What is the trad wife trend on TikTok?

THE trad wife trend on TikTok has emerged as a captivating yet controversial movement.

Here’s everything you need to know about the controversial trad wife trend on TikTok, , where young women are embracing traditional gender roles reminiscent of the 1950s.

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What is the trad wife trend on TikTok?

The trad wife trend on TikTok refers to a movement where women embrace traditional gender roles, reminiscent of the 1950s, as a lifestyle choice.

The term trad wife is short for traditional wife.

The movement has gained traction over TikTok as young women are revealing they rather live a traditional housewife lifestyle rather than the progressive one women have made strides for.

Women living the trad wife lifestyle have been known to quit their jobs, and submit to their significant other.

According to TikToker Estee Williams, a trad wife is “a woman who prefers to take a traditional or ultra-traditional role in marriage, including the beliefs that a woman’s place is in the home”

What does a trad wife typically look like?

Many women who identify as trad wives adopt a vintage 1950s aesthetic to match their lifestyle, wearing retro-inspired clothing and hairstyles.

This throwback look, combined with content that often romanticizes traditional homemaking tasks, gives a nostalgic air to the movement.

Women are frequently seen in TikTok videos wearing dresses, aprons, and styled hair as they bake, clean, or engage in other domestic duties, aligning with the idealized housewife image from decades ago.

However, not all women who identify as trad wives strictly adhere to this aesthetic.

Some choose to maintain a more modern appearance while still embracing the traditional roles and responsibilities of homemaking.

Estee Williams, for instance, has shared that she takes her husband’s preferences into account when choosing how she dresses, stating: “I put my husband’s wants ahead of my own, and this has nothing but benefited me and my marriage.”

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What are people saying about the trad wife trend?

While the trad wife trend has its supporters, it has also attracted significant controversy.

Critics argue that the movement promotes outdated gender roles and anti-feminist ideals.

The trad wife lifestyle, with its emphasis on women staying at home and submitting to their husbands, is seen by some as a step backward in the fight for gender equality.

Feminists and progressives argue that it glamorizes a past where women had fewer rights and freedoms.

Journalist Annie Kelly told CNN, the trend “pushes young people into a tendency to look back at the past with rose-tinted glasses.”

“If you’re a White influencer who’s espousing these things, there will be a quite pleasing overlap with how many White supremacists configure gender politics because it coincides with lots of the alt right theories about what has gone wrong in the West,” Kelly added.

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Kristy Campion, a specialist in extremist groups, also weighed in on the phenomenon.

Campion said: “One of the key concerns with the tradwife movement, when it’s affiliated with the far-right, is that [it provides] a soft face for saying quite extreme things, quite dangerous things; things that are quite divisive and that demonize parts of our own society.”

In 2017, the trad wife movement faced further controversy when a woman involved in the lifestyle launched a “white baby challenge,” encouraging white families to have more children to combat declining birth rates among white people.

The challenge sparked outrage for its racist undertones and clear ties to white nationalist ideologies.

While this particular incident has largely faded from the spotlight in more recent years, it highlighted some of the concerning elements lurking beneath the surface of the movement for many observers.