E181 | Are Trad Wives Feminists? (w/ Dr. Rosy Blunstone)

Is being a tradwife really just about baking bread, homemaking and traditional femininity, or is there something deeper going on?

In this episode, Dr Alex is joined by Dr Rosy Blunstone to explore the psychology of the tradwife phenomenon: why tradwife content has become so popular online, what it offers women psychologically, and why it may also be more complicated (and less traditional) than it first appears.

This conversation examines whether tradwife culture is a harmless aesthetic, a genuine lifestyle choice, a reaction against burnout and modern feminism, or a romanticised fantasy shaped by influencer culture.

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training. Dr. Blunstone is a registrar psychiatrist and psychotherapist working in North London. 

Check out The Thinking Mind Blog on Substack: https://thinkingmindblog.substack.com/

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for psychological coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Is being a child wife just about baking bread, or is it about something deeper than that?

SPEAKER_03 0:04

I do think particularly women are still establishing what it feels like to be a working mother, caregiver, daughter, uh career person in a society that hasn't always kept pace with the way in which w women are expected to function. We thought we could have it all, but actually we have to do it all. These archetypes and these much more distillations of if you fulfil this role, here is your defined requirements of you in this role, and everything else you don't have to worry about. Almost what could be better? Except I think in some ways are we slightly kidding ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I have a lot of mansplaining to do.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Well, thanks, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Welcome back everyone. Today we are discussing the somewhat controversial topic of trad wives or trad wifery. Is being a trad wife just about baking bread? Or is it about something deeper than that? Is it about psychology? Is it about ideology? Is it about the influencer economy? Or perhaps a combination of all of these things? This is part of our strand on the podcast where we talk about cultural trends and cultural happenings. We've previously talked about looks maxing, the manosphere. If you're interested in topics like that, look those podcasts up. And with me to discuss the trad wife phenomenon is Dr. Rosie Bluntstone, who heads up our Thinking Mind Substack. She's a psychiatric and psychotherapy registrar. Thanks so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Thank you. Nice to see you, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Tradwives, what how how can we, for people some people might know what trad wives are for the uninitiated, what's a good introduction to this?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

So a trad wife as a terminology is predominantly around women who have chosen to pursue a very traditional, seemingly sort of nostalgic lifestyle, a return to uh the the the good old days, and they promote and encourage traditional family values, homesteading, that's a bit of an Americanism, but some of the more bake it for yourself, be at home, self-sufficiency at home, traditional gender roles while your husband goes out to work and is the primary earner, and it's a huge phenomenon online as we're learning.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah, I think some of the so I'm gonna be honest, guys. I have no I've had no organic contact with this kind of content myself. This is something I've heard about and I've researched it for this, but I'm obviously not the target demographic. Big names in the trad wife sphere, people like Nara Smith.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

After an eight-hour flight, I finally made it home, and one of the first things my husband wanted was a home cooked meal. One thing he always craves is some tacos, so that's what I got started on. I started by making the marinade for my Alpastore tacos. Once that was blended, I passed that through a fine mesh strainer, making sure to strain it properly.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

People like Estee Williams, the brand Ballerina Farms. I guess as you're saying, it's a return to these more traditional genderals. What do you think about it? Are we worried about this? We were really worried about looks maxing or fairly worried. We were definitely worried about some aspects of the manosphere. Are we worried about trad wives?

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Well, it's that's a really interesting question because seemingly, no, it's about things being wholesome and being at home and women um encapsulating all it means to be a mother and a wife and almost what could be better. Except, I think in some ways, are we slightly kidding ourselves? Um, I think what we could think about in terms of worrying about it is why is this appealing so much in an age where we are a generation or generations that have more choice, more options, more ways in which we can be earning a living and being independent and fulfilling our dreams? Why are we hankering and yearning after a past that we progressed from? What for what need do we have for that? And I think when we talk about are we worried, not worried, but that's interesting, I think.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

And uh, I mean I have some thoughts around this, but what what do you think? Why, why is it appealing? Why is it attractive to many women? How why has it become so huge?

SPEAKER_03 4:31

I think there's a number of factors, and as ever, one of the things that I we've spoken about with these trends is you might sit on this spectrum of being somebody who is tentatively interested in some of the messaging that appeals to you perhaps around a lifestyle without necessarily engaging wholeheartedly and identifying as a trad wife. Um and you can still there's levels, yeah, and you could still be accessing this content. But I do think that there's something that these influences, because that's what they are ultimately, and this is a weird disconnect between it's a very modern thing because you have to have social media media and the internet to be a trad wife, really, if you're going to be an influencer. But they are they are feeding into something around the need for an identity, a community, perhaps some guidance in terms of this is how you do things, um, that seems to help in an age of a lot of uncertainty, that perhaps that that is a a need that's being fulfilled beyond just showing people how to keep a home clean and tidy, or how to bake bread well. That that there does seem to be a sort of a further need that they're fulfilling.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, I th that's that's kind of where I land. So I I think the best way to define trad wife psychologically is it's an archetype. So archetype is a word some people, some listeners may be familiar with, some not. An archetype is like a mode of being, it's a symbol of how one could live life. So common archetypes might be something like a nurturing mother, a queen is an archetype, a king is an archetype, a wise father, a hero, a villain. And the reason why archetypes have such appeal cross-culturally, and archetypes, so they're this Jungian idea and Jungfeld, and I think the evidence does hold up that archetypes have strong cross-cultural appeal, is because there are these distillations of how you could live life. And one thing I think we don't discuss enough is how complicated life is and how it's not obvious what are the right choices you should make. There's a million different choices, especially as things have progressed in the modern landscape. There's a million different ways you could live life, and arc archetypes help simplify life, they help take away a lot of possibilities. So a trad wife might be appealing because it takes away the burden of having to make all of these choices. What kind, you know, should you balance career with family? If you do have a career, what kind of career should you have? How should you negotiate all of that with your husband or with your wife? It's already complicated, and any archetype helps to simplify life and distill it such that now you have a roadmap. Okay, now it's about making the house look and function a certain way, helping with childcare, and then that takes a lot of things off the table. Now, many people value individual freedom a lot more than they value distillation and simplicity, and then there's a whole other conversation about how you can engage with an archetype like Tradwife or a different archetype, but first you have to understand it's attractive because it helps make things simpler, it takes like a thousand choices and makes them into three or four choices. And I don't think we should be criticizing anyone for craving that level of simplicity because I think we're all feeling this a little bit, the burden of all these choices.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Yeah, absolutely. And I and I do think, particularly women, and um I think the reason for that is we are still establishing what it feels like to be a working mother, um, caregiver, daughter, sister, uh career person in a society that hasn't always kept pace with um the way in which w women are expected to function. So I, you know, there's well-known things about we thought we could have it all, but actually we have to do it all. Um and I think that these, that you say these archetypes and these much more distillations of if you fulfil this role, here is your defined um the requirements of of you in this role and everything else you don't have to worry about. I think as a woman there's something like really appealing in that, especially if you've if you've found that otherwise it's very, very difficult to function in society as it is.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I have a question for you, Rosie. Obviously, this is kind of like an N equals one study, but I have a question for you. Do you feel in your life it was adequately explained you were adequately adequately prepared for the complexity of both having kids and a family and having a career? You're a career woman, you're also a mum. Were you prepared for that level of complexity? Did people sit you down at some point in your teens or early 20s and give you a sense of how difficult this was going to be?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

No. Or if they did, I don't think I was ready to receive that information. But even if they had, what could I have done about it? And I think this is this is a question that women are wrangling with and their partners and society in general, but because the it it's the it's falling on the individual to solve these problems that are societal. A lot of the reason why it's so difficult is because we don't have the community structures and the societal structures whereby we are sharing childcare or we have the support around um the way we're going to balance our workload and our home life, etc. And that's not something an individual is going to be able to fix unless they withdraw completely from one aspect or the other. And if somebody had said to me this is going to be really difficult, I think I would have said, Well, like, but it doesn't feel like a choice I could make.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Like I feel like girls should be warned more and earlier about the complexity of this because there is a lot of practical life planning that can help that if you're aware of these complexities coming earlier in your life, you can make plans. So plans might be getting as much relationship experience as possible, for instance. So one thing you hear about online is this trend of this is kind of the opposite of the Chad Wife trend. This might be what you call the girl boss trend or the boss babe trend, right? Which is kind of the mirror image of the Chad wife. Where women may put off having a relationship until they're 30 or 35, say, because they want to focus on their career, and on the surface, that makes sense. What that leaves out, I think the important thing that leaves out is that being in a relationship, dating and being in a relationship is a set of skills, and if you don't have practice in those skills, it's very hard later in life to just all of a sudden learn it and figure it out. So you might get into a relationship when you're 30 or 35, but it can be a lot harder, and you don't have that experience, you might be making your mistakes for the first time a lot later in life, and that can be a big deal then when it comes to family planning and stuff like that. So I think we also have to acknowledge the trend that's been happening more the other way. So I actually looked this up, so I did some research. So the girl boss trend I think goes back to the early 2010s, so one of the major influencers in that trend would be Sophia Amaruso, so she's the uh former C hashtag GirlBoss, she runs girlboss media, she's the former CEO of Nasty Girl, so she's like the epitome of that. As far as I can tell, in terms of timelines, the Tradwife thing is kind of a response to that. Because the Tradwife phenomenon first emerged in the late 2010s, like 2018, 2019. Again, people like Nara Smith, Ballerina Farms. So it feels like there's still a lot of figuring out we're all doing about what are the different roles people are supposed to have and how do we manage all of this complexity.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right that there can be a natural pushback against any trend. And in fact, I agree that I think the girl boss phenomenon was something that actually ended up alienating a lot of women because it felt completely unattainable. And again, um, I think the next step of that might have been like a Cheryl Sandberg and a lean-in um approach. And then more recently, you've got Emma Greed, who's talking about choose yourself and saying things like, Don't, you know, don't put off having children until you're in your 30s or your 40s, don't believe the bosses that tell you to keep to keep working and freeze your eggs. Because actually the reality is that might leave you with problems later. And again, a very powerful, important message. But I get who who gets lost in the middle? The rest of us saying, Well, who do I believe? Who do I trust? And perhaps this is also a point about where influencers and influencer culture comes in, because who are we looking to to provide these answers to existential and other um questions about how we live our lives and what does a good life look like for me as a person, bearing in mind all my cultural and personal and uh individual characteristics and requirements. We're looking online and these individuals are stepping in and saying, I can fulfil the need you have for answers. It's just that it's not that simple, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

And this also leads us to what I think is the fundamental hypocrisy at the heart of the trad wife phenomenon. So at least if you look at the girl boss phenomenon, it's totally congruent. They're saying, you know, go out, work hard, hustle, building, build a career, be super independent, and that is indeed what they're doing. So there's there's not a huge amount of hypocrisy there. With the trad wife thing, the people who are at the forefront of this movement are not staying at home doing, not having a career. They have these very vast, complicated, fully fledged social media and mainstream now media careers.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

One kind of side tangent on this point. So we gave a talk at the sixth form last week. Rosie and I did Rosie talk to the girls, I talked to the guys. And one of the questions that we were asked was about social media, and my where I land on social media is you should treat social media as a video game. So social media is very cleverly designed to make us feel like it's reality. Like even this podcast, when we're making this podcast, what we're trying to create is this sense of an organic, fluid conversation, which to a large degree it is, but you guys aren't seeing the camera, you guys aren't seeing the lights, you're not seeing the editing, you're not seeing the post-production. So it is a performance of sorts, we can't get away from that. Social media, especially. So you're seeing, if you look at a trad wife real, you're seeing someone baking bread from scratch. You're not seeing the lights, you're not seeing the team, you're not seeing the expensive cameras. Social media is a video game, it's a representation of reality, it is not reality. So the fundamental hypocrisy at the core of this is the people at the top are very sophisticated business women.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

And and I even though I think you'd be surprised how many people could be taken in by that and and and and kind of skim over that core hypocrisy, I think.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah, agreed. And I think it's so important to acknowledge that because certainly I know Ballerina Farm is from a huge amount of wealth, as is her husband, and obviously coming with from uh with influencer culture is endorsements and being given lots of things, gifts and PR opportunities that the average person just doesn't have. Ballerina Farm has, I think, nine children. The reality that you're going to be baking bread if you don't have a really clear infrastructure and childcare support with nine children is completely unrealistic. But is it the unrealistic aspect of what they're selling that is so appealing to us all? I mean, is that is that what's drawing us in? It's not real life because we can see real life, and real life's a bit dull sometimes. So just make it interesting and nicely lit and beautifully posed for us, and then we lose ourselves in that romanticism of the everyday in a way that we know every day is not particularly romantic and it's difficult and it's hard. And is there just something really nice in pretending that that's real when we all know it's not really real?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'd like to get into that soon when we talk about the the more the dark side of engaging with this stuff. But one thing I thought of as I was listening to you was maybe a second layer of hypocrisy. So the first layer is the women behind this are all you know, they're all boss babes.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

They are, and they're all and they're and I think they might be married to boss babes. Like I don't some of them certainly are boss babes all the way down.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

So that's layer one. Layer two is I guess Chadwifery is kind of a luxury lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Yes, for real. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

It's a lifestyle for the rich and affluent.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I was interested in as well is it's a Western phenomenon. Um, that again, I think we have to be mindful about where is this coming from and and and why so. But it absolutely is a luxury. The way in which this is being set up, that you could sustain a lifestyle in which the traditional gender roles are um adhered to. So you're as a woman, you're staying at home and you're cooking and you're looking after the children, and you're raising them and looking after the house on a single income, is unattainable for most people. It's not it's not the reality, and can only be possible when you have the financial backing that some of these people have and have achieved through their influence. I I get that it's the two are linked. Um, but it is not possible for a lot of people to just detach from life and their and work in this way and have children.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Now, when we discussed the the manosphere and looks maxing, we said, you know, there's there's ways, there's there's definitely healthier versions of it. So with the manosphere and looks maxing, it might be getting into personal fitness, yeah, learning social skills, things like that, even just learning about yourself psychologically, learning about men and women, you know, that stuff's useful. And then there's a less healthy side, which we discussed on those podcasts. And I guess it's the same with with the trad wife thing, you know, it might be just an idea of maybe I do need to make some alterations to my life, maybe cut back a little bit on work if I can. Maybe do some things I enjoy, and maybe I really enjoy some aspects of childcare, maybe I do really enjoy some aspects of keeping a beautiful home. And that seems pretty fine. I think you said some of your friends who watch this stuff, that's kind of I guess you could call this the aesthetic layer. They're engaging with more the aesthetic layer of this in a milder way. What do you think are some of the darker aspects of engaging with this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 19:41

I think inevitably anything that is selling you something that is not real is a bit dark. Um, because it set it can set you up on a the whole nature of social media is usually based around a comparison culture. The idea of how do I what do I have versus what does that person have? And when it's not an even playing field, this is not fair. Those people do not have the same setup as you. I think that can absolutely lead people to be feeling much more um unhappy with their life, unhappy with their setup, and perhaps even making choices that are not particularly healthy for them. But I do think as well, there's also something about this move away from acceptance of where are we in our lives as a society, and what could we do to be changing things for better if it's not working for us? I don't think burying our heads in the sand and looking with rose-tinted glasses back to with nostalgia to it, it's not real this this time in the past. That's not how things were. And we don't think that's particularly healthy as a society or as an individual. I think we should be looking at things as they are and saying, if this isn't working for us, I think we should be trying to find solutions and answers rather than looking back. And I also think it makes people very vulnerable to simplistic messaging that can key into unmet needs, particularly perhaps politically unmet needs, um, that that can be very dark. And so I think there are dark aspects of this that we have to be mindful of.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

One aspect I was really worried about is to what extent is this phenomenon encouraging dependency in women, dependency on men, in a way that, you know, as you point out, is quite regressive. I like to use movies and TV shows to illustrate psychological things, and I guess the best example for this would be something like Betty Draper and Mad Men. Have you watched Mad Men?

SPEAKER_03 21:49

No, but I I know I should.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

How could you? Watch watch Mad Men, it's really good. So so Mad Men obviously is about a family in the nineteen fifties. And what you see is something which you commonly hear talked about back then is housewives by themselves raising kids often in the suburbs where they didn't have access to a close community were incredibly lonely, incredibly dissatisfied with their lives, and totally financially dependent on their husbands. Funnily enough, we think, you know, rationally we might think human beings are going to resist that, that we have a drive towards autonomy, and I think human beings largely do have a drive towards autonomy. But I do think when the world gets too much, both for men and for women, and again you do see this politically, we have an unconscious desire to give up control. I think this is the psychology behind authoritarian strongmen. Specific names don't need to be mentioned here. But you'd be surprised how much, especially in groups and under the sway of a group mentality, an individual can give up their autonomy because God, the world just feels like too much. And again, I need to there's too many choices, and I need to give up the burden of my autonomy in favour of being dependent on someone else who's gonna handle all of that. And I would worry, especially for younger women, that it's encouraging that kind of dependency and that voluntarily giving up of autonomy, in a kind of in a way that in a weird mirror image of the way incels give up their autonomy. Yeah, so it's so incels give up their autonomy by their they're saying it's not my choice that I don't get to have sexual relationships, it's because women are too aspirational, that's just putting it charitably. That's the most charitable interpretation. So they're giving their auto they're giving up their agency and autonomy to improve their own lives. And this is kind of similar where women are saying, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna hand over the reins to someone else.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Yeah, and and and we saw a bit a bit of it in the manosphere um conversation as well, this idea that women are inferior and that uh there's uh a way in which men should be optimizing themselves to but that women are sort of seeking this ultimate man, and we we've seen it in in different guises. This just it feels healthier because it's packaged differently, maybe. Uh it's more wholesomely packaged, but that's all which makes it even more dangerous, in a way. Is it yeah, is it different size of the same coin? And is it really also playing into the vulnerability of the people who are accessing it? So we know that these influencers are not who they say they are in terms of their backgrounds and the infrastructure that's around them. But what about the vulnerabilities of the people who are keying into this? And what are they giving up to be a part of this community? That's something that when we don't really know. We we know there are people who are not giving up anything because they just enjoy watching people baking bread and find that very relaxing. But there is a question, just as in the same way we spoke about with looks maxing and the manosphere, that there will be people for whom this is answering some questions and providing some guidance that they are giving something else up. And and and and perhaps what they're giving up is the opportunity to work this stuff out for themselves, which is really what life's all about, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Or or even to work something out with your partner. Like part of being in a marriage or a long-term relationship is that negotiation where we figure out things together rather than you know, my husband handles the finances, I have no idea what's going on financially, I handle the kitchen, and my husband can't make a boiled egg to use a very like cliche example.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yeah, and there's a safety in that. We have to find roles and we know where we fit. And actually, you you said yourself, is there an argument that we should be having these sorts of conversations much younger or earlier in relationships? Because as you get older, these things pop up and it can be a bit harder to deal with, especially once you've got kids and a career, etc. So, yeah, absolutely. These are probably conversations you should be having with your partner, with your friends, with your community, with yourself. And it but if you're not having them, and instead you're following somebody who's telling you, well, I'll just tell you how to live your life, and it could be as beautiful as mine, because look how beautiful my life is, that's not real. And so then what?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yes, I I actually really I do feel that I've grown more worried about it as I've researched it and talked about it with you. Because I had like, you know, I I almost felt, you know, is this something we should be worried about when we were first discussing it? And the more I learn and think about it and hear your thoughts, the more I feel like I'm learning in real time. Yeah, this is kind of insidious.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Yeah, and it's also I think the the way in which we are perpetually being sold different ways in which to optimise and to be to to be better, um, our lives should be better, and this is how you can do it. And it's just selling all the time. And I I I struggle to feel that that isn't something that we should be much more alert to. Because as I say, I don't think that looking at pretty pictures of someone's house or them baking bread, that in itself I'm not worried about, but it's more about the the sort of the underlying message of if you're not happy with your life, these are different ways in which you can be optimizing. And it feels like a spectrum between looks maxing and follow follow this algorithm by which you can be a better version of yourself, or follow the trad wife version and um algorithm, and and where in that is the what's good, what do you want? You know, who do you want to be? Like that's that's the bit are we all just get do we all just end up as weird followers and camps and uh and that then the individuality is gone um and the opportunity to learn and evolve.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

I'm gonna ask you another question. Feel free to like pass if you want to pass. But my um my next question is um, what do you think is a healthy version of feminism?

SPEAKER_03 28:09

I think it's nuanced, and it's it's going to be why the debate is important. And I think when I was younger, I used to think there must be a right. One of these people must be right.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

And as I've got older, I think I've realized no, sometimes, sometimes a person is right on one thing, but there can be lots of rights at different times in your life in your different circumstances, and it's nuanced, and that does not sell in influencer culture, context very hard. Yeah, yeah. It's really hard to make a hot moment or a um Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Trying to do hard moments all the time.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

I'm trying for you, but it's really hard because these are the the the nuance is important, and that's why people dedicate their lives to these movements and why people have historically died for them. Because what we're trying to do is to say it's a conversation worth having, whether you want to hear it or not, it's a conversation worth having. But sometimes you're gonna get it wrong. Sometimes you're gonna say something and say, I overstepped the mock, and that's the important part is to say, I got it wrong, I've realized I've done more work, I've done more research, and I'm coming back and I'm changing it. It's why feminist authors will write many, many books, not just one and say, that's it, I'm done. This is it, this is the information.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

My my my thoughts are, and just to be clear for for listeners, I'm not an expert on feminism, there's maybe more reading I would need to do about this, so bear that in mind. But what I from what I can tell, the tensions, the kind of feminist tensions, something like the trad wife phenomenon raises are to what extent is feminism about choice versus to what extent is it about leaning against traditional gender roles? And even if it is about choice, to what extent are individuals truly making free choices? To what extent are their choices being influenced by all this societal machinery, cultural machinery, politics, economic incentives? That seems to be, and I don't I don't have an answer, but but these seem seem to be the kinds of dilemmas that this kind of movement raises, I think, in in women.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

And we're fortunate that we can have a debate about these dilemmas, and I think the more we have the debate, the better. And there was a really interesting situation that came up recently with a famous American, female American comic who was talking about her facelift and saying that she fought for ages against the impulse to have a facelift, and her daughter had said, you know, I'd lose respect for you, and and people around would lose respect for you if you did that, because it is feeding into these ideas of um sort of uh beauty standards, modern beauty standards being unattainable, etc. But in the end, she decided that actually I can still be a feminist and look better and look the way I look, and it's this is the nuance. This is the the debate and and and it's hard, it's it's tricky, and and um there are no simple answers. And so when you try and make it simple, that is when it becomes problematic, perhaps, is the word because it's not simple, it's your life, it's complex and it's it's nuanced, um, but it's a but absolutely it's an interesting point about is it about choice and is the choice the important part? Yeah, and therefore you can choose to not be feminists.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

And I guess the other thing that this whole thing made me think of is how has marriage changed, you know, and how have the expectations of marriage changed? Both expectations of the you know, the traditional gender roles, what function should uh each individual have uh in a marriage, but also how has marriage changed in terms of how likely is it gonna be a till death do us part thing? So, in my mind, part of the very valid incentive for the girl boss movement is this growing sense that especially with growing life expectancy and a sort of a decay of traditionalism in general, marriage isn't always forever, you know, it's not always till death to us part. So the responsible woman has to do things to protect herself economically and financially, because if things fall apart, the you know someone might be in a very vulnerable situation. So, again, this would be another concern I might have about the whole child wife thing, is it's kind of ignoring the ways that marriage has changed in reality for a lot of people in favour of a more nostalgic view of what used to be before. But even you know, even that nostalgic view isn't reality, because as we know, if we go back to the 40s or the 50s, I'm sure there were like really good aspects of it, but it wasn't a picnic either, there were profoundly negative things about those times as well.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

And hen and hence there was a move to change it. You know, we're only where we are now because people were reacting against the reality in which they found themselves at that time. That's the point of it. And yeah, totally. I mean, I don't know if Ballerina Farm gives advice around things like pensions, but I like it it feels remiss if she doesn't, because the real the reality is at some point you may well need one. And I think this is and how and uh that there in America, what health insurance. I mean, these are the sorts of things that are just not a luxury for people who are not employed. In the UK, obviously we have the NHS, so it is different. But I agree, I think that there's an element of the the the assumption being, well, uh if you rely wholly on your husband, then then what else would you need to worry about if you're embodying this trad wife culture? But again, situations change and they can change very quickly, and the safety net and security that you can have from your career, not to mention also the the psychological um rewards um and well-being rewards from having a a career that you're engaged with if if if that's if you're lucky enough to have a career like that, um they then they're not insignificant.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Do you have anyone in your personal life that you have seen, or maybe even with patients or clients who are engaging with this stuff in a deeper or darker way?

SPEAKER_03 34:16

No, I I I haven't actually. And I think probably much like with the looks maxing topic, that it it may well come into our sphere. It hasn't yet. Um not in a not in a Western sense of this being based on a social media trend. I mean, certainly I've come into contact with people who have very traditional gender roles because of their cultural religious backgrounds, but but that is a different thing to what we're talking about, really. I haven't seen it. I certainly do think though that it's an interesting topic in which it slightly overlaps with the idea that comes in around almost like optimised motherhood, and that the way in which as a mother, you as a modern mother, you can have these unrealistic expectations around the fact that you are cooking all meals from scratch and also earning a living, and your be your children are beautifully behaved and dressed well and gentle parenting, but also and also and also and the those pressures do quite aligned with yeah, that you've you know, that your kids have no ultra-processed food whatsoever because you've baked that bread yourself. It's just completely unrealistic, and that is something that feels like a link between the two.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And again, that's why I really want to promote this idea that social media as a video game, we should treat it as a video game. We don't, but we should, we should treat it as a fantasy or a dream. Nice to look at, but really not a reflection of reality.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Yeah, and what's it selling us? This is the thing. There's the the we are being sold something all the time in lots of different guises, but through social media, through the engagement, the algorithm, there's we're always being sold something, and it may be a lifestyle, but it also just may be someone's cooker, um, that they've been paid however many millions of pounds to bake their bread in this really expensive cooker, and and ultimately that's it's content for you to go and spend more money. But where is this money coming from if you don't have a job? Um that's where we the the whole thing falls down.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Just before we move into maybe some practical advice we could give, and I do have quite a lot of that actually, surprising amount of that. I have a lot of mansplaining to do.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Um thanks Alex.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

But before that, uh let's play devil's advocate. Is there a version of leaning into being a trad wife that actually could be empowering?

SPEAKER_03 36:45

I'm sure there is. I'm I I the the trad wives who are doing it and doing it well, I would say are very empowered.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Like I don't I don't think the the influencers should count because they're not being true trad wives. So outside of them, is there a version of leaning hard into being a true trad wife where you're walking the walk that is also empowering?

SPEAKER_03 37:05

I don't know, but I think any life choice that you'll make, if you're if you're making a life choice authentically and it is something that you feel very aligned with and it is the right thing for you, I think that's okay. I'm o I'm okay with that. It's aligned with you, it's authentic, and it's what you want to do. I don't know. I worry about the conse I worry about your pension, but other than that Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

And I I worry about that stuff too, but I I do think we So one thing that's also important to mention is personality. So we know from personality science, people might listeners might know I like to use the big five because I think that's the most evidence-based personality model we have. People are different, people come in all shapes and sizes, people have different predispositions, predilections, and some people if they're it's in their bones to make money, like that's what they want to do. They may be high in certain traits, like let's say conscientiousness or other traits that for them, their poetry, what they feel in their heart is they love to build businesses and make money. For other people, it's sports, for other people, they're very relationship-oriented, some people love childcare, both men or women, by the way. So I think you mentioned this word authenticity, and I think that's very important. Through psychotherapy, that's one way, but it's by no means the only way, or other means, some kind of introspective process. I do think it's important in a world where we have so much choice to block out the noise for a bit and think like, what am I about? What do I care about? Removed as I can be from other influences, and I know it's not possible to remove them entirely, but you know, when I'm in a silent room by myself and no one's watching, what moves me? What can I do for free even after I'm not being paid? And that's a clue to how you start to want to build your life. And I think similar to you, I am worried, but at the same time, I can imagine a version of leaving leaning into that lifestyle where it's truly fulfilling if that's the kind of stuff you like. I think my main worry again would be loss of autonomy, uh financial concerns, things like that. But in essence, I think living that lifestyle might be the right lifestyle for many people, and if that's the case and they can do it safely with the right precautions, then I think that's r reasonable. I think what you're gonna find statistically is most people are gonna fall somewhere in the middle. So some people So most people are probably gonna want some form of meaningful work and some meaningful family life, and I think that's a natural part of being human, men or women, and we should allow for that, and we should also allow for the extremes, and we should allow for the men who want to be house husbands and they want to be married to the girl boss. You know, I feel like there's room for everyone, but yeah, but I guess what we need is a really fundamentally more liberal tolerant attitude and a less maybe tribalistic attitude where we form teams, and that's where my pessimism comes in because gosh, do we have that tribalism kind of software baked into our DNA at a very deep level? But I really I agree with you on that auth authenticity point because people are so different from each other.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Yes, but I made it sound really simple, and actually you make you made a point about that keying into what do you want when you're alone and silent in a room and and when are you at your most happiest? That's actually quite hard for people to do, and I think that that in and of itself is the reason why I rail against other people telling you this will make you happy or this is the way to a more authentic life or whatever. Because have you done the work where you really keyed into what makes you happy? Because it is surprising. I'm I don't know if you've seen Alex, I've seen it in my work when you ask people, they actually really struggle to identify those things, and that's where I would prefer people to start. What is right for you? Let's start there first, and if you want to bring in these other elements, by all means do it. But just embodying and replicating a a probably completely unattainable lifestyle um choice um and and yeah, way of living is unlikely to answer all your questions.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, exactly. I I made a podcast, so the podcast that came out, I guess, a couple of weeks ago was about self-hate. And I guess the core of that podcast is you kind of have choices in life. Do you want to develop a self that you present to other people, a kind of vehicle you ride around in the world? The more you invest in that persona or that vehicle, the more you put yourself at distance from yourself and you encourage more of a self-hate or self-loathing dynamic within yourself, because you're basically teaching yourself that who you are inside is unacceptable. You're teaching yourself that by by wearing a mask, really. And so if if for you trad wife is a mask, then that's gonna be a problem. If it's a real authentic expression of yourself, then actually it's probably gonna be really good for self-esteem and building a more balanced life.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Do you have any general advice you would give to a young woman who maybe has engaged with this stuff a little bit too much? What how would you kind of frame it for them?

SPEAKER_03 42:30

I think depending on the environment in which I'm having these conversations, I would probably want to understand what it is that's appealing so much about this content and what they're getting from it, but also perhaps we might have a gentle conversation about well yes, but what else what else what are you losing in um engaging here? Um and and I think I think it would be naive not to appreciate that there is definitely a pe an appeal there, and I think certainly at periods of in periods of your life where things feel more uncertain, um, and especially if you've had difficult times through teenagehood or you lost direction at a particular point, I would want to understand that, and probably try and gently suggest ways in which you might be able to introduce some more tolerance of uncertainty through through managing your own life effectively, making conscious choices in your in your day-to-day that move you in a direction that feels more aligned to you and who you are, rather than replicating somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, definitely. And you want to know like what in what level are you engaging with this material on? Is it the aesthetic level? Is it that you just like making? You know, is it the is it the ideas level? I guess there's the political level, we haven't discussed a huge amount. Again, just like with personality, I think it's it's really easy to be, you know. We're we're we're psychotherapists, psychiatrists in London. It's very easy to be anti-conservative on this podcast, but there are some people who are predisposed to be conservative. There's nothing wrong with conservatism in essence. We need to have a right wing, so to speak. Now there are particular expressions of the right wing that can become dangerous, as there are expressions of the left wing that can become dangerous. Some people are disposed to be more conservative. Tradwife stuff can be quite conservative leaning, obviously, because it leans into that sense of tradition. And what I would say is with that it's okay to be conservative. Like, don't I I don't think like if that's again that's who you are, you should lean into it. But being conservative intelligently, you know, read about the history of what it means to be conservative. What do you actually believe? How does that um collide with modern problems? Because one of the problems with being conservative is it doesn't make you predisposed towards innovation when it comes to all of the new problems. That's more of a left-wing thing typically. And also have a community of people around you who disagree with you. So I strongly feel if you're a left-leaning person, you need to have right-leaning friends. And if you're a right-leaning person, maybe you're into the trad wife stuff, you should have left-wing friends, be familiar with the counter-arguments to your arguments, be able to pose just a stronger counter-argument to what you're saying. So, for example, I try and do this, so a lot of my philosophy about life is very individualistic because I think about individuals and I think about self-improvement and what a person can do by themselves, not necessarily as a collective, as a society, to improve themselves. And there's huge pros to that because it encourages autonomy, but there's huge cons to that because it's not necessarily something that can benefit a whole society simultaneously. It's individualistic, it can leave someone prone to like isolation, for example. So you want to be aware of the pros and the cons of the kind of political philosophy that you're adhering to. I think that's important to disagree with people and disagree respectfully.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Just about this point about political um manipulation, I suppose, is just that much as there is a natural conservatism within this movement, I think just being alert to the fact that you could very easily, you can very easily become a pin-up for a political movement that you are not necessarily aligned to, um, and by which we're talking much more the far right level of things. So you making sure that you're not becoming a political pawn for for for really quite unpleasant, dangerous um political movements that could take something that feels very wholesome and about traditional values and the way in which you want to live your life, but could could relatively easily be manipulated by those who want to use the that this that lifestyle as a means by which to gain their own political ends. It was certainly done in the past, and and I think there are some political figures in our present who may well want to do the same. And actually, it is so important that for whatever reason you may choose to engage in something like this, you are, as you say, informed, um, and you have sufficient uh confidence um t to be able to hold your own against what may also be unpleasant and potentially dangerous influences that could be coming in because of where you are aligned.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

The the other piece of mansplaining advice I had was I think it's so so one of the biggest uh relationship mistakes I see, and I'm curious if you see this, is that couples don't consciously split up responsibilities. So it just kind of happens organically. So most often you know both people will work, but when it comes to the house and childcare, there isn't this clear division, okay, I handle this, you handle that, I'm making it fair. And when it's not the problem with it, I'm sure some people do it organically and it's fine, but the problem for most, I think, when they do it more improvisationally, is it's a breathing ground for resentment because inevitably one or both people in the relationship feel like they're not like they're doing too much and the other person isn't putting their weight. So I think one cool thing about talking about trad wives and boss babes is this sense of like we really need to have a plan, you know. A couple needs to have a plan, and that plan may be one person does the breadwinning and one person takes care of the house, but a plan is better than no plan at all, where both people are kind of uh again improvising, and that I think leads to a lot of conflict. Is this something you see much?

SPEAKER_03 48:56

Yeah, I think that's that's absolutely true. I mean, more probably more anecdotally than in my working life, but I think certainly that is true that you can romanticize long-term relationships and and um parenting and marriage as much as you want, but the reality is there's nothing particularly romantic about having arguments about who last hit the bins out or whatever it might be. And these are the fundamentally, as you say, that build of resentment because it's unclear and because one person feels that they're doing more than the other, that that is the route at which relationship breakdowns are are are much more likely to happen. And we know that there's a really significant impact of things like parental breakdown on children, arguments in the home, etc. So, yeah, I agree, but but again, you said you we almost started off on this when you said, Did anyone ever sit you down and say how hard this is going to be? And I don't really understand why we don't do that. It's almost you enter into marriage as a contract, there should be some terms and conditions, shouldn't there? Like, why are we not why are we not saying it can still be romantic, but have you thought about who's going to do this and that? Because when times get hard, you may find that it becomes a bit more tricky to have those conversations once the emotions are involved. And I think it would just be a sensible thing to do. Because we've had so much change, because our roles have evolved, it's okay that in the past you didn't have to have these conversations because there was no question about it. You it was very obvious to everyone involved what everyone was doing. It's changed, we're different now, so maybe we have to do things differently.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Yes, no, 100%, and that leads nicely into my last piece of mansplaining, which is money. Everyone needs to learn about money, no one knows about money, virtually everyone. I don't care if you're a man or a woman, needs to know about money, taxes, you need to have some semblance of a financial plan for your life, even that if that's joint with someone else, and even if you're not the primary breadwinner, you need to be thinking about money. If you're in the UK, you need to learn about ISAs, you need to learn about investments, and some semblance of a plan for your life. And uh, I have you ever have you watched any of this? So there's this really famous divorce lawyer called James Sexton. So he's gone on a lot of podcasts and he talks about marriage and the importance of prenups. Have you seen any of his content?

SPEAKER_03 51:18

No.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

So he has this point about prenups, which I really like and has kind of gone viral, which is you know, prenups often are seen as a kind of anti-romantic thing. Like if you if you really believe in your partner and you believe in your marriage, why would you get a prenup? And I guess there's two reasons he outlines, and I like both of them a lot. The first is if you can't have a conversation about money in a forward-thinking way with your partner, is that really a good relationship, which I think is a very strong point. You know, if you can't have that kind of tough conversation, how strong is your relationship? And the second point is you will have a prenup. You know, you either have the government defaults prenup, which is a pr you have a prenuptial agreement of sorts, it's either the default of the country you're living with, or you get to have some say, consciously decide it with your partner, with a lawyer, and draft it so you have a sense of what you're actually signing up for. Whereas I'm sure most people, when they get married, and this is one of James Sexton's other points, they they they get married, they have no idea what the financial implications are, even though the financial implications of marriage are huge, they'll vary from country to country, but they're inevitably quite consequential. So money, money, money, so important. You have to know about it because that this is how I think people end up in situations later in life where they have no idea how it happened, but you know they're in a financially difficult situation.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

Yeah, I'm ever so slightly alert to the fact that you've transplayed that to me a few years too late, Alex. My my opportunity for a pre-nap has sadly passed, but I might make a note for next time.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Yeah. Is there any any other points you want to raise for people engaging with this stuff? Any uh anything else people should be aware of?

SPEAKER_03 53:01

I mean, I think as ever, we're we're coming at this from a particular angle. We're mental health professionals, we're psychiatrists and psychologists.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

We have our biases, but you know, I'm sure a lot of this is more appealing to people in rural uh locations again, who tend to be more conservative.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yeah. I think as much as anything, to if if anything that we've said has been particularly of interest or or or even of not, just to know that the point at which we're coming from is to think about how can we help ourselves um to better understand the world in which we live in and the people who are around us, and and where might we see potential pitfalls, downfalls of and how do we understand those? Um and it's a conversation, but it isn't a lecture.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Yeah, and and what is like what is your relationship to the thing? So, like a point I come back to a lot on the podcast is it's not necessarily about the thing, like it's not necessarily about money or alcohol or marriage or men or women. It's like what is your relationship to those things? So something like the trad wife phenomenon, like what is your relationship to it? Is it something that comforts you from some of the stresses and uncertainties of life? Is it a way again you're maybe giving up some of your autonomy because you find it too difficult? Or is it something that genuinely makes you happy? Is it something that fascinates you? Is it something you can do while taking the appropriate financial precautions? Again, it's not about just the thing, it's what's your relationship to the thing and and the stuff that's happening under the surface. It's been super interesting. Again, we're we're I'm really enjoying these podcasts where we talk about cultural happenings and do some good old fashioned millennial hand wringing. Rosie, thanks again for joining me.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Thanks, Alex.