Over the last few years, a slew of social media and YouTube channels featuring immaculately presented women preaching about being a “tradwife” have popped up. These women extol the virtues of being devoted to the men in their lives, proper etiquette, homemaking and child-rearing. Yet these women aren’t just politely raging against the feminist machine, as many would like to believe. The movement can also be seen as a reaction to the pressure for women to have it all and a symptom of the overloaded work culture of our times.

Balancing homelife and work in a society that still puts the onus on women to do the housework has led many of these women to yearn for “simpler times”. The tradwife movement idolises 50s housewives, and leaving behind the world of work to focus on the domestic sphere is paramount to tradwifehood. The irony is, as much as the movement denounces work, the tradwife life is dependent on the neoliberalism and feminism they say they are so desperately trying not to align themselves with. Many of the best-known tradwives are actually entrepreneurs, exposing how the movement can represent an empowered choice – and a lucrative one at that.

Elsewhere on The Conversation, we look at how trees in the tropical rainforests are more than carbon sponges. They are fascinating records of human history that explain how indigenous people help make these ecosystems so biodiverse. We also examine whether firstborn children are actually natural leaders, as the common assumption says.

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