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The tradwife subculture focuses on 'traditional' view of wives as mothers and homemakers.
A ‘trad wife’ is an online term coined to describe a woman who subscribes to traditional gender roles in marriage, stays at home with the kids to do housework and make family meals from scratch.
This content is heavily glamorised, it looks idealistic and perfect, but doesn’t show the difficult parts of homemaking, how physically demanding cleaning, cooking, gardening and taking care of small children can be.
There are two ‘queens’ of trad wives on TikTok – although I would debate if they truly are ‘trad wives’.
The first is Nara Smith, a 23 year-old model based in California with three kids and a Mormon husband called Lucky. She went viral from her videos showing her cooking elaborate meals for her family from scratch, while wearing fancy outfits. A video of her making breakfast cereal has had over 13 million views.
@naraazizasmith veryyyy demure very cutesy #easyrecipes #breakfast #cereal #toddlersoftiktok #homemade #fypツ #momtok ♬ Nice and Easy – Louis Adrien
Her videos lack the kind of chaos you might expect from a mother of three. Her kitchen is always immaculate, as is her appearance, for which she has faced intense criticism. She has been accused of perpetuating the outdated belief that women belong in the kitchen, especially as her husband is almost never shown helping.
The second is 34 year-old, ex-ballerina Hannah Neeleman. A practising Mormon and mother of eight, she lives on a ranch in Utah with her husband Daniel. She’s also Nara Smith’s new friend.
Neeleman hit the headlines only recently, after a high-profile interview with The Times. Many felt she unwillingly let go of her dreams, after she dropped out of the prestigious Julliard School for dance to be a housewife and raise her kids.
Despite the fact her husband is heir to the JetBlue airline and her net worth is claimed to be in the millions, they live a supposedly ‘simple’ life. She makes her own butter from fresh cow’s milk she milked on her own.
It’s important to note that neither of these women have claimed to be trad wives. Hannah Neeleman has gone out of her way to say she “doesn’t identify” with the trend – unlike creators with a significantly smaller following, such as Victoria Lit, who openly talks about being a trad wife and obeying her husband, cooking and cleaning with him in mind and not having a career.
Is Nara Smith really pushing an agenda to undo decades of feminist progress, or is she just sharing recipes online, and showing her love for cooking?
I would argue neither Smith nor Neeleman are undoing feminism, and are not true ‘trad wives’, as both are successful influencers, with some of their videos reaching millions of views. What’s more, Smith has around 10 million followers on TikTok, and Neeleman just below two million.
We need to remember these videos and their social media presence is polished and videos give the illusion of a traditional domestic lifestyle, but behind the scenes, there is likely a significant amount of modern technology, strategy, and maybe even outside help involved.
The ‘trad wife’ trend is not realistic. Neeleman and Smith’s lifestyles are not attainable by the average person. Ask your grandmother if her traditional marriage included rolling in the field with her freshly made sourdough or, more realistically, performing a lot of tiring manual labour to look after the family and house.
The issue of women preferring to be traditional spouses arises only when they promote regressive beliefs on the internet, such as this accountpushing radical views that women must stay in the kitchen and that this is the appropriate thing to do.
This begs the question of whether it’s okay to promote this lifestyle online. Traditional gender roles – for example, women staying at home to cook, clean, bring up the children and obey their husbands – have often been seen as oppressive and restrictive of women’s freedom.
Feminism has worked for years to challenge these norms and support women’s right to choose their own paths, whether that’s a career, motherhood, or both. This trend glamorises a past where women had fewer choices, and could undo progress toward equality.
Platforms like TikTok or Instagram, which generate millions of views for their polished portrayals of homely life, commodify these roles, subtly suggesting to young women that this lifestyle is desirable and attainable.
This can be problematic as it presents an overly idealised version of domesticity without showing the full context or reality, including the support and privileges these influencers often have behind the scenes.
The rise of social media influencers such as Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith adds a modern twist to this debate. While these influencers may not directly identify as ‘trad wives’, their content often reinforces stereotypical domestic roles. The privilege these TikTokers have is very real; they are wealthy and beautiful, living in large houses, only showing the perfect parts of their life.
And social media is a career – if you have millions of followers, you can make a lot of money. In the hit reality television series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the women who are supposedly ‘traditional wives’ say they are the breadwinners of the family, just from social media. Similarly, Hannah Neeleman calls herself a business woman.
In the end, feminism is really about having the freedom to choose. If some women decide to embrace a more traditional lifestyle, that should be respected as part of the diversity of women’s choices.
However, when these lifestyles are promoted as the ideal or the only ‘right’ choice, it can send a message that other paths aren’t as valid or empowering, especially for women without the same privileges as these influencers.
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