'Trad wives' have blown up online since Roe v. Wade was overturned, but that's only half the story

• The rise of "trad wives" on social media may be linked to the rollback of Roe v. Wade.
• Trad wives live by traditional gender roles, often attracting criticism and triggering debates.

TikTok has a question: Have trad wives gotten more popular since Roe v. Wade was overturned?

It was posed by Caroline Burke, a writer and media critic, who noted that the popular account Ballerina Farm, fronted by Utah-based mother-of-eight Hannah Neeleman, had gained seven million Instagram followers since 2022.

The landmark ruling on Roe v. Wade in June of that year rewound nearly 50 years of legalized abortion in the US by allowing states to make their own laws. For many, it felt like a step back in time.

Burke said she always had an inkling there was a connection, but this stat solidified the theory for her.

"You cannot tell me that it is accidental, that in the two years where we have lost more reproductive rights than in decades previously, all of these trad wives have been gaining insane traction online," she said in a TikTok posted in January.

"Does that not blow your mind?"

Generally, a trad wife is someone who lives a family life with more traditional gender roles. They are usually stay-at-home moms who spend their days cooking, cleaning, and waiting to greet their partners like a 1950s pin-up housewife.

These women are largely evangelical Christians or Mormons who put God and the bible at the forefront of their decision to be subservient, or conservative women who herald their lifestyle as idyllic and tranquil.

Creators including Neeleman, Estee Williams, Gwen the Milkmaid, and Rachel Joy are gaining thousands, sometimes millions of followers for their always-perfect hair and makeup, commitment to baking fresh bread for their husbands, and emphasis on motherhood.

All of them either created their TikTok accounts or had the majority of their viral moments after June 2022. Neeleman is the largest with 6.9 million on TikTok, and she only had four videos on her account before June 2022, after which her account blew up.

Nara Smith, the second most popular trad wife account, has gained 2.2 million followers since she set her account up in September 2022.

Neeleman, Gwen the Milkmaid, Joy, and Smith did not respond to a request by Business Insider for comment. Williams told BI she thinks people are fascinated by traditional wife content because it is "nostalgic," "wholesome, and fulfilling." They are "hungry for traditional values and slower living more than ever."

"I think a lot of women are waking up from modern feminism and realizing they, too, want a traditional lifestyle," she said. "I do believe the trad wife movement is a big step in the right direction for bringing Christian conservative values into the light, and the United States clearly wants more of it."

Williams said she's not surprised trad wife content has picked up since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

"To adhere to traditional values you must believe in the value of life and defending the voiceless and unborn," she said.

A fantasy for the alt-right

While on the surface, their content is harmless, critics say trad wives are pushing a conservative agenda, pandering to those who believe women's rights have gone too far.

Burke told BI she saw Ballerina Farm blow up after Fox News posted an article about her.

"Fox News shares countless articles designed to trigger people, but there's a reason why this one struck a nerve," she said.

"Right at the time that Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US, Fox shares this article about a woman who is happily having her eighth child."

Neeleman has found herself as the topic of much discussion in recent months, partly because of the dissonance between her apparent back-to-basics lifestyle, and the enormous wealth of her family — her father-in-law is David Neeleman, the airline entrepreneur who has an estimated net worth of $400 million.

"There was something about her account and something about her natural beauty and living on a farm and the way in which there was this almost promotion of effortlessness with their family that I think just really infuriated people," Burke said. "And on the other side, I think it really empowered and excited people."

Tyler Bender, a comedian and commentator, has made a series of TikToks satirizing the trad wife lifestyle.

She told BI she sees the popularity of trad wives as a pushback on modern feminism, much of which started on Reddit criticizing "blue-haired" childless women and favoring blonde housewives who raise multiple babies and take care of their husbands' every need.

"It literally is a fantasy for the alt-right," Bender said.

She describes some of the criticism she gets on her videos as "white-knighting" from those who idealize women following this lifestyle.

"I'll get comments like, 'Wow, you must be so sad and single because you feel OK judging this woman,'" she said. "These weirdos on the internet feel like they need to protect the one pure kind of woman left."

The irony, though, is that they're lusting for a time that never really existed, Bender said. Women, throughout history, had some sort of hustle outside their houses, whether their husbands knew or not. They were never these living dolls who catered to their partners and children, keeping themselves and their homes immaculate, with no other pursuits.

"These people are just emulating the post-war boom of advertising in the 1950s. That's what they're cosplaying," Bender said. "It's so strange to me. You're yearning for something that never existed."

Algorithms play their part

A shift toward conservative views and traditional values is only part of the story. The other is how social media algorithms work.

Apps like TikTok favor controversy because it boosts views. People who strongly agree or disagree on a piece of content are more likely to engage with it, leaving comments, stitching it with their own thoughts, or sharing it with peers.

"In order for a conflict or for a cultural moment to take place, you can't just have love or hate, you need both," Burke said. "Because you need people having a dialogue."

Katya Varbanova, a viral marketing expert, told BI TikTok thrives on these debates, and trad wife content gives them just that because it's a very polarizing topic. Roe v. Wade only added to that.

"If you grew up in a traditional household and it was a happy household, obviously you would hold the belief that that's the way to go," she said. "And vice versa. If you grew up in a non-traditional household that was happy, you believe that. So it creates this dichotomy, a fight between the two."

There are more than 16,000 TikToks containing the hashtag #tradwife on TikTok, many with millions of views.

The most viral ones are the most extreme on both sides, Varbanova said, with videos showing the fifties aesthetic full of beautiful aprons and an aspirational life, generating both awe and disgust in the comments.

Some women find the content hard to watch because they may feel conflicted about their lives and whether they want children, seeing as it's less affordable for many young people now than it used to be. Others simply find it ridiculous, describing some trad wife content of ethereal women floating through life as "lobotomy-core."

"I'm always the person that believes neither side is better than the other," Varbanova said. "You get to choose what makes you happy, and no woman should be forced to be a trad wife, and no woman should be forced to not be a trad wife."

The fear is that extremism may trickle down

Burke said she doesn't believe the end result of trad wife culture is going to be that more progressive women are converted to that lifestyle.

She's more concerned about the soft power religious institutions may be gaining in the background, with more harmful ideologies about women's role in society and trickling down through messaging about traditional family values, abortion rights included.

For a long time, rich religious institutions were largely absent from influencing swathes of young people on social media, but now they have an in, disguised in aprons and Bettie Page curls.

"We're approaching another presidential election and there is such a fracturing in our country," Burke said. "So I'm thinking about, what are these people representing? Who do they have access to?"

As with everything on the internet, content and anyone can find themselves falling down an increasingly extremist pipeline without realizing it.

"Everything about how these women behave comes from the indoctrination of their religions," Burke said. "And their religions are way more powerful than we even like to remember."