What Now? with Trevor Noah - The Trad Wife Paradox with Anne Helen Petersen [VIDEO]

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Trevor, Christiana, and noted writer and journalist Anne Helen Petersen discuss the growing #tradwife trend, the ideological conviction that a woman’s sole and highest purpose is to be her spouse’s modest, subservient helpmate, and that anything less is ungodly. Why do more women now seem to be taking on this mantle? Are cleaning, cooking, and total submission truly the path to godliness, or have we fallen so far off the societal cliff that women are simply exhausted? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My mom is the antithesis of Trad Anything. I remember one day I said to my mom, can we get some KFC? And then my mom was like, we can't afford KFC. Then my mom said, you know what, honey, I'm gonna make you KFC. And I was like, what? You can make KFC?

She's like, I can make KFC. I was like, that's not possible. I was like, if people could make KFC, everyone would make KFC. You're telling me KFC doesn't only come from the Colonel? How do you have the secret? And we went into the kitchen and then she made and then she fried it and then we're there and I was like, wow, my mom made KFC. And I'll never forget, I ate it.

And then I looked at her and I was like, this shit is not KFC. Some of my issues that I deal with in therapy are probably because of that moment. You know when they say you lose trust in your parents? I looked at this woman and I was like, why would you lie to me? Why would you say you can make KFC when you can't make KFC? And then she looked at me and then I started doubting myself

because I was like, why would you think your mother can make KFC? If she could make KFC, she would have opened KFC. ["The Big Game"] If you could make KFC, you would have opened KFC. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. Hi, I'm Stacey Abrams, voting rights advocate, author, admitted nerd, and now host of the brand new Crooked podcast, Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Whether it's reforming the electoral college, solving America's loneliness

epidemic, or tackling the future of Hollywood. I'm breaking it all down to answer, how do we get here? And what can we do to get good done? Are you in? Join me for Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts. episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts. All right, this is going to be a fun one. This is one of those, what I call like landmine conversations. Because everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

But it's probably my favorite type of conversation to have, like my favorite type of topic, because when you say trad wife, so I've been saying that to everyone, you know, my friends will be like, oh, what are you doing on the podcast? I say, we're going to be talking about trad wives. Some people don't know what it is at all, and then I have to explain it. I go,, traditional wife. And then as soon as I describe the videos, everyone knows what I'm talking about. I say, it's, you know, these women who are, they're dressed in like really old school style or dressed up vibes, but then they're cooking, they're preparing like everything from scratch. And then everyone's like, oh

yeah, and then they start listing off their favorite ones. And yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited to talk about it because I don't know what you're going to say. Oh, you don't even have a feeling about where I'm at. No, I know. I'll be honest with you. I don't, I don't because this is one of those topics where you could go either way. I'm nervous because I'm afraid to offend people, which I never am like in life. So I couldn't be a trad wife because I'm rude.

Oh, fantastic. But yeah, I don't want any of my friends who are tradwife-ish to be upset with me afterwards. Wait, wait, so do you think some of the people in your life are tradwives? Yeah. No, but are they actually tradwives or do you think they have traits that you would associate with a tradwife? I think they have a lot of the traits. Yeah. I think they are living, oh my god, you already get me in trouble because now my friends... No, no just want to know. No, okay. So I want to know how many of those traits you see in people before you say they are or are not a tread. I know. Trevor, can you see how careful I am?

I can see. I've never seen you like this, by the way. I know. That's why I'm like... I wanted to do the conversation, but I've been like, oh God, I don't want to... Okay, so I think there are the traits, but they wouldn't necessarily embrace the label. And then because I grew up very churchy and very Christian, I know people who are like straight up, man is the head of the household. I'm here to honor him and honor God and raise my children.

That all sounds good to me. Keep going, keep going. Raise my children. This is fantastic. They call their husband like, my mom actually used to call my dad my Lord and master to piss off my grandmother. That's a family fact. Raise my children. This is fantastic. Keep going. They call their husband like, my mom actually used to call my dad my lord and master to piss off my grandmother. That's a family fact.

Oh, okay. To piss off your, I mean. Yeah, yeah, ironically. But like, you know, especially being like of African descent, even the women who are not, who have jobs and all of that, embody the trad wife thing. You know, they'd be like, my husband is the head of the household. That's the world I come from. Okay.

And I don't want to offend those women because I think there's a way we can speak about them is that they don't have autonomy and they're victims or they're, like we either make them victims or villains and I think it's a bit more complicated. And then I have my own personal view on it, how I've chosen to live.

How far do you think you are away from trad wife or how close do you think you are to trad wife? You know what, it's so funny. I have a friend who is like the are away from trad wife or how close do you think you are to trad wife? You know what? It's so funny. I have a friend who is like the opposite of a trad wife. So she... What does that mean?

She's not traditional and she's not a wife. But then how are you a trad wife? Well, she's like, she doesn't even have any of the labels. Like she's child free. Okay. She's child free by choice. Okay. She speaks her mind. Yes, she comes from a long line

of matriarchs. She came around, this is when I was pregnant with Obi, she came by the apartment, and I was doing something and I did something for Lewis, and she was like, so is this how you keep a man? And I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, you're being so nice and girly. I'm like, I'm not nice to him because I think I'm a mean wife, right? And she was like, no, you'll be, I've never seen this side of you. So it was, it was about, I think about that a lot. What if you're secretly a trad wife and you don't know? I don't cook.

So I think that takes me out of the equation. It is one of the biggest factors. And it's not just cooking. It's cooking like everything from scratch, like from scratch, scratch. Yeah. Obi says to me, mommy, what are we going to order tonight? And then he scratch, scratch. Yeah. Obi says to me, mommy, what are we going to order tonight? And then he goes, delivery. And my mom is like, you have ruined this child.

Oh, man. So I don't cook because I find it very laborious. Yes. And obviously I work, but ironically, a lot of tried wives are doing work. I work outside of the home. You're right. But I think they're actually doing work inside the home because they monetize it. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of contradictions. That's why I'm excited to have the conversation because like, you know, if you look at it as, as a

topic in isolation, it seems like a like a really small one. It's just like, oh, what is a trad wife? Why is this thing blowing up everywhere? Why do people want to be a trad wife? Or why do people idolize or hate trad wives? Yeah. And then it gets into the larger topics of like, what does it say about us as a society as a whole? And our guest today is the perfect person to have this conversation with. Right? Because Anne, I mean, you know her writing. Yeah, I'm a fan of her newsletters.

Yeah, no, she's fantastic. So Anne Helen Peterson is a, she's an author, she is a writer who, you know, she has substacks. She wrote for Buzzfeed. She also writes for Elle magazine. She's got these fantastic articles that cover everything from politics to celebrity culture, gossip, everything we deal with in the world, essentially, that's interesting, she looks at and she's been spending a ton of time on the trad wife movement.

So it's not just her experience, but her insight into this world is really, really fascinating. And actually, maybe from your side, you can help me understand this. How far would you say a trad wife is from what people would quote unquote call a regular wife? And I have all the quotes up for this entire episode for anybody who's gonna come after me. Everything is quotes from now on.

All right, nothing I say is my voice or my, but yeah, Anne, welcome to the podcast. What would you say is like a trad wife versus a regular wife? Yeah, well, first of all, I'm glad that we're coming into this with the ambivalence that we have, right? Like there is so much contradiction, there is so much complexity. And I think I often have conversations with people who are like, oh, obviously, these

women are evil, right? Or like they're the, you know, or they're ideal. Yeah. So there's just not a lot of in between. So the way I think of it is there's actually like these bigger buckets of tradwives that we can think about, buckets of tradwives. I think the OGs, which are absolutely women who are deeply, deeply invested in either evangelical Christianity and its vision specifically of the future of America. And I would also put a little caveat on there and say like white evangelical Christianity. And some Mormons are kind of in that bucket.

So a very famous tradwife who has never ever claimed that the moniker tradwife is Ballerina Farm who has been in the news a lot lately. Ballerina Farm is the moniker, the handle for an Instagram account that is run by this woman named Hannah. She is married, she was a ballerina, thus the ballerina part, but she was married to, or she is married to the son of the founder of JetBlue Airlines. And they're Mormon and they have, I believe, eight kids. She also is a pageant queen and recently competed in, it's like Mrs. America when you're married.

Mrs. America, very shortly after giving birth to her most recent kid. But so she, like the aesthetic there is very aspirational. So, Ballerina Farm, so I've gone on a deep dive in this. Like my Instagram algorithm is trash now. Like, TikTok algorithm. I just need to start brand new accounts, just so you know. Because everything that I've now researched

for this conversation has led me down a deep path. Now all my explore page is like random white women in the middle of nowhere milking a cow for their children's breakfast cereal. Or like they're putting together like their homeschool elements for like 10 kids. Yes. And then there are people who just want to live like a 50s housewife. And that is different. Right? Like they do not have the religious component. They do not see this as God's plan for the world. They are not necessarily invested in the more like white supremacy components of this, but they would like to spend all of their time doing things in the domestic sphere. So that

includes homesteading, right? And like the aesthetic of homesteading that's very popular, that includes not working for pay, right? And I think that that is the part that people are actually attracted to who somehow, who find themselves fascinated by these accounts and find themselves continually going back or like, why do I keep following Ballerina Farm if her life is so distant from mine? Yeah. Because I think there is some sort of fantasy about, well, what if I didn't have to do all of the things all of the time? What if I got to focus on these parts of being a mother, of being a partner, of being a person

in the world that felt fulfilling to me. So that's a different sort though. And also like the stay at home girlfriends, which are oftentimes linked into or put into this bucket. People who like they tape for TikTok especially like, here's my life as a stay at home girlfriend and it's like making chia smoothies and like doing Pilates and they're not even

married. Like a trad wife would die if they were associated with these stay at home girlfriends. Like those women are living in sin. Like they are not, they do not belong in the same hemisphere. Yeah. So okay, so I'll be honest. I've been on a roller coasteraster of emotions here, digging into the world of, I'm gonna call it tradism. You have, because when I first watched the videos, my first thought was, this is evil in some way, shape or form.

And the reason I thought that is because of, I guess like my indoctrination, like what I've seen in movies and things. So it's these videos, it's a static shot, it's a woman who's dressed impeccably, but like really made up in a kitchen. It has a Stepford Wives vibe to it, you know? So it's like, every morning I try to make cereal for my children. Granola made from scratch.

I pick the almonds from the soil. And you watch this and you're like, oh, this is evil. This is the soil. And you watch this and you're like, oh, this is evil. This is the devil. This is, but then when I, when I like, you know, like ballerina farms and I watched, I watched a few more videos, I watched a few more videos, then I was like, hmm, do I hate this idea? And I, I, I'll tell you, I'll tell you where I'm coming from because I see your side already, Christiana.

I'm not saying do I hate this idea or do I like it as a man. I'm not saying that. What I mean is there was something strangely liberating in the idea of somebody just living a simple life where there are predetermined outcomes or expectations for what you need. Because I don't know, I have this feeling oftentimes in society where I go, you know, in America I feel it more than most countries. But I don't know about you, I hate the fact that we don't know how much we're supposed to do and sort of what we're supposed to do. You mean the rat race?

Yes, the rat race. How much money do we need? Yeah. Okay, how much success do you need? When is it done? When is it achieved? When is it finished? Are you successful?

Oh, you didn't get your masters? Oh, you didn't get your PhD? Oh, you didn't get your PhD? Oh, this is the only house you've stayed in. This is your only car. This is the only vacation. Like when does it end? And when I was watching these videos, there was a simplistic completion that I enjoyed about them where it was like all you have to do is wake up every day. All. No, no, no. I'm saying this is what I mean. What I mean is, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not infinite. But it is infinite because there's always more kids. There is. There isn't always more kids. There is because then you become a trad grandma. The labor never stops. This is the thing. Okay, now I'm jumping ahead. Now I'm revealing

myself. Trad wives never get to retire. That's the thing that breaks my heart about the role, because it's a beautiful role. But your husband who goes off to work in the world, there's a day he's going to have his retirement and the expectation is you get to play golf, you get to see your friends more, maybe you're on a board somewhere. A tradwife is still going to have to have three meals on the table every day. She's going to have to look after the grandchildren. She's going to have to look after whoever... Wait, wait, wait. But if she's looking after the grandchildren, who's looking after the children? Maybe I don't understand the trad... No, her children have the...

Because you guys are clearly on the final stages. You guys are spoiler-alerting me. I'm on season one of TradWife. In season six, there's different options for a TradWife. There is the TradWife to Divorcee pipeline where you lose... because you can no longer have children or your husband's left interested. A lot of trad wives, honestly, are star wives, even in very Christian circles. The man looks at her and he's like, I have nothing to speak to you about because you're with kids all day.

And I'm in the world as an adult and adult socialization is important, Trevor. You get to have certain types of conversations. And this woman has spent the last 15 to 18 years raising children, and he feels she limits her, or maybe her body is broken down because of what children do to your body because they're fucking evil. 10 children, 10 children. 10 children, they've had so many children, they've done something to your body, and they say, I need a new wife. Or

maybe she dies. Like, you know what I mean? This is a real life... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. You know, in Africa you see it all the time. Yeah, no, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. And the woman dies or the woman's gone and he's found someone else. But what this woman has done, which is an incredible thing, take care of the home for like 18 years, you can't put that on your resume. So if you go into Amazon warehouses all over this country, it's full of women who embodied

trad wife ideals, whether in a secular or Christian way, and they now have to fend for themselves, make minimum wage. They have no retirement. They have no 401ks. And they are like having to, so I'm saying that's one outcome. I'm going to challenge both of you on this. And this is me playing a little bit of devil's advocate. I know I'm the only guy in the conversation.

So my job is also to like spice things up. But, but I talk to many men, old men, who will say the phrase to me all the time. They'll be like, Trevor, let me tell you something. Happy wife, happy life. You make sure your wife is happy and she says something and you say, yes, love, yes, darling. What else do you need, honey?

And your life will be smooth. And some of those guys, to be honest with you, are like trad husbandy. Yeah, for sure. Like, the way they live their life is they go, I wake up, I make sure the family's up as well. We have breakfast, I kiss everybody goodbye, I go to the office, I work my ass off.

You know, I come back home, and then I smile and I have dinner with everyone and then I go to bed and I do it again and they tell me where they want to go on vacation. They tell me what they want to eat on Friday night and that's all my job is. And I go, isn't that like, you know what I mean? And off to you. Well, first I just want to differentiate between stay at home mom or stay at home parent and the ideology at work with the most, with a lot of these women, which is that they really

believe, they really believe that women should not have power, right? That women should not be educated. They really believe this, right? Oh, they don't have that in the posts. Okay. No, that's not as power, right? That women should not be educated. Like they really believe this, right? It's not just- They don't have that in the posts, okay. No, that's not as explicit, right? Like project 2025, absolutely on board with that. Like their larger goal is control over women's lives

and their bodies. And so that's when like, when I, cause I think sometimes we get into this game of like, if you're a feminist, then you shouldn't critique any other woman's choices. So that's when like, when I, because I think sometimes we get into this game of like, if you're a feminist, then you shouldn't critique any other woman's choices. But these women, and I'm talking specifically about the ones who are very much invested in this evangelical version of this understanding. Like the real tread, real tread is what you're saying.

Yes. Okay. They believe in a larger project in which all women's rights are subsumed under the will of men. Ah, okay, okay. This is where like the ideological specificity becomes important because there are some of these women who grow up in the church and get married or convert to Christianity, they become part of the church at a slightly later age. Education is frowned upon. So maybe you go to

a little bit of Bible college, but you probably don't. You get married as soon as possible so that you can have sex, right? Because you do not want to have sex outside of marriage. Right. That's the worst sex. And then you become pregnant as soon as possible. And so, a lot of these women have incredibly And so a lot of these women have incredibly little in terms of formal education. And if they were themselves educated in a traditional home, they were likely home-schooled and did not have a great foundation. I'm not saying home-schooling creates bad education, simply because it's home-schooling. A lot of these curriculum practiced in these homes is almost like I've heard tradwives who've left that lifestyle call it a form of these curriculum practiced in these homes is almost like I've heard tradwives

who've left that lifestyle call it a form of educational abuse, right? Because they learn so little and it equips them so poorly. So let me ask you this then. What you've just described to me now sounds cultish, it sounds oppressive, it sounds terrible. This is not what I see on my feed. Like my feed, it looks sexy, it looks fun,

it looks rewarding, it looks engaging. So help me understand this. How did something, because if you just sold that to me now, no one would buy it. How, why is that trending now? Like why is that huge on, TikTok is like now. We're talking about today.

You know, there's not like a Facebook trend. It's a TikTok thing that people are loving. Gen Z are loving. That's what are loving. Gen Z are loving. That's what I mean. So why is that becoming popular now when it has all of those negative side effects that you're talking about? Do people not know or do they not care?

And I have so many thoughts on this, but as a millennial woman who has a lot of friends, who have chosen to be stay at home moms, who are super progressive, very educated, the workplace is really hard. People are burnt out. So I speak to friends and they're like, why work for 10 men when I can work for one? Right. Well, and you're only making enough to cover child care. Right. Well, and you're only making enough to cover childcare. Childcare. Right. So like the calculus is broken. So here you are making barely enough. You're behind in the

workplace in part because the pay gap and all of the sorts of various discrimination that happens in the workplace, but also because you took maternity leave, which puts you backwards in the work clock for various reasons. And I think that Gen Z, I mean, Gen Z loves to razz millennials, but I think one of the things they see when they look at millennials is like, oh, they're trying to have it all or like millennial feminists are trying to figure out how can I be a great mom, great parent, a great partner and like a really like have a career that I like and it's impossible. So what is your choice? I think this is where you get almost like this reactionary move and I don't think that if a Gen Z person is watching this on TikTok it means that they necessarily have conservative politics,

right? It's more that the choices laid out for them seem like they suck. I mean I get all so okay let me let me let's take a step back and let me ask you this then as a question and like help me understand. Is being a tradwife problematic in and of itself or is being a tradwife problematic when you live in a society where capitalism will define your end game or your outcome on the other side. So if we lived in a world where you didn't have to worry about like surviving on the other side, is being a trad wife bad? Like, you know, I read, you know, your writing and one of my favorite articles of yours was the L one, where they asked you to be a trad wife for a week.

And forgive me, because I guess maybe I've never done this. I couldn't believe that you were like, I can't do it. I was like, a week? This doesn't seem difficult for a week. All you have to do for a week is like serve someone and just like, no, no, no. No. Okay. Well, my editor was like, yeah, try it out for a week. I was like, oh yeah, this will be fun. And then as I sat down to like figure out how to do it,

I was like, first of all, I really can't lose a week of income. Like that's not, that's not, it's something I'm willing to do for this. Like I would lose money writing this story for Elle magazine. And the other thing is I talked to my partner. I'm not married, so I'd be a bad trad wife in the beginning, right? Like I'd be a living in sin partner. And he was like, this makes me feel uncomfortable.

Huh. Right? So that's the other part of the story is that I think some men don't want to be served in this way. You know, like I cook a lot of the food, not all of it, but I do some of it. I mean, like a lot of families, like we're always in the struggle to split the mental load. But I don't know, I just like, we couldn't get on board and it turned out to be more interesting to write about, like not being able to do it. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. Okay, because when I was going through it, I'm not going to lie, I was like, this is

a little sexy. It seemed, no, I'll tell you why. It seemed to me like people were like living out some sort of fetish vibe. Totally. There's an element of that. No, so it felt like it was like- I mean, they have like 10 kids, so they are having sex. Exactly. And it was also the-

But they're having sex like, we're talking about like the old fa- like, they're having sex anytime the man wants it. And some of this is coerced. You're selling this to Trevor right now. This, we, Anne, you really need to bring it back. You actually, no, no, no, you actually aren't. And I'll tell you why on that element why. That doesn't appeal to me as much because I think one of the problems we have in modern relationships and in society is this lopsided appetite for sex.

I think sex in a relationship works best when both parties get to want it when they want it because the spark needs to come from both sides. So I actually don't like the idea. But that trad dad you described, part of why he does that is the expectation anytime I do wanna have sex with this woman, she's gonna have sex with me. No, no, no, I think those guys,

that's why this is interesting what you're saying is, and I think we need to drool down on this, because to your point, I think some people see this as let's say the sexy version, where it's like, he tells me what he wants, and I do it. He says, I want your hair like this, and I wear it. And when you're listening to that, you're like, yeah, it's a little 50 shades. I'm down for this. This sounds cool. But it sounds voluntary. And now what you're telling me is the real, like the real, not the gloss, not the stuff we see online ironically,

because they aren't online, is like, they're like, no, you do not have a right to say no to your man. You do not, you should not tell him you don't want to do something. You have no control over yourself. That's essentially what you're saying, real, the real trend culture is. There's the idea like, oh, this is all a choice, right?

And so I should critique it and it's okay. And of course, that's what they're going to show on TikTok and on Instagram. And of course, they're like, they see this and this is where the contradiction that you two were talking about before I came on of like, they're not supposed to work, but they're monetizing their feeds. They see this as ministry, right? They want to sell this vision to as many people as possible. So to them, it is not at all at odds. Yeah. And you know, when you mentioned that, them seeing it as ministry, I think it's interesting

for me because my father's a pastor, so I'm in a very religious bubble. I was talking earlier to the guys about the fact I tithed until very recently. My dad is going to lose his mind if he hears this. And now I like tithe to causes and anyway, it's a whole thing. But I know that world of evangelical Christianity and Pentecostalism and you know, faith without works is dead. So I can understand why a woman is like, I am going to evangelize through making sour bread dough from scratch. On the other side, because of the life I live now, a lot of the women I'm around are very secular and in many ways very progressive. But then it's also in the world, you meet a woman and say, yeah, I was like a partner at a law firm and I had my second baby and I said,

I'm not doing that anymore. What do you say to that? Because that's not a neutral choice, but it's a choice she's had to make for her betterment. And I think that's my personal struggle with it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, why do you think it's everywhere right now? I think that it touches on something, like something we're trying to figure out about the place of feminism,

the place of like everything to do with like JD Vance of it all. Like, I mean, I think white liberal feminism has failed, like as an ideological profile. No, as an ideological, I mean, they can't even get abortion, which is like, which is like a right that people got like 50 60. Like if you go to most Western countries, white liberal American feminism is a failure. It hasn't, it hasn't got women maternity leave. People got like 50, 60, like if you go to most Western countries, white, liberal, American feminism, it's a failure. It hasn't got women maternity leave. Women cannot have abortions across this country if they want.

The pay gap seems to be intensifying. Feminism was supposed to have an answer to all of these questions. As an ideological project, it failed. It's not like this cohesive block, whereas if you go to France or the UK, there is a lot more unity among the idea of feminism because they've safeguarded just basic feminist rights. Well, maybe then that's part of the question. Or an interesting aspect of the puzzle here is,

you know, when you're saying, Ann, why is it so popular? You know, obviously I can't speak for any women in this, but if I just try and put myself in somebody else's shoes, I do think there's an element of this, even if a lot of it is fake, I think there's an element of this trad wife movement that's like celebrating a form of femininity that has been sort of like lost

in the- Or demonized. Yeah, in the feminine fight. And then this is giving people just a little enclave where they can say, actually, I do want to spend time with my kids. I do want to- and you know, sometimes this happens in life. I don't know if you've experienced this in a relationship, in a friendship, or even in a general interaction. Sometimes, I almost feel like it becomes easier for people to adopt an extreme ideology,

only because they want aspects of it. So now, there's a woman out there who goes, look, I don't not want to work and I don't want, but it's easier for me to say and be a tradwife, because then no one can sort of like judge me out of this, because I'm not a feminist who's doing it wrong. I'm just a trad wife who's trying. Do you think it gives women the space

to explore all sides of being a woman? Or do you think like, you know, this modern feminism has become about like, no, if you don't do it like this, then you are not. Anne, I want to hear from you first. You know, I don't know if I would frame it in terms of feminism. I would frame it more in terms of society.

That society doesn't give, especially American society, does not give a lot of space to figure out different ways of being a woman with safety. So if you're looking at different ways you can go through the world, go through society today, and let's say you had something, like you grew up in a precarious situation for some reason, right?

What looks most safe to you? Is it going to be, oh, someone else makes all the decisions and brings in all of the money and navigates the outside world, and then I just get to make some decisions about things that I care about, or I'm going to figure this all out alone with no social safety net and no economic safety net. So I think that like that's, if you're looking at the world around you, it's easy oftentimes, especially given your situation, to choose something that seems safe,

that seems like a path forward. And patriarchy can feel very inviting when dressed up this way. It's so interesting you say that, Anne, because I thought a lot about the fact that given my religious upbringing, given elements of my own faith, why I'm not a tradwife, apart from the fact that I've got a slick mouth. So wait, so tradwife, you're not allowed to have like what, a vibe? No, no vibes.

You can't be... You can't be... You better go bake bread. Okay, but what about, what about, wait, wait, wait. And be timid and, no, but that, it's part of that like godliness and timidity and humility. I'm never humble. Wait, but is this, yeah, but you're Nigerian, you can't be. Exactly. So, so what I'm saying is, yeah, but, but can you, like, can tradwives, are they, can

they be like sort of bawling out living their lives? No, you have to be meek. When the man's not around. No, because you want to model for your sons. This is the idealized womanhood. And you also want to model for your daughters this trait of meekness, right? Yeah. And I've never, never been meek. And it was always interesting to me to be in like a black majority church where these women were actually being that for their husbands, but

like in their nature they weren't. These are Ghanaian, Nigerian and Jamaica women like, we ain't meek. And the reason I think that we are seeing that like someone like Nara Smith, biracial, you know, biracial black girl with a white man and she makes food from scratch. They recently did a GQ photo shoot that was very 1950s inspired, but they're like gorgeous people. They've got these gorgeous children with like multiracial curly hair. You know, I think embodies a lot of like future America. And the important thing about her is that she's Gen Z.

She's 22 years old. That woman is 22? She is 22 years old. Or maybe 23. She has three kids. She has three kids. Wow. Anyways, we're seeing this movement become increasingly diversified. I know a lot of black women who are into the femininity movement who are like, I'm embracing my divine feminine and my soft life so I can find this man out there to take care of me. And as much as I was like, I was never going to be with a man that couldn't take care of himself, because I'm very Ibo in that

way. The message I was told growing up implicitly by the women around me was like, have children because men are not safe. Your children will always be there and man will leave you. And I think that's deeply in the, I'd say the West African psyche of like retreating to the home is not safe for you because a man may beat you or a man may assault you or a man can just, I come from a polygamist family, my grandfather had 18 wives, a man will get another wife, right? So that I say in a West African context, being a complete tradwife is being a woman who is not safe. Whereas I can see why in America, the domestic sphere can become something that

is safe because America is such a capitalist. Yeah, yeah. But this is what I mean. Okay, so let me, okay, let me ask you both this the domestic sphere can become something that is safe because America is such a capitalist hellscape. Yeah, but this is what I mean. Okay, so let me ask you both this because, you know, and reading your story of like trialing tradism, you were allergic to it on all levels. One of the big ones was money. So then let me ask you both this. Let's say we took money completely off the table forever.

You would be fine. There is no issue whatsoever. My heart just dropped. I love money so much. No, but forget it. Money's out of the, there's no money. Don't be fine, there is no issue whatsoever. My heart just dropped, I love money so much. No, but forget it. Money's out of the, there's no money. Don't worry about money anymore. I like money.

Don't worry about money, okay? We live in a moneyless world. Okay. Okay. Does being a trad wife become more attractive to you now? No, not for me. Okay, so not for you. No.

Still no. I'm just gonna keep throwing things out and then I wanna see where I get you. Because I don't wanna lose power. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So money, no problem, still no for you and no for you. Well, but so like, then all I would just do all day would be doing stuff for the home

that also served my partner. Like, I would be okay with it if I could just like garden. Like I could do stuff that I wanted to do. No, no, no, no, no, no, you're not understanding. I now see why you would be a bad trad wife. You're not listening to my commands here, Anne. I'm saying you're tasked with everything, but you don't ever have to worry about money. And I mean, even if the man disappears, the state or the entity will look after you. So, Christiana, you're not in? No.

No. Okay, okay, okay. I mean, it's about the safety, but it's also about like- Is it the dresses? What if I said no dresses? I want the dresses. That's the part that's getting me. Oh, you like the dresses? Oh, I love the dresses. Oh, jeez. I like the clothes. Okay, so it's not the clothes. Yeah.

Not the clothes. I'm trying to understand what it is. Do you know what it is? It's children. I cannot be with my children all day. I love them dearly. You make children. I know, but I don't want to be around them all the time. Especially my own ones. Most people don't. I don't even think these tradwives want to be around their children. Wait, wait. Before you say that, let me pitch you. So now here's where I'm going to pitch you something else. Because I'm truly trying to think of how to get this back into society. But I think one of the biggest things we're struggling with now in society, and we have

been for a while, is our village is shrinking. And I think humans need a village more than anything else. And as the village shrinks, people struggle to find ways to connect. So what if I traded with you? What if I said, okay, trad is still on the table, but now you would be in a village. So your kids wouldn't always be your kids alone. You would be in the village, there would be other trad wives around, the kids are running around doing their thing. Am I getting any buyers here?

No, because I actually like using my intellect. I like the idea of like, my home should be my retreat. You play video games? Trevor. I'm just... have you played video games? Video games are complicated. I'm so bad. Video games, that's a lot of intellect that's required. No, I just feel that like, if by becoming a tradwife, the domestic space also becomes

your workspace, right? And for me right now, my home, as much as my kids exhaust me, I get to go home and we have a break from each other and we have this... Okay, this is... It's the reset and we start again. And I love that I get to do this. This is a job, it's with a friend, so it doesn't feel like a job, so I feel like I'm cheating,

but I get to have conversations like, this, speak to you, Anne, and write and use my mind in a way that I think is important just for like, I don't know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, just like higher state of development and consciousness and just using this thing we call our brain. And I think that's important. And I do feel like all my friends that are trad wives slash stay at home mothers, they talk about like the mundanity and how it's so repetitive and how they do miss the little interactions that you would have in an office, like when you're going out to make coffee or like just the

things that I think make an adult human an adult human. People miss the office affairs. I see what you're saying. I miss the office affairs and stealing the office copy paper, you know, it's like these different things that we do and losing that I think I would, it would be, it's a big part of my identity and my identity would just be subsumed into being Lewis's wife and the mother of my children, and then someone's daughter or someone's sister. And then what about that big other part of ourselves? Imagine you couldn't do comedy, Trevor. You had to look after the kids all day.

No, I understand this. That's why I'm digging, because what I've been trying to understand in this is not what the bad side of it is. Let's for a moment put aside people being oppressed or not having their freedoms. What I struggle to find, even in the article, Ann, was I was trying to understand what your allergic reaction to it was, but to what Christiana is saying now, do you share the sentiment or was there something in addition to that that you thought to yourself by doing this I'm giving up X? Well, you know, being a nanny for infants is what actually convinced me that I shouldn't

be a parent. Like I love kids. I don't want to be them all around all the time. And it was like I know that it's different when it's your own kid, but like it gave me such a taste of how mundane the day can be when you have absolutely no one to talk to except for a six month old, right? Like it's just you, and this was in a wealthy community,

like just me walking down the street, waving at other nannies, right? And hanging out with a six month old. But I think that for me, so much of it is about like that fear of not having a future. And this is something we've, this has been a recurring thing in our conversation, right? It's like, what happens when the man leaves, right? Like, where is your life raft? If you've never had a chance to make it. And then the other thing that I keep thinking about is if we flip this on you and we're like,

do you wanna cook all the food and take care of the babies? It's like some men I know would say, yeah, I wanna do all that stuff. But they also still have the benefit of living in a society where they are praised immeasurably for that work and for that decision and where they still have all of the power. So like that it's almost like an unfair thought experiment

because we can't even flip it around and be like well would you like that? You're like yeah I would love to live in a society where I get to do the caregiving that I want but still have all the power. Don't go anywhere because we got more What Now after this. go anywhere because we got more What Now after this. I wonder if the tradwives we don't see online are pissed off at the tradwives that we do see online. Only because one of the elements that both of you have mentioned, and I've actually heard a lot of people speak about, is the lack of

outside interaction, is the lack of outside connection, is the lack of just expanding your mind. And so I wonder if OG tradwives are a little bit pissed off at these internet tradwives because they're like, no, you're interacting with people online all day. You're not living the tread. It's like these, have you ever followed these like TikToks where people live off the grid and they're like, I live by myself, I'm in a forest and I make my food, I don't talk to people, I don't... But they're on a live telling people this and they're responding to people, you know what I mean?

And I'm like, but you're not living the life. By virtue of the fact that you are displaying it, you are not living the life. And so I don't know, because you've written so much about it and you've interviewed so many people about it. Is there like an inner conflict within the trad movement where they're like, these people are fake trad? Or do they look at them as missionaries where they go, no, they're necessary to spread our movement?

Well, I think that some, on like the far extreme side of the spectrum would definitely say that some of those cute dresses are way too revealing. Oh, but then like, I don't know. I think a lot of women aren't at all aware. Like if you're really deep in this stuff, you're not, you don't have a TikTok account. You're not watching this, right? Like you don't have that exposure because your husband wouldn't let you have even that sort of freedom. Okay, wait, wait, wait. So now wait, wait. So now let's let's go to that. Is is the truest

expression of a tradwife the fact that you are not opting into it? Because you see it's interesting that you just said your husband wouldn't let you. So are like real, real, real tradwives not choosing to be tradwives or can you choose to be somebody who is oppressed? I know it seems like a paradox, but can you? It's interesting because, and maybe you have a different perspective on this because I come from more of like a black Pentecostal evangelical circles and there is a degree of indoctrination, like just purity culture. You're not supposed to have sex before you're married.

You save yourself for your husband. You know, even if you're going to university or college is to be a good wife or whichever man will marry you. And like anything in society, you can opt out even though you'd become a backslider. Right. And I think the Duggars are a great example, because you see the whole spectrum. You have like some Duggars girls who are like, I'm going to wear trousers.

And I'm going to show my arms. I married someone, but I'm not like my other sisters who do it in that way. So I'd say as much as these women are, quote unquote, indoctrinated, oppressed, there is still an element of choice. And some people choose it more than others. I think there are some women who are way more zealous, the one who would never have TikTok, or even ask her husband to have TikTok. And there is like the ballerina farms with

the contradictions who are dipping their toe in it and ministering. But when you're kind of doing a puret in this gorgeous kitchen, it shows that you still have a longing for the career of a ballerina. So there's stuff going on there. It's like you are not as far as zealous as the other girls that have been, quote unquote, indoctrinated in this way. Yeah, and it's contradictory. And then there's women like myself who are like, I'm going to marry an atheist and be on a podcast with a comedian who has a very devilish job. My mom is always praying that Trevor finds Jesus, right?

This is an ongoing thing. What do you mean? You're not telling your mom Jesus is who brought me here? What are you talking about? I know, he knows, but you should start a church. I just see him being a pastor. He's a youth pastor. Oh, that's amazing. He's a youth pastor, Trevor. He's like, he's a man of God. But then still has some of the

pushes and pulls, the tensions of it, because I'm like, I don't take these kids to church or whatever it is. So you can opt out, but I think the indoctrination is there. But I don't think it's fair to act like these women have no choices at all. They do have choices. The ones that we're seeing in particular. The ones we're seeing in particular, they do have choices. Even if choices are limited, they are making choices, but they're also indoctrinated. It's many things at once. Oh, that's complicated. But Anne, I'm curious to hear from you.

Oh, there's so many things to talk about here. But I think that some of them have witnessed examples made of women who leave their entire lives, right? If you left, if you weren't enough a part of the church, like you're a fallen woman and the way that those women are narrativized in the stories that they hear in their church and their homes, like it's the end of your life. It's not just a spiritual death, it is it? Like you're over. And so that is like, do you actually have a choice? You're like, either I'm going to risk everything or I'm going to follow this path. I think there's also a risk that happens

when people like us from the outside are like, oh, these women think that they're choosing, but they're not choosing. You're giving them this sort of false consciousness, which is very, I think, demeaning, right? Like it's saying that they don't actually know, have any awareness of the world. But man, a lot of the women are the ones leading the charge with this. They're the ones who are encouraging their husbands to become, to go deeper into the trad funnel, right? And it's because they see it as the route to their salvation, but I also think it's like more and more safety, right? Like it's because they see it as they're out to their salvation, but I also think it's like more and more safety. Right? Like it's fewer choices that I have to make. Right? Yeah.

And do you know, it's so funny because I speak to my friends about this, about like the matriarchs being the ones that policed what we would wear the most. It was never like an uncle saying, that skirt is too short. It'd be a woman in church being like, why are you wearing that? I think it's a complicated loop. In the same way that black parents will oftentimes beat their children more than most cops would ever, because they're going, if you do not follow the letter of the law, these people, the law will come down and take you away from me. It will end your life. I need to brutalize you so that you do not get brutalized by somebody who does not care for you.

In a weird way, I sometimes think that it might be the same thing with these societies is that these women are not going, how dare you wear that sort of from my perspective, they're going like, how dare you endanger yourself? How dare you walk around with a skirt that short? Do you know what that says to those men? Do you know where that puts you? Do you understand the position that you're now in? How dare you? In a strange way, sometimes it feels to me like the people who are trapped in the system are trying to protect the other ones from the harshest elements of that system. You get what I'm saying? No, that's a really compassionate take.

I've always felt that the foot soldiers of patriarchy have to be women because women nurture and raise children. It's not the men. So, like, it has to be women. Okay, okay, so let me throw something at you here. And this is really just for thought exercise. But what if the trad movement turned around and said to you, no, you have been brainwashed. You have been brainwashed into thinking that a woman's role is to be in an office and a

woman's role is to be in a factory. And they're like, this is not what a woman does. Every month, your body releases eggs for a purpose. And if you do not, then your body responds accordingly. And so they go like, No, you've been indoctrinated. You've been tricked into thinking that your role is outside of the house. And then they may even turn around and say to you, look at how much strife and turmoil you have. Look at how stressed you are. Look at how you struggle to have children and look at how hard your life is. If they

say that to you, is there even a part of you that goes like, what if? Well, first of all, they do say that explicitly. Like there is messaging that like feminism has brainwashed you and feminism is the work of the devil. Like the devil is winning. And I don't ever attribute any of my misery to feminism or the idea that like women have rights, right? I'm not talking about white feminism specifically, but like the idea that women should have rights in society. I attribute it to the way that our government works, right? The way that humans sometimes function. The way that we have difficulties thinking in terms of long-term planning. Our addiction, particularly in America, to individualism.

Those are the things that come to mind. Never like, oh, I was sold down the river by the right to vote. You know? You know? I mean, voting is stressful. You have to admit it's a stressful, you know what I mean? Not in Washington state. I get the envelope in the mail,

just check the little box. Let me, okay, let me ask you this on a political level. You know, at the beginning of the conversation, you said there's a reason this is bubbling up now more than ever and it's true. I'm assuming trad culture didn't start yesterday. I'm assuming it's been around for a while. I'm assuming it will be around for a while. But the trend has really gotten steam. The trend is really moving in a certain way. And I'd love to know as somebody who who, you know, obviously works in this space, but explores many others,

how do you think they tie into each other? Like, what is the seduction that they're using to bring people in? Like, why is that resonating with anyone? The idea of what is a real woman, or we need to go back to the way women were. Why is that connecting, you know, if it's not true at all, or is some of it true?

I think women are exhausted. And I think that that has only become more true in the wake of the pandemic. So there's new research out that I saw in the New York Times recently about, like, looking at, you know, two years on from COVID isolation and kids being home during, especially that first year of COVID, on who took on the primary care in two-parent homes with separate genders and the women, right? Just the bulk, the incredible bulk of care. And then that fatigue just continued on. There was never any recovery. And so they had people develop caregiving burnout,

but also work burnout, like all of these things together. And then we just never had any sort of way of coping with any of that. If anything, parenting norms have become even more intense in the last four years, especially as people have anxiety over like learning loss and things that aren't actually real, right? So like everything all the time. And maybe you thought that like, oh, when my kid gets a little older, it'll be a little

easier. And it's not, right? Like there's still all of these anxieties about screen time and safety and just everything. And so if you're dealing with that every day, just peak of exhaustion. And the only thing that you can do when you're that tired, the only thing that you can like find muster the energy to do is either watch some Netflix or lay on your bed and watch TikTok. What's going to catch your eye?

And you know, the way that the algorithms work, as you know, right? Like you watch some of something and it gives you more of that thing. So that's part of it. And it's not so much like, I don't want to have rights. It's this way is clearly not working. What other options do I have? Because like the government is not going to change anytime soon because of the way that it's organized in this country. Like we are still going to have people in power who believe that offering affordable childcare is like encourages women to work outside of the home and thus we should not

have affordable childcare. Right. Right. So if you can't beat them, join them. It's funny you talk about the trends and what they actually say about society. You know, I think it's, is it Gabo Mate, the writer who says, he always talks about how when dealing with addiction, he says like, don't focus on the thing that you're craving, focus on the pain that the addiction is covering. Do you know what I mean? And in a way, I think that with society as well, I think to myself,

oftentimes we'll focus on the trend, we'll focus on what people are gravitating towards, we don't focus on the pain that that is covering. You know, the tradwives, I think you just eloquently laid it out. We don't ask ourselves why pain that that is covering. You know, the tradwives, I think you just eloquently laid it out. We don't ask ourselves why it's becoming more popular. There's a lot of people going like, yeah, wow, that sounds nice. To have a home, just even start with that.

Yep. The idea of having a home, having a kitchen. Because I've never seen one tradwife go, hey, today I wanted to make chicken wings, but the price of chicken's gone up, so we're just gonna do like carrot sticks fried. No, they never, there's not a single tradwife video that I watched that addresses scarcity or tough times in some way shape or form. Yeah, abundance. It's abundance. And so I, that's yeah, like I think when we look at that it's, you know, it's interesting to think of it as an indicator of where society

is as opposed to is it good or is it bad. It's just an expression of women's exhaustion and this capitalist hellscape. Well, I do think that this is something that's been going on for like 10, 15 years. It's the return to like crafting. Yes, yes, yes. And like fiber arts and like domestic arts, for lack of a better word, what we used to like teach as home ec. Like those things, people like doing them.

They're rewarding. It is fun to make things with your hands, whether it's something like a piece of wood or gardening or whatever. Like I do think that, and we know, we hear about this a lot because I think a lot of millennials who like worked their butts off throughout their twenties and thirties are like, OK, do I have any hobbies? Do I have a personality? What do I like to do?

And figuring that out. So I do think that there are ways of dabbling that aren't. Full, you know, submission to the patriarchy. Like there's a halfway. Can I tell you guys a little secret on behalf of the patriarchy? Men are also exhausted. And I think sometimes I don't know, sometimes I find myself feeling like we're all playing like a game and it almost makes me wonder like, okay, well, if everyone is experiencing this oppressive force,

who's applying the force? Capitalism. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it. Because you know who's not complaining about his companies. Oh yeah, companies. Companies are never exhausted. Companies are never like, oh yes, we're having a tough time. We're so tired. We've decided to stop being a company for a while and just take a break. Just being, oh, we've been listed for 50 years and it's time to take a break. You're not wrong. Companies are the only entities that are not tired. I think it brings me back to our conversation previously about abundance, right?

And part of the allure of what they represent is abundance, right? And we have abundance on this planet. We have more than enough for everyone. But capitalism makes it so that that abundance is not... Oh yeah, you have to create the scarcity, yes. Right, so there's scarcity for nearly everyone. And so, but if you created abundance, right? If you created a scenario where you could care give

and share that caregiving, right? In the village that we all crave, you could hang out with friends because you weren't constantly exhausted from the dual tasks of parenting and working your job because you're terrified of getting laid off and losing your health care. If you could also dabble in various intellectual endeavors, you could have hobbies that you were bad at, right? Like you could be a parent and a person at the same time.

And that was facilitated by the spread of all of this abundance we have on a global level. Like, that's a way of being in the world, right? We don't have to fetishize it. We don't have to hold it behind a locked door that's available only if you buy into these other ideas. I mean, maybe someday. Maybe some, but for now, trading is the way.

No! Wait, did I learn the wrong lesson from all of this? Oh, I thought you were saying for now we all... Anne, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Anne. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jodie Avigan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackl, Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music Mixing and Mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?