Traditional images of women | Tradwives and the desire for a life beyond paid work

The actress Pamela Anderson represents the latest version of the hype: a woman who practices domesticity but is also wealthy and independent of a husband. Photo: dpa/ Christoph Soeder The rumor that the Tradwife era is slowly but surely over has been going on for over two years. People have had enough of women standing in front of a kitchen island kneading sourdough while children run around in the background. No one wants to watch content creators make butter anymore instead of just taking it out of the fridge - the way normal people have always done it. Tradwives have been disenchanted, the ideology behind their domestic performance has been exposed, the hype is over once and for all.

Strangely enough, everyone still likes to engage in a way of life that is supposedly no longer interesting at all. Is it possible that you secretly find the tradwife life really cool? Especially if you remove the “Trad” and “Wife” components, but largely keep the rest? At least that is my theory.

Nadia Shehadeh is a sociologist and lives for pop absurdities and decorative junk.

Nara Smith, a German-South African model and now something like the new Martha Stewart, has just published a cookbook that made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. She now lives in the USA, where she became a tradwife star - a label that she has vehemently rejected for some time. She recently stopped off in her home country of Germany with her book in order to now sell the recipes from the accompanying videos.

Known for being perfectly styled and in designer clothes, cooking up everything possible and impossible with remarkable attention to detail, Smith is currently undergoing an image change: in her public production, her husband Lucky Blue Smith, who used to be a well-known decorative accessory in her cooking videos, has noticeably moved into the background. More or less through the flower, she explained that what she was doing was some sort of art form. That makes sense, because the housework and domesticity market in which Smith makes her living has been under pressure for some time: stagnating economies, toxic political climates and threatening scenarios are now making the dream of a domestic marital idyll in which people cook and feast in style seem ridiculous.

In other words: In times when people around the world are repeatedly told to prepare for an emergency and have 72 hours of supplies in the house, no one has the nerve to bake their own cornflakes or mix their own chewing gum like Smith did. You never wanted that anyway. But: People wanted to watch it.

On the topic: Ballerina Farm: The illusory world of Hannah Neeleman - Tradwives like Hannah Neeleman show: A woman seems to be a good woman especially when she is suffering and exhausted.

However, housewife life has not lost any of its seductive vibe. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding that people thought that millions of consumers would watch homemaking videos in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Book of Mormon somewhere in the background or even finding spiritual salvation. The appeal of the videos is quickly explained: you can watch people make twelve hours of occupational therapy out of three ingredients. Tradwives were at home, had time, and didn't have to sit in meetings at nine in the morning to discuss the meeting from the day before yesterday and appoint a "timekeeper" beforehand. Tradwives just did: nonsense.

That's why it's absolutely understandable that there's finally a soundtrack for this longing. “I just wanna make a lot of money, wanna be my own housewife,” sings Tate McRae, hitting a nerve. Her song is the logical development of the tradwife hype: you actually want to be a housewife without a husband, but with your own assets. All the other annoying nonsense (subordination, traditional marriage, religious-conservative family values) is simply left out. Being a tradwife without financial dependency, unpaid care work and a husband who asks what you have to eat: you only take the best part of the idea of ​​being an unlimited housewife.

Pamela Anderson is also currently showing how attractive this life plan is. Living in constant separation from her role as a sex symbol, she now walks on red carpets and through her garden without make-up, practices self-sufficiency and donates much of the proceeds from her gardening to food banks. She has created a real housewife's paradise on Vancouver Island - plus a cookbook and her own cooking show. She doesn't need a husband or religious justifications for this - her domestic life is self-chosen and financed. After decades in which her body and private life were repeatedly scandalized, her greatest luxury today is to decide for herself how she spends her time. This in turn can monetize them - which makes the point perfect.

And so the kitchen, garden and hours of work with pasta dough and cheese making are now less places of ideas for female subjugation - rather, they nourish fantasies of self-determination and independence. The fact that it is now clear that these women also work and, with their efforts, play a role in an industrial field does not detract from this. On the contrary. And should the apocalypse occur, the housewife influencers will at least still have a basement full of preserved food and the ability to bake wraps from flour and water that might even still taste good. But the most important thing: You haven't wasted your existence in an open-plan office for years.

Probably the real longing that fueled the tradwife hype was the desire for a life beyond paid work. So perhaps it's now time to name the real core of the Tradwife hype: the desire for a life in which people can make their own puff pastry whenever they feel like it. What could help? For example, an unconditional basic income – that would be a complete Tradwife rebranding. And one could stop leaving the unconditional exemption from wage labor to the rich (and their sourdough starters).

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