A tradwife who looks after her family, makes jam and runs a social media empire? Sounds like a lot of hard work to me: TANYA GOLD

Published: 23:35, 4 April 2026 | Updated: 23:36, 4 April 2026 I look at wedding dresses on Instagram. It began when I fell down a Say Yes To The Dress wormhole.  I love the reality show in which women from all over the US go to Kleinfeld Bridal boutique in New York to be styled as cream cakes. I am not alone: the show is now on its 23rd season and Instagram is sending me photos of full-crinoline oyster silk Victorian gowns with balloon sleeves. It doesn't matter that I am a 52-year-old workaholic who got married in a £45 black dress from Peacocks 13 years ago. The algorithm is still trying to radicalise me: into being a 'tradwife.' These are 'traditional wives' many of whom post photos to social media of their effortlessly perfect domestic set ups. The creed of the online tradwife is: she is submissive to her husband, doesn't work, runs the house and looks after the children. You might find an urban tradwife in 1950s style (curlers, scarlet lipstick, apron); a rural tradwife on a polished farm in the American West (vegetable garden, Gingham dress, butter fixation); or a high fashion tradwife (£100,000 kitchen, Dior dress, wooden spoon). Online tradwifes are submissive to their husbands, doesn't work, runs the house and looks after the children You might find an urban tradwife in 1950s style, a rural tradwife on a polished farm in the American West, or a high fashion tradwife In the last five years, the internet - and Covid lockdowns - put a rocket under tradwifism.  The movement's mother superior has to be Hannah Neeleman, whose Ballerina Farm Instagram account now boasts 10 million followers.  They log in to watch the homespun bliss of baking, jam-making and eight well-behaved children dressed in various shades of pastel on her Utah homestead. Like many internet tradwives, she has monetised her fan base, in her case through sales from the online Ballerina Farm store. But last week the movement got a reality check. Psychology of Women Quarterly published a paper from the University of Nevada that pulled a hand-knotted rug from under the foundation myth of tradwives - that her (trad) husband will guide and protect her. No, far from the 'benevolent sexism' exhibited in this idea that women are vulnerable and need protection, the study revealed the 'hostile sexism' of husbands. It turns out many of them regard women as manipulative, lazy and deserving of control. Here's a gift for the tradwives as they decorate their Easter nests for TikTok. The tradwife's mother superior has to be Hannah Neeleman (pictured), whose Ballerina Farm Instagram account now boasts 10 million followers I have little sympathy for emancipated women with legal and reproductive rights who want to return en masse to theocracy because they have confused it with shopping. Who, looking at the enslaved women of Afghanistan, could want that? The in-house tradwife intellectual, a British woman called Alena Kate Pettitt, said themovement has 'become an aesthetic, and then it's become politicised. And then it's become its own monster.' Its roots were in the real yearning of women seeking emancipation but on their own terms, not terms chosen by feminists. Plenty of women don't want to sleep around and long to stay at home to care for their children. If there is nothing wrong with this, elite feminism never made that clear enough.  The original, and sincere, tradwife had a genuine need, which she did not want to proselytise. And she hasn't. A recent King's College London report tells us fewer than eight per cent of women want to live the tradwife lifestyle. But 79 per cent were attracted to 'the calm, relaxed lifestyles of tradwives.' My fixation with Victorian wedding dresses with balloon sleeves puts me in that camp, but it doesn't mean I want to wear them. Tradwifism is a fantasy fuelled, the report concludes, by 'the systemic strain experienced by the younger population, especially parents, who are juggling increasingly demanding jobs with intensive parenting responsibilities. It's a version of the emancipated working woman's obsession with Jane Austen heroines and their pretty, work-free lives. (On the page at least: no Austen heroine dies in childbirth). But despite its dark, misogynistic underbelly, the movement has an enduringly marketable aesthetic, as a particularly decadent strain of consumer feminism. I think of the Cath Kidston ironing board cover I bought years ago and burnt and the apron I never wear as I hate cooking. In Marks & Spencer yesterday I gawped at maxi skirts and blouses with ever-expanding collars, realising those who believe that men should shoulder the responsibility of child-raising as much as women do so dressed as Mormons. When I heard of tradwifism I thought it might be a sex fetish. Now I believe it's part misogyny, part shopping, part rage-baiting of workaholic feminists.  But that is not to say being an Insta-perfect stay-at-home mum isn't hard work too. I checked Neeleman's Ballerina Farm page this morning.  No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. 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