The real tradwives of Modernland

Or: how caring is the OG feminism

Somewhere, probably even in your neighborhood, there’s a modestly-dressed mom, surveying whatever baked goods she has just removed from the oven. There are children playing nearby and she is thinking about what she needs to do before her husband arrives home from work. However this tranquil scene may not be all it seems.

Such a woman could be a “tradwife” but if you’re part of the insane woke cult, she is likely a white supremacist operative, perpetuating her privilege and probably struggling under internalized misogyny. Does she have a neat and organized pantry? Then she’s definitely a danger. Do you know who else liked Tupperware and chintz? Hitler! See?

Yes, the same folks who can barely define what a woman is have serious issues when females act feminine. While it’s true that the social media tradwife influencers may spend more of their day styling than serving, women who choose to focus on their husbands, homes, and children are the latest targets for unhinged wokeists. Which is why an interview with writer Mary Harrington caught our ear, so to speak.

Harrington joined the Triggernometry podcast (video, audio) to discuss her take on feminism and had some super interesting things to say. The working woman is not a modern phenomenon as she points out – historically, women have always been a key part of the home “economy”. Far from liberating women, Harrington argues that the Industrial Revolution dis-empowered women by forcing them to choose between their families and employment. 

Households were not just leisure retreats, but hubs of industry. Processing the raw materials produced by husbands and fathers was a daily job for many women through the ages. Turning produce into food, weaving materials into textiles, and the like were family-friendly activities where women could keep children near, manage their households, and potentially draw some income too. 

Once many of these tasks were mechanized, Harrington says feminists faced a fork in the road – do they want to prioritize care or autonomy? By the time the Sexual Revolution was in full flight, finding satisfaction in the domestic realm was for bores and pushovers. Liberated women were delaying marriage and stepping over men as they smashed the glass ceiling of the corporate world. 

Harrington says that with the arrival of the contraceptive pill (which she calls the first widespread “transhumanist technology”), feminist thought was set in the direction of the boardroom, not the kitchen. She agrees that some things have been gained by women in the various waves of feminism, but not without cost. She tracks the world-changing effects of the Pill including its link to pornography, abortion, and transgender ideology. She argues for “rewilding” sex (i.e. avoiding contraception) and for reducing the amount of co-ed spaces in our communities (“men are not formed by women but by other men”). She makes a case that the marriage covenant is the best place for sexual unions. 

Harrington refers to herself as a “reactionary feminist” and it is interesting that, in her open-minded study of our times, she has reached something akin to Biblical wisdom. Indeed, she argues that modern feminism has been all about recovering what women lost in the Industrial and Sexual Revolutions. She welcomes the side hustle and work-from-home potential of our modern age and envisions that women will work around the needs of their families if they are given the choice. 

Whether it was the pandemic that caused many of us to realize how wonderful it is to be at home or that turning our attention to our nearest neighbors is comforting during times of uncertainty, the tradwives are here to stay. The naysayers will throw up their hands, saying this is a disturbing “revolt against the modern world”, assuming that women only want to be at home because of demanding husbands or a misguided nostalgia for the 1950s.

Actually, using your feminine superpowers in this way is not setting the women’s movement back 70 years, but the recapturing of something much older. We have the faithful examples of our sisters laid out in Scripture – the industriousness woman of the Proverbs 31, the character of the women in Titus 2, the constancy of Hannah, the confident trust of Esther and Mary. 

So, ladies, whether you are full-time at home or working the 9 to 5, don’t let the haters tell you that gleaning fulfillment from serving your household is slavery, but like true Daughters of Wisdom, be encouraged in your service. Husbands, pray for your wives. To the men waiting for a tradwife, keep praying – she will be worth the wait.