With the emergence of the US-Israel war against Iran, discussions about the cost-of-living crisis have re-emerged regarding the implications that would result from increased fuel and energy prices for regular households. While this is a highly distressing development, concerns about the cost of living and housing have been ongoing for years, while young people have become increasingly anxious about finding stable employment opportunities and being able to afford adequate lives in the future. And it seems to me that these worsening anxieties are directly contributing to the growing success of social media trends that promote and glorify highly anti-feminist and traditionalist roles for women in the household.
The highly strained economic conditions of our times — such as the decline in acceptable standards of living across various groups of people and regions in the UK as wages fail to ‘keep pace’ with rising costs — are certainly pushing many individuals to fight for any employment they can get, just to stay somehow, somewhat afloat. This, of course, includes women, many of whom I believe have become deeply disenchanted with the once-fought-for prospect of being legally independent and having an equal right to work.
On social media, the right-wing trad-wife trend recently became popular, promoting the benefits of a ‘picture-perfect’ housewife role for women. I’ve also repeatedly seen young women online saying they resent feminist advances, and wish that they could exclusively ‘just stay at home’ taking care of themselves, the house, and their future family, instead of (also) pursuing a career. The issue here is that none of these people are actually considering the social and practical implications of being a traditional housewife: they just want the financial stability and free time that’s associated with it and they currently lack. But this exploitative trend both completely discounts the real struggles of housewives resulting from their complete dependence on their husbands, and fails to acknowledge household work as the hard work it actually is.
Note that I am not talking about regular stay-at-home moms, but specifically about an ideologically conservative movement, aiming to undermine crucial feminist progress by falsely glorifying women being (financially) dependent on men as a way to escape structural economic strains.
People are exhausted. And in this state of vulnerability, it becomes easy for individuals — particularly women, towards whom these trends and ideas are intentionally catered — to be pushed into dreaming about a life where they could be released from the ‘burden of work’ by embracing a dated and misrepresented ‘traditional wife’ role.
Our economic conditions aren’t allowing people to find suitable jobs that give them satisfaction and a sense of security, and the ideological right is exploiting this to try to make women less determined to fight for equality. This is extremely pertinent in a time when radical right parties are threatening to remove crucial laws for women, like Reform UK wanting to scrap the Equality Act, or Trump furthering restrictions against safe abortion access in the US.
Photo by Marisa Howenstine on Unsplash
Related
How Economic Instability Contributes to the Persistence of Traditional Gender Norms
With the emergence of the US-Israel war against Iran, discussions about the cost-of-living crisis have re-emerged regarding the implications that would result from increased fuel and energy prices for regular households. While this is a highly distressing development, concerns about the cost of living and housing have been ongoing for years, while young people have become increasingly anxious about finding stable employment opportunities and being able to afford adequate lives in the future. And it seems to me that these worsening anxieties are directly contributing to the growing success of social media trends that promote and glorify highly anti-feminist and traditionalist roles for women in the household.
The highly strained economic conditions of our times — such as the decline in acceptable standards of living across various groups of people and regions in the UK as wages fail to ‘keep pace’ with rising costs — are certainly pushing many individuals to fight for any employment they can get, just to stay somehow, somewhat afloat. This, of course, includes women, many of whom I believe have become deeply disenchanted with the once-fought-for prospect of being legally independent and having an equal right to work.
On social media, the right-wing trad-wife trend recently became popular, promoting the benefits of a ‘picture-perfect’ housewife role for women. I’ve also repeatedly seen young women online saying they resent feminist advances, and wish that they could exclusively ‘just stay at home’ taking care of themselves, the house, and their future family, instead of (also) pursuing a career. The issue here is that none of these people are actually considering the social and practical implications of being a traditional housewife: they just want the financial stability and free time that’s associated with it and they currently lack. But this exploitative trend both completely discounts the real struggles of housewives resulting from their complete dependence on their husbands, and fails to acknowledge household work as the hard work it actually is.
Note that I am not talking about regular stay-at-home moms, but specifically about an ideologically conservative movement, aiming to undermine crucial feminist progress by falsely glorifying women being (financially) dependent on men as a way to escape structural economic strains.
People are exhausted. And in this state of vulnerability, it becomes easy for individuals — particularly women, towards whom these trends and ideas are intentionally catered — to be pushed into dreaming about a life where they could be released from the ‘burden of work’ by embracing a dated and misrepresented ‘traditional wife’ role.
Our economic conditions aren’t allowing people to find suitable jobs that give them satisfaction and a sense of security, and the ideological right is exploiting this to try to make women less determined to fight for equality. This is extremely pertinent in a time when radical right parties are threatening to remove crucial laws for women, like Reform UK wanting to scrap the Equality Act, or Trump furthering restrictions against safe abortion access in the US.
Photo by Marisa Howenstine on Unsplash
Share this:
Like this:
Related