with YouTube ads that I've been trying to make
into an episode, but I can't quite nail down what
it is. But they've become so gendered in a way
that like isn't new but feels like, wow, we've gone
(05:46):
this far back. But it'll be something like especially around
the holidays, like, well, my wife loves me, so she
got me this thing that she can use to make
my life better, or like it'll be from the white's
perspective and it'll be oh, I've got this because my
husband's been so tired and I can make his life easier.
(06:07):
So it's like gifts that are all about him, but
it's painted as if she wants it too and she
likes it too, and I'm just confused by the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I don't understand. I feel you.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I feel like lately the Internet and social media has
become this weird marriage of gender roles and gendered expectations
and commerce and capitalism all kind of like blended into
one where the only kind of online experience you could
ever really hope to have around that is like buy
this thing for your husband to like be a good wife.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's very weird.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
It's bizarre, like and I've I've had moments where I'm like,
is this generated by AI? There's like the voices are strange,
it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It might be AI.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
It could be like there's one in particular. I'm like,
I need to look into that. I've I want to
investigate what going on here, But yeah, I've just sort
of seen it. And so when I saw this topic,
I was like, oh, maybe bridget can illuminate something that
I'm seeing in my specific space. But from what you're
seeing on social media? So what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So, if you've spent any time at all on social media,
you have probably seen what is called trad wives contact, right,
have you? I guess any you're not really on social media,
but it does sound like you're getting a little of
this on YouTube, Sam, have you encountered any of this
in your time on TikTok so?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, So we've had many conversations on the show about
the crunchy oh Yes wives movement that quickly kind of
devolves into being a trad wife, as well as talking
about religious trauma and the how that plays into the
tradwive culture, as well as a red Pill episode that
we talked about because that actually jumps into tradwives as well.
(07:59):
Of course, white supremacists and white feminist culture also goes
into that. There's so much to this, So definitely had
a little bit of research beforehand, and I definitely get it,
of course because of my for you page fyp any,
just in case you needed to know, it does feed
me the satire of trad wives and or stitching the
(08:21):
problematic things with tradwives. I don't follow any and I
would not recognize any by name necessarily, and I know
you're going to talk a little bit, but like Joe
Piazza actually was on the show and we talked very
briefly with her about some of the things that she
has seen and she is addressed also her because she
was coming around like Halloween after Halloween, and her precious,
(08:42):
amazing costume of playing tradwife as well. But yeah, there's
definitely a lot of content. I get a lot, And
we've talked about the family content stuff, which again aligns
with that when a lot of moms of TikTok use
their family content as moneymakers and to get to get viral.
(09:04):
And then of course the Ruby Frank case, which is,
oh my gosh, Annie, just so you know, just recently
a woman was convicted for child abuse and so much
more after it was released that she was abusing her
kids and she was using that content with somewhat a
business partner to make money off on TikTok and she
(09:24):
was severely abusing her kids.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So horrible, and she's just I think she might have,
like I know, she was in prison or in jail
for a while and then she was released and I
think flipped on her business partner and was like, oh,
she was the mastermind.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yes, they flipped on each other obviously, but it was intense,
and the whole content is about how she is very
cruel to her children and how she punishes them by
not letting them have dinner. Was the beginning of everything.
But this type of content, which you have talked about before,
using children as moneymakers for content creation, but on that
(10:04):
same line with tradwives that have been popping up so
much totally.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So it is interesting that I think that you know,
we're talking about this mix of gender and commerce that
is so ubiquitous on social media, and I think you've
really nailed something that the depiction of motherhood and romantic
partnership that we're shown as women on social media is
highly commercial, Like somebody is probably making money from that
(10:31):
depiction in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So for folks who.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Don't know, trad wives is short for traditional wives, and
it's these content creators who make content about ostensibly about
the bliss that they find in doing traditional domestic labor,
you know, cooking, cleaning, sewing, running a household. So I
should say right off the bat that like, not all
trad wife content is created equal, Some tradwife content creators
(10:56):
just seem to be sort of showcasing their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
We'll talk about some of those.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Others seemed to be more directly and explicitly romanticizing and
advocating for like this bygone time when women were happier
primarily in the home. So I did an interview with
Joe Piazza, who I'm so glad that she stopped over
on y'all's pod too, because she is incredible and hilarious.
She has a podcast called Under the Influence, all about
(11:21):
influencing and women. So Joe actually makes it very clear
that this bygone era where women were so happy to
be staying in the home actually kind of does not exist, right,
It's like a throwback and a romanticization of a time
period that like did not actually really exist for women.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Because truly, can you really.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Romanticize the choices made by white women at a time
when they like could not even own bank accounts, right, Like,
it's a little hard to be like, oh, well, our
grandmothers were just choosing to be in the household because
that was what was better, And it's like, well, she
couldn't have our own money legally, so maybe choice isn't
the right word. So I say white women because I'm
(12:06):
a Black woman and we are explicitly not talking about
Black women like myself. Black women historically pretty much have
always done wage earning work outside of the home. Even
if we wanted to stay in our homes and not
do that, that really wasn't an option for us.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Rose M.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Krider and Diana B. Elliott note in their report called
Historical Changes in Stay at Home Mothers nineteen sixty nine
to two thousand and nine that even black mothers with
young children were in the workforce following World War Two,
when many of their white counterparts had withdrawn from a
labor force, and in places like South Carolina, they even
had laws on the books that were requiring black women
(12:45):
to have consistent employment outside of the home. So I
just wanted to say that because I feel like when
we talk about conversations about who works and who didn't
work and what it's a throwback to you. I just
think it's important to note that we are talking about
like one specific subset of women, not all women. So
I should say I'm not an expert on trad wise.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I did do a lot of reading for this episode.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
However, I do consider myself a bit of an expert
on the Internet and social media, and I think there
are a few key parts of the conversation around trad
wives and that kind of online content that get a
little overlooked that I just want to make sure that
we are all keeping in mind when we're consuming this
content and talking and thinking about this content.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Okay, for listeners maybe like me who have seen some
weird YouTube ads but maybe don't know what is happening
on social media specifically, what kind of content are we
talking about here?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So, as I said, it is content that is like
women baking or sewing. You know, sometimes it's just like
a woman demonstrating what her life is like. So it's
like her with her kids making food, da da da.
But some of that content is a little bit more sinister.
In this kind of treadwive content, women are exublicitly comparing
(14:13):
their lives and their choices to the lives and choices
of other women. I transcribed a TikTok that I think
demonstrates what I am talking about. So this is from
influencer Emily Allison, who describes herself on Instagram as counterculture
thinking child raising. I just want my kids to grow
up in a free country. So I'm going to read
what she says in her TikTok and just kind of
(14:36):
imagine that, like they're sort of cute, smarmy guitar music
playing under this, because that's what the TikTok is like,
and that my narration is synced up to videos of
me wearing prairie dresses and like cooking and playing with
my kids.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Our culture tells women that it's honorable to sacrifice everything
for your job, but it's unfair to sacrific everything for
your family. That it's liberating to be sexually used by
men who are not committed to you, but it's oppressive
to love and respect a man who is. That it's
somehow empowering to rely on the system to educate your kids,
(15:14):
feed your family, and keep you alive, rather than have
the skills to do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I say that culture is full of lies.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So that's just me like reading a word for word
transcript of what this person has to say. First of all,
you might think from that transcript that this person does
not do wage earning work because she is too busy
like focusing on her family. However, according to her Instagram bio.
It says that she is a writer for the far
right website Epoch Times, So she actually does have a job,
(15:44):
but she just wants to let us know that she
has a job in a way that is like different
and better than everybody else who has a job. Like,
I don't know what y'all are doing, but like when
I have a job, it's better. When you have a job,
you are making a mistake and turning your back on
your family.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So you know I'm doing it right, y'all are doing
it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
So I think this content is a good example of
what I'm talking about, right, Like, if Emily is so
content with her with her life, you know, I don't
think that somebody who is super content would feel the
need to really compare their choices and their life to
the choices in life of somebody that they don't even
necessarily know, right, Like, there is something about the content
(16:24):
that I think is meant to enrage, meant to make
people feel a.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Certain kind of way. Do you do you all see this?
Or am I way off basier?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Well, the minute you said that she was for a
writer for the far right news article, I think that
again kind of coming back to what we were talking about
with red pill slash white supremacy. This level of indoctrination
is the Maga world, and uh, I doubt we have
any Magia listeners. But if you're offended, you essentially like
(16:57):
if it sounds offensive, but it's actually true because there's
this whole underlying level of creating more white babies. And
I'm assuming this one woman is a white woman and
in this whole culture of go against the Zeit guys,
which now the Zeit guys is too liberal, which is
that you know, in their in their mind of course,
(17:17):
in this conversation, which is again what we were really
like every time I would go down this rabbit hole
of anything tradwives, anything, crunchy moms situation, it get is
very succinct to this ideal of moms protecting white children
or the white community in itself. In this level of
(17:38):
that has to be also meaning that we're rebellious against
the norm and those are the devils who you know,
this level of conversation, it's like, yeah, this makes perfect sense.
And that guitar playing is you're supposed to think this
is a Midwestern family out in the cornfields in their dresses,
having the perfect little like dinner at the tables, but
(17:59):
that they had obviously garden themselves because they don't trust
the government or the fertilizer, and you know, wore these
clothes that they have made themselves, as well as the
fire that you know, they don't do doctors, none of that.
Like this level of ideal of the perfect life that
kind of also insinuates by the perfect light.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Means you have to be white a thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And something that you picked up on that I really
want to pull out is how so much of this
content also sort of has this almost like faux persecution
angle to it, like they don't want me to be
submissive to my husband, who like, they don't want me
making homemade meals. It's like, who are you talking about
(18:43):
that it's preventing you from doing this.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This is something that I noticed a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It's almost like these people want to be persecuted or
like victimized in some way, and they really they're so
committed to wanting to feel like they're going against the
grain and challenging that they have made that into an
identity and they've kind of like built it up that
everything they do is like being challenged. Everything they do
(19:09):
like they don't want me to grow my own food.
And it's like, who, like, who is preventing you from
doing this if that's what you want to do, right,
I've seen so many people say like make it seem
as though there's some sort of feminist conspiracy to keep
women from staying.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
At home and not doing wage durning work.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And I I mean I would if I could afford
to comfortably do that.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I think I would love to do it, right. I
think a lot of people would love to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But like what people are saying is like, yeah, you
should have the choice to do what do whatever you
want to do. And what they're hearing is like, they're
not letting me stay at home. Where where are these
people who are preventing women from like staying at home
with their families if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
That's called capitalism, babe in it This sucks for everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, we're all we're all dealing with the same suffering.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
But you know, I think that's that conversation again, this
whole like they won't let me do this thing or
they won't let me do that thing. And it's kind
of that conversation you were talking about earlier, where black
women were pretty much excluded from the white feminist movement
because they did not listen to the fact that black
women have been working, women of color have been working
the entirety of their existence from jump because they had
(20:21):
no other choice. That the fact that they want to
go to work and women should be they're not listening
to the other side of what feminism should look like.
And that conversation is that it's the choice. It's the
choice to do what you whether it is to be
a stay at home mom and to have whatever balanced
life that you want. If you agreed upon it and
(20:42):
everything is fair for you too and there's respect, then wonderful.
That's the thing. That's the choice to have. That choice
is the feminist ideal. But yeah, the more I see,
like again with the tradwives, they're going to a nineteen
seventies tactic of the fear mongering of feminism. Right if
(21:03):
they want to take away men, they hate, oh men,
they want to kill men.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
A B.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
The fact that they can't wear You can't wear bras
because if you do, you're not a feminist and you
can't wear like who ever said these things? Who said this?
What is happening, this fear mangery that has come back,
and that they have not only uh taken this on,
they're pushing it so hard that those who always hated
the ideal of something absolutely are gripping to this like, yes,
(21:34):
they are trying to take away these things from me
or make me do these things, and I hate the feminists.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes, it is such a straw man. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And so this actually is one of the three major
points that I want folks to think about and really
know in terms of coming to this content with a
critical eye and with a little bit of media literacy,
is that this kind of content is often specifically engineered
to make us have a big reaction. Right, So, in
the example that we were just talking about, you know
(22:06):
that influencer does not have a huge following.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
She has like twenty k on Instagram and I think
or I forty k on.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
TikTok, which is pretty small in the ecosystem of trad
wife influencers. And so you know, because some of these
people have like millions and millions of followers, So I
suspect the reason that she has to frame her video
in such a smug way where it's like, my choices
are good. Other women's choices not good is because she
(22:32):
is trafficking on our big reaction to get engagement. If
she just said I like to homeschool my kids, I
like to play with my kids, I like to cook
for my husband, I have a relationship where I rest
back to my husband.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Who would care? Nobody would care because it's like, oh,
good for you.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
She has to tweak it to be like I'm doing
it in a good way and everybody else is doing
it wrong intentionally because it gets our blood boiling to
get more engagement, get more views, and to ultimately boost
her profile where it's very clear she wants to have
a big one, right, and so in some ways this
is just a good old fashioned engagement grift where you
say things in a way that is intentionally said to
(23:13):
be a little bit inflammatory to get more engagement.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Right. Gosh, that took me on a rabbit hole of
like a dark time in our company where that was
like you should make people mad, they'll engage with you, like, please,
don't do that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is a bit of a side note, but this
is my new like media literacy battle cry, which is
that we should understand how many places on the Internet
and how many places and influencers and people and content
creators that make up our Internet discourse are doing that.
They are trying to get one over on us because
it is effective. We already know that social media platforms
(23:51):
intentionally boost content that gets a lot of engagement that
makes us angry or gets our hearts racing because it
is better for their platforms. And so the ynamic or
anybody who says something that is inflammatory that gets people
upset that they are rewarded with engagement. That is a
bad system and we need to be looking at it,
like I can't tell you how many stupid TikTok skits
(24:12):
I have gotten sucked into where I'm like, wait a minute,
why do I care?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Like what this fake scenario says.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It's happening like the story time of a woman doing
her makeup telling me a made up story about a
friend that doesn't exist, Like why am I giving this
my attention? And we need to put a wrench in
that entire system, that entire machine that continues to crank
out content like that, because it's not good for us.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
No, and I think a lot of it is so
And I know you're going to talk about this a
little bit, but it's so dishonest and the time it
takes and perhaps the production it takes to just make
these videos. I always kind of laugh when I see
like ring lights in their eyes and it's clearly supposed
to be like, oh I just woke up.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I'm like, no, you did it.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
But you do have another example of somebody who has
a lot of engagement, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And that is Ballerina Farms.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So if you don't know who Ballerina Farms is, her
name is Hannah Neeliemann and she is a follower of
the Church of Latter day Saints Akam Mormon. She married
into the family that owns the airline Jet Blue, So
girl married very well. She is probably not living like
a rural kind of dependent on the land lifestyle. However,
(25:28):
if you looked at her content, you might think like, oh,
she's living a very humble rule existence, because that's what
she wants you to think. She spends a lot of
time on TikTok, cooking with her eight kids on her farm,
and when she's not doing that, she is competing in
beauty pageants. She has almost ten million followers, so a huge,
huge footprint in the landscape. I would say ballerina Farms.
(25:51):
I would describe her as like a source of a
lot of skepticism and frustration. Like she competed in a
beauty pageant just a few days after she gave birth,
for instance, and people were like, you know, like, you're
probably not in your best shape when you just have
given birth. What it like People felt some kind of
(26:11):
way about the fact that she was, you know, competing
in a beauty pageant. But as a recent piece in
Glamour points out, you really would never know that her
content is like controversial or is a source of frustration
or skepticism for people. The piece reads, neely Man has
never wavered. She doesn't publicly address her haters, she doesn't
engage with the discourse, and she doesn't try to clear
(26:33):
the air on, for instance, whether her wealthy father in
law bought her ranch for her family. She just continues
to make bread, post videos of her dancing, and live
her life. She seems to be, at least online, completely
unbothered in content, which of course is its own kind
of privilege when you have eight kids. But on the
other hand, we have no idea what her reality really
looks like, do E, And so she does not have
(26:58):
to engage in kind of rage baiting that somebody who
might be a less successful Tradwives influencer might have to
write like her thing is like I just make my
bread and like smile weird and like pretend to be
living a rural, rustic life even though I'm very wealthy
right right.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
And there's a lot of romanticizing of like that kind
of work and that kind of life that I think
I see happen a lot in general. Conservative movements were like,
let's get back to the land. I'm like, do you
know how to get back to the life?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, I was talking to So my partner grew up
on a farm in rural upstate New York. When I
say a farm, I don't know, Like I'm not a
country girl. So when he was like, oh, I grew
up on a farm. My parents will on a farm.
The first time I went to visit his parents, who
still live on that farm, I was like, oh, I
don't know what I had been envisioning, but like it
(27:55):
is a farm farm, like a real farm. And so
he grew up like tending to animals as part of
his chores, and they would you know, butcher and package steaks,
you know, for it to eat and to sell, so
like a real farm, and it's always so funny to
him and his family. How people online have convinced themselves
that farm life is.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
This like route to a soft, slow life.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That is only true for people who are wealthy, who
are not actually farming as a source of their existence,
as a source of sustenance, as a source of their
financial security. Anybody who actually lives on a farm, a
real farm, where that farm where like you live or die,
or you eat or don't eat based on how that
farm is doing, will tell you that it is a
(28:39):
ton of work. People who have farms are always tired.
Their schedules are wild. Like this idea that that oh,
you know, we're just gonna buy a land and start
a farm, and that that's gonna be an easy, slow life.
Absolutely not. That is just a fiction, a fantasy. Talk
to anybody who's ever done farming.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's not true.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Have they not seen that little house on the prairie.
They're waking up at four am and going to bed
at nine and they're I know' that's my reference, But
no like to know that they actually have to wake
up at the crack of dawn to make sure whether
it's snowing or raining and all of that, to make
sure they have to take care and tend to all
(29:19):
the things, the living things that are on there, including
any crops, and if they have like workers on there.
And I'm assuming, because I don't know anything about this
Ballerina farmer that if they are that wealthy and they
do actually own a farm, that they do higher workers,
and how little she's active on that farm. Maybe I'm
(29:42):
just sadic, you know, speaking up too much, but just
like that doesn't seem like a thing that she would
be doing while she's also posting pretty little pictures of
herself dancing with her kids.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I can confirm that they have like a pretty big staff,
like a pig paid employees who work for them. I
should all say, Like side note, I have heard some
horror stories about what is actually like going down on
that farm. If you were interested, there are reddit rabbit holes,
but like I cannot confirm any of that myself, so
like don't have anything to say about it, but that
(30:14):
is out there about some of the allegations of how
the animals are treated on that farm, But like, do
your own research there because I don't know either way.
But yes, she definitely has paid staff to do the
actual labor, and again, there's something wrong with that. That's like,
if that's how you're gonna do it, but then don't
go on TikTok and make it seem like you are
(30:37):
doing this work yourself and it's actually not that hard
and you actually have a slow life, a soft life,
because that's not true, right, And so I think that's
sort of like my biggest point is that I think
that some of these creators are just not being totally
honest in the way that we understand that most online
content is probably not honest in some way. But there's
(30:57):
something about the like trad Wife's Life, Rustic Vibes content
creators that I think makes it harder to see when
someone is basically lying to you on the Internet about
what their life actually looks like. And so Ballerina Farms
might not have to like Engagement Farm the way that
the other influencer does, but that doesn't mean that she's
(31:18):
being totally honest about what is going down in her
life or that we're getting an honest view of it,
because you know, what do you call somebody who makes
content to make their life look a certain way? Maybe
not totally accurately to sell commercial products a marketer, right,
Like that is marketing. Ballerina Farms, i would argue, is
(31:41):
a business, and her social media stick is just part
of the marketing arm of this business, Like their farm
is a farm where you can buy boxes of meats
from it online, like it is a corporate entity, and
so she is just a like marketing her consumer goods
to try to get us to buy not just the product,
but into the whole lifestyle that her product is kind
(32:04):
of revolves around. And what's also kind of interesting is
there's this creator, Caro Claire Burkie on TikTok who has
really made a thing out of doing some media analysis
around Ballerina Farms as a brand, and she basically is like,
we don't actually know or see the actual real person
behind Ballerina Farms, Hannah. We don't really see a real
(32:28):
view of her life. What we're seeing is the way
that her corporation or her company wants us to see
her for marketing purposes. She compares it to the Kardashians,
who you know, we know have become literal billionaires from
leveraging a highly curated peak into their personal lives to
get us to buy into them as a brand. But
the difference is, she says that the Kardashians are maybe
(32:48):
even more upfront about this dynamic than these trad wife influencers.
I don't think anybody would be like, oh, the Kardashians
are just trying to give us an honest look into
the lives of billionaires, and like they're just being sell off.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I don't think anybody would say that.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Anybody would know like, oh, they want you to buy
the makeup, the lip kit, the skims, the whatever, this
to that, and they're leveraging showing a curated look at
their lives to do that. I think with these trad
wife influencers, they're just not being honest about what the
dynamic is.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
It feels like it's going backwards, gonna because for a
long while, there was a lot of parents who are
truly honest, like this is what it looks like to
get to our videos here where they're doing the video
and doing it behind the scene, and they're being more
open and transparent. It feels like it's going back to
again where Instagram started and everything was so pretty, that
(33:46):
all the pictures were so perfect, and they had to
show the perfect life in order to get the more
ads and more views. So it feels like it's going
backwards again, just like our society in how they are
trying to romanticize, as you were saying, a lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I think that's a really good point, and I do
think that that this has something to do with that.
I think for a while, what popped on social media
when it came to making content about motherhood was authenticity like, oh,
I'm a mess just like you, Like my kids are filthy,
and I'm exhausted, and I haven't washed my hair just
(34:26):
like you. And I think that that authenticity maybe became
leveraged where like that it almost felt like a curated authenticity.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And so I almost.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Wonder if this trad Wives kind of perfection is a
response to this authenticity that kind of typified motherhood content
on the Internet of a certain era. Like if it
was cool to be authentic, then now what's cool is
like being being like isn't my life perfect?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Like we're just coming back around.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Coming back in that circle. And just as a reminder,
with her having that many followers and that many views,
she's making lots of money just off of her tiktoks,
lots of money.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, like that is my thing, there's no shame in it,
but like this is a business. And in my interview
with Joe, she puts it really well that if you're
somebody who is setting up a tripod, setting up lighting,
putting on a face of makeup, putting on a particular outfit,
to film content that you then edit published to millions
of your followers, and have built up a social media
platform that might involve navigating like brand deals or sponsored posts,
(35:31):
you have a job that is employment, that is labor.
So you have a situation where some of these women
are making content about how they do not do wage
earning work, but the strategy that in which they are
doing that is work.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's like a mind.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Like I feel like they forgot the mom blogs, which
was the beginning honestly of all of this and the
way that it was created. It was stay at home
moms trying to figure out how to make money to
help the sists and figuring out this is this is
profitable and has now ventured into this and as where
the blogs were curated in a way that it was
(36:08):
written and entertaining, this is an entertainment on a different
level which is a show? Is a show?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Pretty much? Yeah, Like in some ways this is just like.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Entertainment, Like it's like using curating a version of your
life for entertainment value, right. And I've actually even heard
the theory that at least some of this content is
fetish content, like sexual fetish content that are not actually
meant to be speaking to women at all or saying
anything or making any kind of comment about women and
what we should be doing with our lives or not
(36:39):
doing with our lives. That it's meant to appeal to
horny men and their submissive wife sexual fantasies, and that
these creators have just sort of found a way to
make fetish content in a way that does not trigger
you know, TikTok or whatever's not safe for work content sensors,
and so like, if that's what's going on, like more
power to you, you know, do your thing. But we
(37:01):
need to come at this content with a little bit
of like media literacy and criticism, because people would then
take that content and then use it to make some
kind of a point or a statement or turn it
into a way to understand our own lives.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And it's like, well, why would you be doing that?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
With fetish content, Like, I don't think it's I don't
think it's meant to help you understand how you should
be living your life or making your choices.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, it could be accidentally fetish.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Right, Well, there's a we passed over it. But there
was a note you had in your outline that I
was I thought was interesting was that it's sort of
like Cause playing a certain type of life. Right after
the insurrection happened on January sixth, I read this really
long article about like a lot of people there were
Cause playing, like the idea of Okay, I'm going to
(37:46):
take back our country, and then they get into trouble
and all of a sudden they're in court and they're like,
oh God, Well, like the consequences come and it just
falls apart. So it does have these sort of implications
that I don't think people think about when people watch
that and it gets in their head and they get
this idea of like, oh, I can live that life,
(38:07):
I can live off the land, or I can do
all these things, but the reality is not there, and
it can become a really toxic soup that infects all
of us. And it sounds like, based on my experience,
and what you're saying that we're getting a lot more
of this content right now.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
That is such a good way to put it, and
something that I didn't have. But I just want to
say is that I want to make it clear that
I think that everybody should be able to do what
they want to do. Like my feminism is about letting
people make choices for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
If that choice is to.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like rage bait other women online for their choices, I
don't love that, but you know, in terms of if
you want to stay at home or work.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
That should be your choice.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
However, one thing I will say is that I have
definitely seen an uptick in people giving younger women that
they should just marry and start having kids really young.
And I don't generally get down for one size fits
all advice, but for someone really young to tell them
that they should not know anything about having their own
(39:14):
money or managing their own money, that they should not
try to have any kind of employment history, should this
marriage fall apart, should there something happen to their partner, whatever,
I think that is really dangerous advice. Even if you're
somebody who wants to get married young, wants to have kids, young,
wants to have a submissive traditional marriage. Do all of
those things, but make sure that you know how to
(39:36):
take care of yourself and live your own life, because
nothing in life is guaranteed, Like you could be happily
married forever and get married very young and then have
your partner die unexpectedly or something right. And so I
think that we're giving young women advice based on a
fantasy that does not come.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
To fruition in reality.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And I think you're right, Annie, that we are seeing
more and more of this kind of content. And I
just don't think we can talk about the rise of
this kind of online tradwife content without looking at where
we are as women right now, which is not great.
You know, we've experienced this major rollback of our rights.
The Journal of the American Medical Association actually put out
(40:17):
a report just this week that found that since Roe fell,
rape has led to an estimated fifty eight, nine hundred
and seventy nine pregnancies in states that ban abortion without
exception for rape.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
That is staggering. You know. We also are.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Facing rising costs of things like groceries and housing. Bloomberg
found that on average, US households want to spend an
extra five two hundred dollars this year just to be
able to enjoy the exact same standard of living that
they did last year. Add to that things like climate instability,
political instability, all things that historically women have really for
(40:52):
the burden of. And so I just can't help but
think that we're seeing this rise in content that romanticizes
and glorifies times when women had even less rights than
we do right now is related to what's happening currently,
which brings me to the last thing that I want
people to really keep in mind when they encounter this
content online is that I believe that trad wive content
(41:12):
is responding, albeit oftentimes in a very distorted way, to
very very real issues that we're facing as women. You know,
we're kind of being served a crap sandwich right now
from being honest with you, Like, we don't have paid leave,
we don't have affordable childcare, we don't have any real
social safety net. Women are burdened with more and more
(41:33):
of the labor that it takes to keep a family
stable with very little social or institutional help. And it
just doesn't surprise me that we're seeing this online glorification
of stay at home parenthood in a particular kind of
way right now as a reaction to it. And I
think that something that gets left out of the discourse
is that the reasons that women are staying home are
(41:54):
not necessarily like to deprogram their kids from government instruction
or whatever. The A lot of times it's because childcare
is so f being expensive that it does not make
financial sense to work outside of the home anymore. Or
maybe on the flip side, both parents are working and
they're just like figuring it out and just squeezing by
a lot of people are just doing what they have
(42:16):
to do based on financial circumstances that are not great,
and so that is a very different thing from choosing
to work because feminism and like woke society says that
you have to. It is like some of these creators
are creating a straw man for why women either work
outside of the home or don't, and that's actually not
a reflection of the reality that most parents are facing
(42:38):
right now.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
I mean, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, there
was so many articles about that of like women work
being forced out of the workforce, like all of the
scientific papers from women decreased, And I think it's interesting
a lot of content like this immediately out the gate
feels defensive for whatever lifestyle. And I could see it
being defensive from like women judging you, but you also
(43:00):
see it being maybe trying to find like a reason
that it's okay that you didn't have the choice, So
let me make this look prettier. And I no, I
definitely like it, and this is definitely what I want,
so I can. I think that totally makes sense, Bridget.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And I think people are picking up on it because
women are tired and would just love for someone to
do it, like, yes, you go out and work and
let me just chill here, which is not the truth
that at all, but the way they make it look
like while I sit here with these pretty little kids
and tell them to go take a nap, like which
if you've been any childcare, you know that's not the thing.
(43:35):
And everything's a mess and everything's a disaster, and cooking
is hard, and being a stay at home mom is
a full time job in itself and deserves pay. Which
is the other conversation that they don't want to have
chidwives is that a lot of those stay at home
moms who love it also are like, but we should
be paid. Yeah, absolutely should.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It's labor, I mean absolutely exactly. So I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
I think a lot of these influencers can really over
simplify and glamorize what is ultimately a dynamic that does
not allow for women to make the choices they want
to make.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Because being a stay at.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Home mom because you cannot afford daycare is not the
same thing as choosing it for yourself because it's what
you want to do.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And it's because you can't afford to do it.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I think that ultimately women deserve to have choices,
if you deserve to have better choices to be able
to do what we want to do with our lives.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Yep, women do women?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Women, Yes, agreed, agreed one thousand percent. Well, thanks as always, Bridget. Again,
I feel like we could go on and on and on,
but we will let you go for now. Where can
the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
girls on the internet.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
If you want to hear my full conversation with Joe Piazza,
we put it out as recently. She's hilarious. Definitely recommend
confine me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC or
on TikTok at Bridget mix pods.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
Yes, and hopefully we'll be able to do some ir
L things and maybe we can see some of you
all there, listeners.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Let's hope so TVD stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yes, stay tuned well. Thanks as always, Bridget and listeners.
If you would like to contact us, you can our
email Stephania Mom, stuff atiheartmea dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at most up podcast or on TikTok
which we don't post very often, but we might start
posting more. It's a gram at stuff Mom Never Told You.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
(45:31):
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer and
our contributor Joey.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Stuff Never Told You is production by Heart Radio. For
more podcast or my heart Radio, you can check out
the Heart Radio, a Apple podcast wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
There are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Have you
been noticing that treadwife content is everywhere on social media lately?
That is content that glamorizes and romanticizes women doing things
(00:26):
like not working outside of the home or submitting to
a man. I joined my friend Samantha and Annie over
at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you to dig
into what exactly is going on here? Have you seen
this kind of content all over your feeds like I have?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Let me know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm welcome to Stuff. I've never told you a prediction
of iHeart Radio and we are thrilled to once again
be joined for the first time in twenty twenty four
by the well traveled, the well rich bridge It Todd.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I mean not well traveled lately, but maybe over the
course of my lifetime moderately travels.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Although I can't really compete with you, Annie, you really
get around.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Here. Your Instagram's like took you all over the world.
You are traveling, traveling for the podcast world, so I
think you're that's understated.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, I guess, I guess the entire year of twenty
twenty three. Maybe recently it feels like like the last
couple of weeks, I've been traveling from my fridge to
my bed to my couch for sure.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But that's really the extent of it. That's about where
we've been for a while. Yes, so what a journey
it's done.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Like you say, the last couple of weeks twenty twenty three,
that's been our journey backyard, couch bed.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Where else do you need to go?
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Well, we haven't gotten to see you in this virtual way.
We are working on some IRL hangout soon. Heince the
discussion we had about traveling previous tour recording just now.
But how was your Weirdo Christmas? Your New Year's, Bridget Grido.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Christmas was fantastic, as always, Lots of bad movies were watched.
We actually did a special thing to watch horror Christmas movies.
I didn't know there were so many, but like ten
out of ten yes, would recommend.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
New Year's was also fun. I feel like i'm a
little I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
January is such a weird time of year because you
kind of start and You're like, this is going to
be new year, new me, and then by the second
week of January you're like, oh, well, turns out it's
still same old me, and maybe that's okay. Just feels
like a little bit of a slow start. It's been
really cold in DC, snowing. I'm doing dry January, so
I'm sober. I broke from Christmas. I'm tired. Like January
(03:02):
is just a slog.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
January is the hangover month. I mean essentially, whether it's
from like spending too much money, being around too many people,
all of those things just kind of recuperating and it
does as any and I talked about early. I was like,
I feel like January and February ends up being the
longest months of the year. Like we did an episode
and I was like, it's still January. I really thought
we had topped into e least February and we're still
(03:25):
nowhere near. And I'm like, why does it feel like
we're in the middle of the year but we just started.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It is dragging. Maybe it's a sobariety.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I don't know about that life, so yes.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, no, Well, we have done several episodes about how
neither of us are big fans of New Year. So
we're right there with you, cause I feel like it's
so anti colimactic. You're like yes, and then you're like, ah,
this is kind of depressing. You like look back on
your past year and be like I gotta change all this.
And then you're like, well, like can't really right totally.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
That takes money and time, yes, And then.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Once the kind of so you have the holidays and
you're kind of like, oh boy, I could really go
for this being over the holidays end, and then you're like, Okay,
now I'm feeling back to the grind, like holidays are over.
There's just a thing that happens after the holiday wind
down kind of wears off that just is So it's
just such a slog. It's a slog of a month,
(04:26):
I think for everybody. So for folks who are listening
and maybe feel like they're a little off, feeling a
little weird z's, I think we're all in the same boat.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's true. It's also dark and again, as you said, cold,
and who likes the cold. It's not me here in
the South.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I prefer gold to hot. But it is dreary, it's
like a and there's not like anything really coming to
look forward to. I don't look forward to like balent
Time's Day, Like there's no it's just like, okay, I'll
wait a couple months for something sunshine.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Just hold on to Saint Patrick's Day every day.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
When is that?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I don't know, because I'm a huge celebrator of Arbor Day.
Uh well, I have to say, you really came in
swinging with this topic, and I have. I have been
thinking about this because I'm actually not on social media
a lot, but I have seen I feel like I'm
one of the only people I know and this I'm
(05:25):
sure it's not true, but I in my circle that
watches a lot of YouTube and YouTube there's something going
on with YouTube ads that I've been trying to make
into an episode, but I can't quite nail down what
it is. But they've become so gendered in a way
that like isn't new but feels like, wow, we've gone
(05:46):
this far back. But it'll be something like especially around
the holidays, like, well, my wife loves me, so she
got me this thing that she can use to make
my life better, or like it'll be from the white's
perspective and it'll be oh, I've got this because my
husband's been so tired and I can make his life easier.
(06:07):
So it's like gifts that are all about him, but
it's painted as if she wants it too and she
likes it too, and I'm just confused by the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I don't understand. I feel you.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I feel like lately the Internet and social media has
become this weird marriage of gender roles and gendered expectations
and commerce and capitalism all kind of like blended into
one where the only kind of online experience you could
ever really hope to have around that is like buy
this thing for your husband to like be a good wife.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's very weird.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
It's bizarre, like and I've I've had moments where I'm like,
is this generated by AI? There's like the voices are strange,
it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It might be AI.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
It could be like there's one in particular. I'm like,
I need to look into that. I've I want to
investigate what going on here, But yeah, I've just sort
of seen it. And so when I saw this topic,
I was like, oh, maybe bridget can illuminate something that
I'm seeing in my specific space. But from what you're
seeing on social media? So what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So, if you've spent any time at all on social media,
you have probably seen what is called trad wives contact, right,
have you? I guess any you're not really on social media,
but it does sound like you're getting a little of
this on YouTube, Sam, have you encountered any of this
in your time on TikTok so?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, So we've had many conversations on the show about
the crunchy oh Yes wives movement that quickly kind of
devolves into being a trad wife, as well as talking
about religious trauma and the how that plays into the
tradwive culture, as well as a red Pill episode that
we talked about because that actually jumps into tradwives as well.
(07:59):
Of course, white supremacists and white feminist culture also goes
into that. There's so much to this, So definitely had
a little bit of research beforehand, and I definitely get it,
of course because of my for you page fyp any,
just in case you needed to know, it does feed
me the satire of trad wives and or stitching the
(08:21):
problematic things with tradwives. I don't follow any and I
would not recognize any by name necessarily, and I know
you're going to talk a little bit, but like Joe
Piazza actually was on the show and we talked very
briefly with her about some of the things that she
has seen and she is addressed also her because she
was coming around like Halloween after Halloween, and her precious,
(08:42):
amazing costume of playing tradwife as well. But yeah, there's
definitely a lot of content. I get a lot, And
we've talked about the family content stuff, which again aligns
with that when a lot of moms of TikTok use
their family content as moneymakers and to get to get viral.
(09:04):
And then of course the Ruby Frank case, which is,
oh my gosh, Annie, just so you know, just recently
a woman was convicted for child abuse and so much
more after it was released that she was abusing her
kids and she was using that content with somewhat a
business partner to make money off on TikTok and she
(09:24):
was severely abusing her kids.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So horrible, and she's just I think she might have,
like I know, she was in prison or in jail
for a while and then she was released and I
think flipped on her business partner and was like, oh,
she was the mastermind.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yes, they flipped on each other obviously, but it was intense,
and the whole content is about how she is very
cruel to her children and how she punishes them by
not letting them have dinner. Was the beginning of everything.
But this type of content, which you have talked about before,
using children as moneymakers for content creation, but on that
(10:04):
same line with tradwives that have been popping up so
much totally.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So it is interesting that I think that you know,
we're talking about this mix of gender and commerce that
is so ubiquitous on social media, and I think you've
really nailed something that the depiction of motherhood and romantic
partnership that we're shown as women on social media is
highly commercial, Like somebody is probably making money from that
(10:31):
depiction in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So for folks who.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Don't know, trad wives is short for traditional wives, and
it's these content creators who make content about ostensibly about
the bliss that they find in doing traditional domestic labor,
you know, cooking, cleaning, sewing, running a household. So I
should say right off the bat that like, not all
trad wife content is created equal, Some tradwife content creators
(10:56):
just seem to be sort of showcasing their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
We'll talk about some of those.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Others seemed to be more directly and explicitly romanticizing and
advocating for like this bygone time when women were happier
primarily in the home. So I did an interview with
Joe Piazza, who I'm so glad that she stopped over
on y'all's pod too, because she is incredible and hilarious.
She has a podcast called Under the Influence, all about
(11:21):
influencing and women. So Joe actually makes it very clear
that this bygone era where women were so happy to
be staying in the home actually kind of does not exist, right,
It's like a throwback and a romanticization of a time
period that like did not actually really exist for women.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Because truly, can you really.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Romanticize the choices made by white women at a time
when they like could not even own bank accounts, right, Like,
it's a little hard to be like, oh, well, our
grandmothers were just choosing to be in the household because
that was what was better, And it's like, well, she
couldn't have our own money legally, so maybe choice isn't
the right word. So I say white women because I'm
(12:06):
a Black woman and we are explicitly not talking about
Black women like myself. Black women historically pretty much have
always done wage earning work outside of the home. Even
if we wanted to stay in our homes and not
do that, that really wasn't an option for us.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Rose M.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Krider and Diana B. Elliott note in their report called
Historical Changes in Stay at Home Mothers nineteen sixty nine
to two thousand and nine that even black mothers with
young children were in the workforce following World War Two,
when many of their white counterparts had withdrawn from a
labor force, and in places like South Carolina, they even
had laws on the books that were requiring black women
(12:45):
to have consistent employment outside of the home. So I
just wanted to say that because I feel like when
we talk about conversations about who works and who didn't
work and what it's a throwback to you. I just
think it's important to note that we are talking about
like one specific subset of women, not all women. So
I should say I'm not an expert on trad wise.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I did do a lot of reading for this episode.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
However, I do consider myself a bit of an expert
on the Internet and social media, and I think there
are a few key parts of the conversation around trad
wives and that kind of online content that get a
little overlooked that I just want to make sure that
we are all keeping in mind when we're consuming this
content and talking and thinking about this content.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Okay, for listeners maybe like me who have seen some
weird YouTube ads but maybe don't know what is happening
on social media specifically, what kind of content are we
talking about here?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So, as I said, it is content that is like
women baking or sewing. You know, sometimes it's just like
a woman demonstrating what her life is like. So it's
like her with her kids making food, da da da.
But some of that content is a little bit more sinister.
In this kind of treadwive content, women are exublicitly comparing
(14:13):
their lives and their choices to the lives and choices
of other women. I transcribed a TikTok that I think
demonstrates what I am talking about. So this is from
influencer Emily Allison, who describes herself on Instagram as counterculture
thinking child raising. I just want my kids to grow
up in a free country. So I'm going to read
what she says in her TikTok and just kind of
(14:36):
imagine that, like they're sort of cute, smarmy guitar music
playing under this, because that's what the TikTok is like,
and that my narration is synced up to videos of
me wearing prairie dresses and like cooking and playing with
my kids.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Our culture tells women that it's honorable to sacrifice everything
for your job, but it's unfair to sacrific everything for
your family. That it's liberating to be sexually used by
men who are not committed to you, but it's oppressive
to love and respect a man who is. That it's
somehow empowering to rely on the system to educate your kids,
(15:14):
feed your family, and keep you alive, rather than have
the skills to do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I say that culture is full of lies.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So that's just me like reading a word for word
transcript of what this person has to say. First of all,
you might think from that transcript that this person does
not do wage earning work because she is too busy
like focusing on her family. However, according to her Instagram bio.
It says that she is a writer for the far
right website Epoch Times, So she actually does have a job,
(15:44):
but she just wants to let us know that she
has a job in a way that is like different
and better than everybody else who has a job. Like,
I don't know what y'all are doing, but like when
I have a job, it's better. When you have a job,
you are making a mistake and turning your back on
your family.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So you know I'm doing it right, y'all are doing
it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
So I think this content is a good example of
what I'm talking about, right, Like, if Emily is so
content with her with her life, you know, I don't
think that somebody who is super content would feel the
need to really compare their choices and their life to
the choices in life of somebody that they don't even
necessarily know, right, Like, there is something about the content
(16:24):
that I think is meant to enrage, meant to make
people feel a.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Certain kind of way. Do you do you all see this?
Or am I way off basier?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Well, the minute you said that she was for a
writer for the far right news article, I think that
again kind of coming back to what we were talking about
with red pill slash white supremacy. This level of indoctrination
is the Maga world, and uh, I doubt we have
any Magia listeners. But if you're offended, you essentially like
(16:57):
if it sounds offensive, but it's actually true because there's
this whole underlying level of creating more white babies. And
I'm assuming this one woman is a white woman and
in this whole culture of go against the Zeit guys,
which now the Zeit guys is too liberal, which is
that you know, in their in their mind of course,
(17:17):
in this conversation, which is again what we were really
like every time I would go down this rabbit hole
of anything tradwives, anything, crunchy moms situation, it get is
very succinct to this ideal of moms protecting white children
or the white community in itself. In this level of
(17:38):
that has to be also meaning that we're rebellious against
the norm and those are the devils who you know,
this level of conversation, it's like, yeah, this makes perfect sense.
And that guitar playing is you're supposed to think this
is a Midwestern family out in the cornfields in their dresses,
having the perfect little like dinner at the tables, but
(17:59):
that they had obviously garden themselves because they don't trust
the government or the fertilizer, and you know, wore these
clothes that they have made themselves, as well as the
fire that you know, they don't do doctors, none of that.
Like this level of ideal of the perfect life that
kind of also insinuates by the perfect light.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Means you have to be white a thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And something that you picked up on that I really
want to pull out is how so much of this
content also sort of has this almost like faux persecution
angle to it, like they don't want me to be
submissive to my husband, who like, they don't want me
making homemade meals. It's like, who are you talking about
(18:43):
that it's preventing you from doing this.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This is something that I noticed a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It's almost like these people want to be persecuted or
like victimized in some way, and they really they're so
committed to wanting to feel like they're going against the
grain and challenging that they have made that into an
identity and they've kind of like built it up that
everything they do is like being challenged. Everything they do
(19:09):
like they don't want me to grow my own food.
And it's like, who, like, who is preventing you from
doing this if that's what you want to do, right,
I've seen so many people say like make it seem
as though there's some sort of feminist conspiracy to keep
women from staying.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
At home and not doing wage durning work.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And I I mean I would if I could afford
to comfortably do that.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I think I would love to do it, right. I
think a lot of people would love to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But like what people are saying is like, yeah, you
should have the choice to do what do whatever you
want to do. And what they're hearing is like, they're
not letting me stay at home. Where where are these
people who are preventing women from like staying at home
with their families if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
That's called capitalism, babe in it This sucks for everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, we're all we're all dealing with the same suffering.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
But you know, I think that's that conversation again, this
whole like they won't let me do this thing or
they won't let me do that thing. And it's kind
of that conversation you were talking about earlier, where black
women were pretty much excluded from the white feminist movement
because they did not listen to the fact that black
women have been working, women of color have been working
the entirety of their existence from jump because they had
(20:21):
no other choice. That the fact that they want to
go to work and women should be they're not listening
to the other side of what feminism should look like.
And that conversation is that it's the choice. It's the
choice to do what you whether it is to be
a stay at home mom and to have whatever balanced
life that you want. If you agreed upon it and
(20:42):
everything is fair for you too and there's respect, then wonderful.
That's the thing. That's the choice to have. That choice
is the feminist ideal. But yeah, the more I see,
like again with the tradwives, they're going to a nineteen
seventies tactic of the fear mongering of feminism. Right if
(21:03):
they want to take away men, they hate, oh men,
they want to kill men.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
A B.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
The fact that they can't wear You can't wear bras
because if you do, you're not a feminist and you
can't wear like who ever said these things? Who said this?
What is happening, this fear mangery that has come back,
and that they have not only uh taken this on,
they're pushing it so hard that those who always hated
the ideal of something absolutely are gripping to this like, yes,
(21:34):
they are trying to take away these things from me
or make me do these things, and I hate the feminists.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes, it is such a straw man. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And so this actually is one of the three major
points that I want folks to think about and really
know in terms of coming to this content with a
critical eye and with a little bit of media literacy,
is that this kind of content is often specifically engineered
to make us have a big reaction. Right, So, in
the example that we were just talking about, you know
(22:06):
that influencer does not have a huge following.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
She has like twenty k on Instagram and I think
or I forty k on.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
TikTok, which is pretty small in the ecosystem of trad
wife influencers. And so you know, because some of these
people have like millions and millions of followers, So I
suspect the reason that she has to frame her video
in such a smug way where it's like, my choices
are good. Other women's choices not good is because she
(22:32):
is trafficking on our big reaction to get engagement. If
she just said I like to homeschool my kids, I
like to play with my kids, I like to cook
for my husband, I have a relationship where I rest
back to my husband.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Who would care? Nobody would care because it's like, oh,
good for you.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
She has to tweak it to be like I'm doing
it in a good way and everybody else is doing
it wrong intentionally because it gets our blood boiling to
get more engagement, get more views, and to ultimately boost
her profile where it's very clear she wants to have
a big one, right, and so in some ways this
is just a good old fashioned engagement grift where you
say things in a way that is intentionally said to
(23:13):
be a little bit inflammatory to get more engagement.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Right. Gosh, that took me on a rabbit hole of
like a dark time in our company where that was
like you should make people mad, they'll engage with you, like, please,
don't do that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is a bit of a side note, but this
is my new like media literacy battle cry, which is
that we should understand how many places on the Internet
and how many places and influencers and people and content
creators that make up our Internet discourse are doing that.
They are trying to get one over on us because
it is effective. We already know that social media platforms
(23:51):
intentionally boost content that gets a lot of engagement that
makes us angry or gets our hearts racing because it
is better for their platforms. And so the ynamic or
anybody who says something that is inflammatory that gets people
upset that they are rewarded with engagement. That is a
bad system and we need to be looking at it,
like I can't tell you how many stupid TikTok skits
(24:12):
I have gotten sucked into where I'm like, wait a minute,
why do I care?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Like what this fake scenario says.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It's happening like the story time of a woman doing
her makeup telling me a made up story about a
friend that doesn't exist, Like why am I giving this
my attention? And we need to put a wrench in
that entire system, that entire machine that continues to crank
out content like that, because it's not good for us.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
No, and I think a lot of it is so
And I know you're going to talk about this a
little bit, but it's so dishonest and the time it
takes and perhaps the production it takes to just make
these videos. I always kind of laugh when I see
like ring lights in their eyes and it's clearly supposed
to be like, oh I just woke up.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I'm like, no, you did it.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
But you do have another example of somebody who has
a lot of engagement, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And that is Ballerina Farms.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So if you don't know who Ballerina Farms is, her
name is Hannah Neeliemann and she is a follower of
the Church of Latter day Saints Akam Mormon. She married
into the family that owns the airline Jet Blue, So
girl married very well. She is probably not living like
a rural kind of dependent on the land lifestyle. However,
(25:28):
if you looked at her content, you might think like, oh,
she's living a very humble rule existence, because that's what
she wants you to think. She spends a lot of
time on TikTok, cooking with her eight kids on her farm,
and when she's not doing that, she is competing in
beauty pageants. She has almost ten million followers, so a huge,
huge footprint in the landscape. I would say ballerina Farms.
(25:51):
I would describe her as like a source of a
lot of skepticism and frustration. Like she competed in a
beauty pageant just a few days after she gave birth,
for instance, and people were like, you know, like, you're
probably not in your best shape when you just have
given birth. What it like People felt some kind of
(26:11):
way about the fact that she was, you know, competing
in a beauty pageant. But as a recent piece in
Glamour points out, you really would never know that her
content is like controversial or is a source of frustration
or skepticism for people. The piece reads, neely Man has
never wavered. She doesn't publicly address her haters, she doesn't
engage with the discourse, and she doesn't try to clear
(26:33):
the air on, for instance, whether her wealthy father in
law bought her ranch for her family. She just continues
to make bread, post videos of her dancing, and live
her life. She seems to be, at least online, completely
unbothered in content, which of course is its own kind
of privilege when you have eight kids. But on the
other hand, we have no idea what her reality really
looks like, do E, And so she does not have
(26:58):
to engage in kind of rage baiting that somebody who
might be a less successful Tradwives influencer might have to
write like her thing is like I just make my
bread and like smile weird and like pretend to be
living a rural, rustic life even though I'm very wealthy
right right.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
And there's a lot of romanticizing of like that kind
of work and that kind of life that I think
I see happen a lot in general. Conservative movements were like,
let's get back to the land. I'm like, do you
know how to get back to the life?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, I was talking to So my partner grew up
on a farm in rural upstate New York. When I
say a farm, I don't know, Like I'm not a
country girl. So when he was like, oh, I grew
up on a farm. My parents will on a farm.
The first time I went to visit his parents, who
still live on that farm, I was like, oh, I
don't know what I had been envisioning, but like it
(27:55):
is a farm farm, like a real farm. And so
he grew up like tending to animals as part of
his chores, and they would you know, butcher and package steaks,
you know, for it to eat and to sell, so
like a real farm, and it's always so funny to
him and his family. How people online have convinced themselves
that farm life is.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
This like route to a soft, slow life.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That is only true for people who are wealthy, who
are not actually farming as a source of their existence,
as a source of sustenance, as a source of their
financial security. Anybody who actually lives on a farm, a
real farm, where that farm where like you live or die,
or you eat or don't eat based on how that
farm is doing, will tell you that it is a
(28:39):
ton of work. People who have farms are always tired.
Their schedules are wild. Like this idea that that oh,
you know, we're just gonna buy a land and start
a farm, and that that's gonna be an easy, slow life.
Absolutely not. That is just a fiction, a fantasy. Talk
to anybody who's ever done farming.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's not true.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Have they not seen that little house on the prairie.
They're waking up at four am and going to bed
at nine and they're I know' that's my reference, But
no like to know that they actually have to wake
up at the crack of dawn to make sure whether
it's snowing or raining and all of that, to make
sure they have to take care and tend to all
(29:19):
the things, the living things that are on there, including
any crops, and if they have like workers on there.
And I'm assuming, because I don't know anything about this
Ballerina farmer that if they are that wealthy and they
do actually own a farm, that they do higher workers,
and how little she's active on that farm. Maybe I'm
(29:42):
just sadic, you know, speaking up too much, but just
like that doesn't seem like a thing that she would
be doing while she's also posting pretty little pictures of
herself dancing with her kids.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I can confirm that they have like a pretty big staff,
like a pig paid employees who work for them. I
should all say, Like side note, I have heard some
horror stories about what is actually like going down on
that farm. If you were interested, there are reddit rabbit holes,
but like I cannot confirm any of that myself, so
like don't have anything to say about it, but that
(30:14):
is out there about some of the allegations of how
the animals are treated on that farm, But like, do
your own research there because I don't know either way.
But yes, she definitely has paid staff to do the
actual labor, and again, there's something wrong with that. That's like,
if that's how you're gonna do it, but then don't
go on TikTok and make it seem like you are
(30:37):
doing this work yourself and it's actually not that hard
and you actually have a slow life, a soft life,
because that's not true, right, And so I think that's
sort of like my biggest point is that I think
that some of these creators are just not being totally
honest in the way that we understand that most online
content is probably not honest in some way. But there's
(30:57):
something about the like trad Wife's Life, Rustic Vibes content
creators that I think makes it harder to see when
someone is basically lying to you on the Internet about
what their life actually looks like. And so Ballerina Farms
might not have to like Engagement Farm the way that
the other influencer does, but that doesn't mean that she's
(31:18):
being totally honest about what is going down in her
life or that we're getting an honest view of it,
because you know, what do you call somebody who makes
content to make their life look a certain way? Maybe
not totally accurately to sell commercial products a marketer, right,
Like that is marketing. Ballerina Farms, i would argue, is
(31:41):
a business, and her social media stick is just part
of the marketing arm of this business, Like their farm
is a farm where you can buy boxes of meats
from it online, like it is a corporate entity, and
so she is just a like marketing her consumer goods
to try to get us to buy not just the product,
but into the whole lifestyle that her product is kind
(32:04):
of revolves around. And what's also kind of interesting is
there's this creator, Caro Claire Burkie on TikTok who has
really made a thing out of doing some media analysis
around Ballerina Farms as a brand, and she basically is like,
we don't actually know or see the actual real person
behind Ballerina Farms, Hannah. We don't really see a real
(32:28):
view of her life. What we're seeing is the way
that her corporation or her company wants us to see
her for marketing purposes. She compares it to the Kardashians,
who you know, we know have become literal billionaires from
leveraging a highly curated peak into their personal lives to
get us to buy into them as a brand. But
the difference is, she says that the Kardashians are maybe
(32:48):
even more upfront about this dynamic than these trad wife influencers.
I don't think anybody would be like, oh, the Kardashians
are just trying to give us an honest look into
the lives of billionaires, and like they're just being sell off.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I don't think anybody would say that.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Anybody would know like, oh, they want you to buy
the makeup, the lip kit, the skims, the whatever, this
to that, and they're leveraging showing a curated look at
their lives to do that. I think with these trad
wife influencers, they're just not being honest about what the
dynamic is.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
It feels like it's going backwards, gonna because for a
long while, there was a lot of parents who are
truly honest, like this is what it looks like to
get to our videos here where they're doing the video
and doing it behind the scene, and they're being more
open and transparent. It feels like it's going back to
again where Instagram started and everything was so pretty, that
(33:46):
all the pictures were so perfect, and they had to
show the perfect life in order to get the more
ads and more views. So it feels like it's going
backwards again, just like our society in how they are
trying to romanticize, as you were saying, a lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I think that's a really good point, and I do
think that that this has something to do with that.
I think for a while, what popped on social media
when it came to making content about motherhood was authenticity like, oh,
I'm a mess just like you, Like my kids are filthy,
and I'm exhausted, and I haven't washed my hair just
(34:26):
like you. And I think that that authenticity maybe became
leveraged where like that it almost felt like a curated authenticity.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And so I almost.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Wonder if this trad Wives kind of perfection is a
response to this authenticity that kind of typified motherhood content
on the Internet of a certain era. Like if it
was cool to be authentic, then now what's cool is
like being being like isn't my life perfect?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Like we're just coming back around.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Coming back in that circle. And just as a reminder,
with her having that many followers and that many views,
she's making lots of money just off of her tiktoks,
lots of money.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, like that is my thing, there's no shame in it,
but like this is a business. And in my interview
with Joe, she puts it really well that if you're
somebody who is setting up a tripod, setting up lighting,
putting on a face of makeup, putting on a particular outfit,
to film content that you then edit published to millions
of your followers, and have built up a social media
platform that might involve navigating like brand deals or sponsored posts,
(35:31):
you have a job that is employment, that is labor.
So you have a situation where some of these women
are making content about how they do not do wage
earning work, but the strategy that in which they are
doing that is work.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's like a mind.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Like I feel like they forgot the mom blogs, which
was the beginning honestly of all of this and the
way that it was created. It was stay at home
moms trying to figure out how to make money to
help the sists and figuring out this is this is
profitable and has now ventured into this and as where
the blogs were curated in a way that it was
(36:08):
written and entertaining, this is an entertainment on a different
level which is a show? Is a show?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Pretty much? Yeah, Like in some ways this is just like.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Entertainment, Like it's like using curating a version of your
life for entertainment value, right. And I've actually even heard
the theory that at least some of this content is
fetish content, like sexual fetish content that are not actually
meant to be speaking to women at all or saying
anything or making any kind of comment about women and
what we should be doing with our lives or not
(36:39):
doing with our lives. That it's meant to appeal to
horny men and their submissive wife sexual fantasies, and that
these creators have just sort of found a way to
make fetish content in a way that does not trigger
you know, TikTok or whatever's not safe for work content sensors,
and so like, if that's what's going on, like more
power to you, you know, do your thing. But we
(37:01):
need to come at this content with a little bit
of like media literacy and criticism, because people would then
take that content and then use it to make some
kind of a point or a statement or turn it
into a way to understand our own lives.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And it's like, well, why would you be doing that?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
With fetish content, Like, I don't think it's I don't
think it's meant to help you understand how you should
be living your life or making your choices.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, it could be accidentally fetish.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Right, Well, there's a we passed over it. But there
was a note you had in your outline that I
was I thought was interesting was that it's sort of
like Cause playing a certain type of life. Right after
the insurrection happened on January sixth, I read this really
long article about like a lot of people there were
Cause playing, like the idea of Okay, I'm going to
(37:46):
take back our country, and then they get into trouble
and all of a sudden they're in court and they're like,
oh God, Well, like the consequences come and it just
falls apart. So it does have these sort of implications
that I don't think people think about when people watch
that and it gets in their head and they get
this idea of like, oh, I can live that life,
(38:07):
I can live off the land, or I can do
all these things, but the reality is not there, and
it can become a really toxic soup that infects all
of us. And it sounds like, based on my experience,
and what you're saying that we're getting a lot more
of this content right now.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
That is such a good way to put it, and
something that I didn't have. But I just want to
say is that I want to make it clear that
I think that everybody should be able to do what
they want to do. Like my feminism is about letting
people make choices for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
If that choice is to.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like rage bait other women online for their choices, I
don't love that, but you know, in terms of if
you want to stay at home or work.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
That should be your choice.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
However, one thing I will say is that I have
definitely seen an uptick in people giving younger women that
they should just marry and start having kids really young.
And I don't generally get down for one size fits
all advice, but for someone really young to tell them
that they should not know anything about having their own
(39:14):
money or managing their own money, that they should not
try to have any kind of employment history, should this
marriage fall apart, should there something happen to their partner, whatever,
I think that is really dangerous advice. Even if you're
somebody who wants to get married young, wants to have kids, young,
wants to have a submissive traditional marriage. Do all of
those things, but make sure that you know how to
(39:36):
take care of yourself and live your own life, because
nothing in life is guaranteed, Like you could be happily
married forever and get married very young and then have
your partner die unexpectedly or something right. And so I
think that we're giving young women advice based on a
fantasy that does not come.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
To fruition in reality.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And I think you're right, Annie, that we are seeing
more and more of this kind of content. And I
just don't think we can talk about the rise of
this kind of online tradwife content without looking at where
we are as women right now, which is not great.
You know, we've experienced this major rollback of our rights.
The Journal of the American Medical Association actually put out
(40:17):
a report just this week that found that since Roe fell,
rape has led to an estimated fifty eight, nine hundred
and seventy nine pregnancies in states that ban abortion without
exception for rape.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
That is staggering. You know. We also are.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Facing rising costs of things like groceries and housing. Bloomberg
found that on average, US households want to spend an
extra five two hundred dollars this year just to be
able to enjoy the exact same standard of living that
they did last year. Add to that things like climate instability,
political instability, all things that historically women have really for
(40:52):
the burden of. And so I just can't help but
think that we're seeing this rise in content that romanticizes
and glorifies times when women had even less rights than
we do right now is related to what's happening currently,
which brings me to the last thing that I want
people to really keep in mind when they encounter this
content online is that I believe that trad wive content
(41:12):
is responding, albeit oftentimes in a very distorted way, to
very very real issues that we're facing as women. You know,
we're kind of being served a crap sandwich right now
from being honest with you, Like, we don't have paid leave,
we don't have affordable childcare, we don't have any real
social safety net. Women are burdened with more and more
(41:33):
of the labor that it takes to keep a family
stable with very little social or institutional help. And it
just doesn't surprise me that we're seeing this online glorification
of stay at home parenthood in a particular kind of
way right now as a reaction to it. And I
think that something that gets left out of the discourse
is that the reasons that women are staying home are
(41:54):
not necessarily like to deprogram their kids from government instruction
or whatever. The A lot of times it's because childcare
is so f being expensive that it does not make
financial sense to work outside of the home anymore. Or
maybe on the flip side, both parents are working and
they're just like figuring it out and just squeezing by
a lot of people are just doing what they have
(42:16):
to do based on financial circumstances that are not great,
and so that is a very different thing from choosing
to work because feminism and like woke society says that
you have to. It is like some of these creators
are creating a straw man for why women either work
outside of the home or don't, and that's actually not
a reflection of the reality that most parents are facing
(42:38):
right now.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
I mean, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, there
was so many articles about that of like women work
being forced out of the workforce, like all of the
scientific papers from women decreased, And I think it's interesting
a lot of content like this immediately out the gate
feels defensive for whatever lifestyle. And I could see it
being defensive from like women judging you, but you also
(43:00):
see it being maybe trying to find like a reason
that it's okay that you didn't have the choice, So
let me make this look prettier. And I no, I
definitely like it, and this is definitely what I want,
so I can. I think that totally makes sense, Bridget.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And I think people are picking up on it because
women are tired and would just love for someone to
do it, like, yes, you go out and work and
let me just chill here, which is not the truth
that at all, but the way they make it look
like while I sit here with these pretty little kids
and tell them to go take a nap, like which
if you've been any childcare, you know that's not the thing.
(43:35):
And everything's a mess and everything's a disaster, and cooking
is hard, and being a stay at home mom is
a full time job in itself and deserves pay. Which
is the other conversation that they don't want to have
chidwives is that a lot of those stay at home
moms who love it also are like, but we should
be paid. Yeah, absolutely should.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It's labor, I mean absolutely exactly. So I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
I think a lot of these influencers can really over
simplify and glamorize what is ultimately a dynamic that does
not allow for women to make the choices they want
to make.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Because being a stay at.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Home mom because you cannot afford daycare is not the
same thing as choosing it for yourself because it's what
you want to do.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And it's because you can't afford to do it.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I think that ultimately women deserve to have choices,
if you deserve to have better choices to be able
to do what we want to do with our lives.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Yep, women do women?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Women, Yes, agreed, agreed one thousand percent. Well, thanks as always, Bridget. Again,
I feel like we could go on and on and on,
but we will let you go for now. Where can
the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
girls on the internet.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
If you want to hear my full conversation with Joe Piazza,
we put it out as recently. She's hilarious. Definitely recommend
confine me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC or
on TikTok at Bridget mix pods.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
Yes, and hopefully we'll be able to do some ir
L things and maybe we can see some of you
all there, listeners.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Let's hope so TVD stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yes, stay tuned well. Thanks as always, Bridget and listeners.
If you would like to contact us, you can our
email Stephania Mom, stuff atiheartmea dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at most up podcast or on TikTok
which we don't post very often, but we might start
posting more. It's a gram at stuff Mom Never Told You.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
(45:31):
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer and
our contributor Joey.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Stuff Never Told You is production by Heart Radio. For
more podcast or my heart Radio, you can check out
the Heart Radio, a Apple podcast wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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