A Dangerous Appeal

Is the chatter around the idea of an “ideal woman” and traditional gender roles resonating in the toxic manosphere leading to more women relating to the ‘trad wife’ trend?

- Danita Yadav IS A NEW DELHI-BASED JOURNALIST SPECIALISING IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

TUSCAN plum tart, wild garlic zucchini lasagne and meringue roulade ... social media influencer Hannah Neeleman’s Instagram feed is a culinary delight. In other videos, the American social media influencer is seen visiting organic farms or picking greens from kitchen gardens. She takes her 10.1 million followers along with her, her husband and their eight children as she juggles her life between her farm in Utah, the culinary school in Ireland where she has enrolled for a course and her visits to exotic locations across England. On Nara Smith's Instagram feed, we see the working mother of three make four types of homemade butter, a summer barbeque, milkshakes and more, all while dressed up in designer clothes and perfectly set hair. Her 4.6 million followers seem to devour the kind of content she makes. American influencer Estee Williams—who, with her blond waves and cinched waist, embodies Marilyn Monroe’s style—tells her followers to “doll up” for men because “they do notice”. Williams teaches her lakh-plus followers “how to attract a masculine man—a provider man”.

There is no dearth of such content on Instagram, but what sets these influencers apart is the aesthetic they present online, that of the trad wife (traditional wives), a social media sensation that has gone viral, roughly since 2020, for its promised return to gendered roles—wives contentedly keep house while husbands control the purse strings and bank accounts. Women making and promoting such content aim to reach women with an “appeal to a soft life”.

While some believe it’s an ideology championed by traditionalists who believe a woman’s worth is tied to her submission to her husband, children and home, others see it as a clash with the feminist movement that challenges oppressive structures that limit the autonomy and potential of women.