There has been a noticeable regression in certain women’s attitudes towards feminism over the last few years, culminating into a desire for a return to subservient, traditional wife roles. The saturation of these narratives — connected to what is largely known as the tradwife movement —  is predominantly being accelerated at the hands of influencers, who, ironically enough, gain financial independence from promoting this lifestyle. This influencer privilege spins what feminism is actually fighting for, and instead harms the real-life women who are flocking to this ideology. 

Influential figures such as Erika Kirk have been vocal about how women should be getting married young and that being a stay-at-home mother should be their calling over any career opportunity — all while she herself holds multiple degrees and recently became the CEO of Turning Point USA. There’s such a level of hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness that it’s honestly astounding. 

 Similarly, 20-year-old lifestyle influencer Savanna Stone has received a lot of attention for her comments on feminism and how she publicly perceives the role of women in society. In a panel through “The Dr. Daf Show” where Stone had to debate against feminists, she was quoted saying, “I don’t think the feminist movement supports women at all, I think it actually harms them. It’s told us that sexual exploitation is empowering, that we should kill our offspring if it’s an inconvenience to our life, and that marriage and family are not important anymore. I mean, it’s completely destroyed everything that’s been unique about women.”

First of all, her comments toward why feminism is such a harmful system is severely offbase considering she would have never been given the platform to speak publicly about her ideals if it wasn’t for feminism. 

Second, feminism is not telling anybody that they have to be doing any of the things Stone mentioned. The movement is rooted in choice, one that says if someone wants to be a stay-at-home mother, do that — but if not, that’s just as valid. Her assumption that feminists are all sexually promiscuous, having abortions because it’s convenient and don’t believe in marriage is not only categorically false, but deeply dangerous. 

It seems abundantly clear that something has been lost in translation when there is only room for extremes. In mainstream conservative ideology, a woman can either be a deviant feminist with no morals, or a submissive wife and mother — with no in between. The concept that women may want different things hasn’t seemed to dawn on these ultra-conservatives. Not to mention that their conception of marriage and family rests on heternormative ideals, completely disregarding the LQBTQ+ community because they deem homosexuality a sin. 

A similar idea on the binary of anti-feminism was raised by Chelsea Gods, a feminist and social activist influencer who was featured in the same panel as Stone. When arguing her take on feminism and the right to choose, she plainly says, “There is space for you in our movement but there is no space for us in yours.”

An article by the Annenberg School for Communication discusses this polarization, largely citing Sarah Banet-Weiser and Sara Reinis who co-authored a paper entitled “The rage of tradwives: Affective economies and romanticizing retreat.” In discussing the topic, Banet-Weiser delves into the dissatisfaction with feminism, stating, “Tradwives perform serenity, but their message is often fueled by a quiet fury — not against patriarchy, but against feminism’s perceived failures. What’s striking is that the issues they point to — hustle culture, the lack of care infrastructure, and the devaluation of reproductive labor — are the very concerns mainstream feminism also addresses. Both groups are responding to the same broken system, but in very different ways.”

Banet-Weiser and Reinis’s paper opens by quoting NFL player Harrison Butker’s 2024 commencement speech at Benedictine College where he tells women that while some of them might go on to have successful careers, their most important title should be homemaker. 

This idea speaks to what is arguably the most concerning aspect of the rise of anti-feminism and tradwife culture: the incessant push to have kids. People should not be having children just because society tells them to, but only out of a genuine desire to have them. Kids are not a social status symbol or an item to check off on a list. Parents have to be prepared to pour themselves into their children knowing that every moment, word or action will inevitably shape the person they will become.

 If someone does not have an honest pull to have kids, they should not have them, period. And, as long as the expectation of having women do all of the emotional and physical labor of raising children remains, this system will remain incredibly broken. 

In today’s economic climate, it is becoming increasingly harder for women to be stay-at-home moms even if they want to. With the elevated cost of living, it’s unsustainable for many not to be living off of two incomes. 

And, on the flip side, some women have no choice but to stay at home given the cost of daycare, and thus have to sacrifice their career ambitions for the sake of raising their children. Essentially, there is no winning. But, what can be said is that it comes with immense privilege to generalize and declare that all women should be at home with their children. There’s no empathy or autonomy in this belief system and instead women are left drowning in the midst of it all. 

What it comes down to is this: there needs to be less performativity toward being a traditional wife and realize that there is going to, and should be more to a woman’s life than just being a mother. This is not to say that parenting is insignificant — it’s not — but it doesn’t have to be your only sense of identity. 

Women are creative, intelligent and ambitious. It’s perfectly okay for them to want more out of life than just serving others. If these tradwives want to show up as their most fulfilled self to their marriage and their children, they need to have hobbies and passions outside of these spheres. The ability to do things just for yourself doesn’t have to be minimized for the sake of others’ judgement.  

With this also needs to come the cognizance that if a stay-at-home mom is watching an influencer talk about how women were only made for the home and were divinely designed to be a mother, those individuals are reaping the benefits of what feminism has started and are able to pursue creative and financial outlets, whether or not they acknowledge it. 

Feminism is not the enemy. It has given women the ability to work, have credit cards, to vote or to buy a house. It’s a human rights movement, not a demonic pull to ruin women’s femininity. Women deserve to have the freedom to carve out their own life paths and follow what feels genuine to them. It’s not the 1950s and people don’t need to pretend like it is. Let women live their lives and if that includes having kids, great; if it doesn’t: back off. Your life only has to be your own.