221 Comments
User's avatar
Z. T. Corley's avatar

I've been reading Toni Morrison's "The Source of Self-Regard" lately and so far, I've read two essays which definitely echo your points/sentiments: "Women, Race, and Memory" and "Cinderella's Stepsisters." In both essays, Morrison is unpacking (and admonishing) the way women will willingly dominate and subjugate other women in an attempt to "be male-like" and/or climb their way up in the patriarchy; they're both great reads.

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

thank you so much for these recs! I adore Toni Morrison but have never really ventured outside of her fiction, I'm excited to check these out

Expand full comment
Berni G's avatar

Yes, great read for women and how right she was! We need to create our own agenda and that begins at birth…. I was so fortunate that I was raised by strong independent women and loving respectful men and I owe them my happiness.

Expand full comment
Ash's avatar

Right wing women by Andrea Dworkin is also on-theme

Expand full comment
Natalie Mintz 💋's avatar

the thing that’s concerning about the trad-wife trend is the type of christian fundamentalism that’s being pushed - and that people are falling for it - but to criticize that, you also have to criticize the choices these women are making. sure, it’s possible they’re abused behind the scenes, or have chosen their lives bc of what they were taught, it’s hard to tell that from the outside. but i do know that i was raised in the kinds of churches that push women towards marriage and teach them that their only purpose is to be a mother, and none of those women would choose/be able to have the kind of platform these women have. that’s part of what frustrates me about the conversation around trad-wives - none of these women are what they claim to be.

on another note, this reminds me of the conversation around taylor swift. she’s a billionaire, but somehow is made out to be a victim at every possible opportunity.

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

yes!!! beautifully put

Expand full comment
Savanna's avatar

I don’t think that anyone is being pushed towards anything because we each have our own freedom to choose what we want in this life and to demean anyone about how they want to live their own life is wrong. This is why there’s so much of a division like honestly who cares! We get to love and support each other instead!

Expand full comment
Lindsay's avatar

I have yet to have my choices respected by conservative trad women. Experienced a lot of judgment, apathy and superiority. It’s pretty manipulative. Humans who don’t think for themselves very much want to think in terms of black/white, right/wrong, man/wife. They don’t value freedom. When I say think for themselves, I mean past the indoctrination. Everything is connected in real life. Way way more grey than just black and white.

Expand full comment
Carolyn Dilbeck's avatar

This is definitely true to an extent, but I would also say that the hardcore feminists often don’t respect the choices of homemakers/stay-at-home moms either. It seems like neither side is able to see each other’s choices as legitimate or appreciate that people have different goals and desires and find fulfillment is different things.

Expand full comment
Matunda Nishobora's avatar

Echoing this.

Expand full comment
Altasfolly's avatar

The idea that anyone could be considered “traditional” (conservative) when her living is made via the internet and adult beauty pageants in Vegas is cognitive dissonance at it’s finest.

Expand full comment
Katelyn's avatar

The real trad wives aren't on IG.

Expand full comment
A.M. Radio's avatar

Ooooooooh… I’ve always said this.

Expand full comment
Welcome to my DEBtalk...'s avatar

true - but the ones who ARE on socials are the salespeople, the ambassadors, the cheerleaders who make it all look so perfect that it reels young women in. they are the hype team for the traditional evangelical movement. and it works.

Expand full comment
AnonRose's avatar

I was having this conversation with my son the other day. I have no empathy left for women so much more powerful than I who continue to make these very conscious choices to participate in oppression.

Expand full comment
Somewhere in the middle's avatar

Wow you sound pathetic

Expand full comment
AnonRose's avatar

This was originally about the women who make money cosplaying “traditional” roles while spouting white supremacy and sexist oppression. But it’s more than that…

So, you know the Thought Experiment where you’re given a button, and every time you push the button two things happen: you get a large sum of money and somewhere you can’t see, a random person dies? The CEO who was killed did that. Exactly that. That’s how he became that rich. Why should I have empathy for his wife, who benefited from that?

And what about that makes *me* the pathetic one?

Expand full comment
trisha's avatar

agreed.

Expand full comment
Janet Asante Sullivan's avatar

This piece adds so much to this topic. Well done. The ya-ya sisterhood line is spot on. We need to come to terms with the fallacy of that perspective. Shoot, we know antebellum wives would standby and watch their husbands beat the enslaved women they fathered children with and sell off the children - no sense of sisterhood whatsoever then but we still pine for such a state of being.

Expand full comment
Shelby's avatar

Yes! And more than just stand by! White women were active participants in Slave-Holding and the abuse of enslaved people, including enslaved children 'serving' in the house.

Expand full comment
Lee's avatar

HEAVY ON THIS ! I fall for, even yearn for, the ya-ya sisterhood. It’s important to remember that - just because they are women - they are not like me and they will make different choices even with the same information

Expand full comment
Ed Leventhal's avatar

Gee, almost like women are separate independent entities.

Expand full comment
Alex's avatar

Wow thanks for mansplaining women to us, Ed

Expand full comment
Ed Leventhal's avatar

This is my hubby’s subscription. I hate to tell you, I am a woman.

Expand full comment
Carrie Murphy's avatar

I agree with your points overall, but your "imagining" of Hannah's home birth as some torture fest akin to something from a previous century is outdated. Birthing at home is a legitimate reproductive choice—assuming it was some sort of awful travail infantilizes her, too. Happy to provide some reading and imagery about out of hospital birth, if that's something you're interested in.

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

this is actually a totally fair point and really politely communicated, thank you!!

Expand full comment
Holly Grotke's avatar

I agree with Carrie, but your imagining of Hannah’s birth is exactly how Hannah would want you to imagine it.

Expand full comment
Jolie Moore's avatar

As a progressive black woman who chose home birth, because the outcomes for us in hospitals aren't great, I agree with this. For me, it was fine. Not bad, even. I only did it once, though.

Expand full comment
Jenny F.'s avatar

Yeah I came here to say this. The ignorance and misogyny is really jarring. Jax, I would recommend you read Robina Khalid's substack as a helpful intro to the long history of feminist resistance to the explicitly colonial, explicitly racist discipline of obstetrics.

Expand full comment
Storm's avatar

Super late to this but as a full spectrum doula I agree!

Expand full comment
hallee dillydally's avatar

thanks for saying this! as a (semi-retired) doula it can be troubling to see out-of-hospital birth becoming associated with tradwives and christian nationalism. most people don’t know where it comes from and why it’s important. it’s (not) funny, up until recently it was mainly associated with anti-establishment “hippie” folks (like many things that society has seemingly handed over to the tradwives, some of which I’m happy to see go, but certainly not all).

Expand full comment
Jess's avatar

I absolutely agree with this - it is also relevant to note that in the article, Hannah is quoted to have sneakily told the reporter when her husband was in the other room that she used painkillers for a birth he wasn't present for. It appeared her husband would not have approved of that. That detail about the article stuck with me and chilled me.

Expand full comment
Harriet Gabel's avatar

Hi Carrie! This is a really thoughtful point. I agree that home-birthing is a legitimate choice that women should be able to make for themselves. However, in the original article, it’s specifically mentioned (whether true or not) that Hannah wanted to give birth in a hospital with an epidural and her husband told her no. The lack of agency in choices about her own body (and birth) gives her home birth the “torture fest” vibes.

Like you said, choosing to give birth at home can be empowering and beautiful… but, in my opinion, not if that “choice” isn’t really a choice at all.

Expand full comment
Carrie Murphy's avatar

Hi Harriet! I fully agree with you that women should—solely—be the ones to make their own choices on where and how to birth. But the article does not say that her husband told her not to get an epidural—it says that she likes having her babies at home, that she's had two babies in the hospital, and that she used and liked an epidural for one of those births in the hospital. I think the writer who wrote this is skilled in heavily implying that her husband did not want her to give birth in a hospital or have an epidural, but that's not what is actually printed.

Here's the paragraph that covers home birth in the original article from The Times:

"The bedroom is also where she had her children, with the exception of Henry and Martha, who were born in a hospital (a fact that did not escape some of her followers). “After that I was, like, I’m ready to go back home,” she says. “I just love having them at home. It’s so quiet.” She also gave birth to them without pain relief. None at all? She shakes her head. Why? “I don’t know, I just have never loved taking it.” She stops herself. “Except with Martha — I was two weeks overdue and she was 10lb and Daniel wasn’t with me … ” She lowers her voice. Daniel is currently out of the room taking a phone call. “So I got an epidural. And it was an amazing experience.” Where was Daniel that day? “It was shipping day [for the meat boxes] and he was manning the crew.” But the epidural was kind of great? She pauses — and smiles. “It was kinda great."

I've been a doula and a writer for almost 13 years and the way that birth, including home birth, is discussed in the media—and in comment sections like this—is important to me. I commented on this piece originally because I believe that it is vital that we actually listen to what this woman—and all women—says/say about herself/themselves and their reproductive experiences, especially right now. We should not make assumptions about birth feelings or choices (or let our own experiences/feelings with birth color our opinion of anyone else's). We owe that to every person and to ourselves.

Expand full comment
Harriet Gabel's avatar

The more I think about your comment, the more I appreciate it, because I think it highlights an important truth of this article... it's implied that Hannah doesn't have agency in her birth choices, but not explicitly said.

It's almost like she's cosplaying an oppressed woman in an unsafe relationship. Whereas, those relationships DO exist; she's just not in one of them.

I think it really brings it full circle. We're meant to imagine an [inaccurate] medieval birth scene for poor, white Hannah to illicit pity, when that's not her reality.

Expand full comment
Harriet Gabel's avatar

And also I feel more than confident, based on your inclusive rhetoric, that this would never be the case for a client of yours.

My point wasn't to discount yours at all, but to add a different element - home births can be very empowering for people who chose them.

Expand full comment
Harriet Gabel's avatar

Oh you're right! Thanks for the correction. I've definitely read somewhere (which could be incorrect) that Daniel either forced or pressured her not to have medical intervention(s). This could absolutely be internet speculation in Hannah's case. However, having grown up in a high control religion myself and personally knowing multiple women (including family members) who were denied very much wanted medical interventions by their husbands, this is a big part of the conversation that isn't often addressed.

Expand full comment
stephanie maría's avatar

This is such a thoughtful piece. I totally agree that the "we need to save them!" mentality deprives these women of agency. They are conscious adults making questionable decisions. We can reserve our sympathies and energy for the many women who are actually being coerced or abused, living in poverty, etc.

Expand full comment
The Cranky Astrologer's avatar

Excellent points. I didn't know who this woman was until people began chattering about the article, but when I read it, all I could think was that it sounded like huge grift...which is what all these 'trad' people are doing.

I also had the uncharitable thought that she might see the error of her ways when he starts stepping out on her with her young Mormon replacement, but then she'll just position herself as the victim. I'm sure she signed a prenup, because these ww are always smarter than they present themselves. And don't get me started on Usha Vance.

Expand full comment
Wendie Power's avatar

I read every word of this post in hopes the tides of your tone would change towards women making life decisions based on values that differ from your own. Unfortunately, it only intensified and I'm sorry to see so many mirroring your feelings in the comment section.

Hannah and her husband are Mormon. Prioritizing a marriage and family over a career is a natural path for many of them that we should respect as we would any other religion. She never victimized herself - the author victimized her. Her husband never "thwarted" her path as a ballerina. She chose to start a family with him, and I don't doubt the obvious work ethic ingrained in a Julliard student gave rise to her successful with Ballerina Farm.

Who could know, but when you have eight children, content to create, and a dairy farm to run I don't believe there's much time to read the comments. My guess is Hannah posts a video and puts the phone down to live her life. A life we were invited into that Megan Agnew poorly painted after less than a day with the family. Why? Because (sadly) that's what the people want to hear. Negativity gets more attention than positivity - it's evolutionary and the reason our news channels are so pessimistic.

Point being that I'm tired of women bashing women over whether they chose the trad life or living in the corporate world etc. etc. It's tired. And unproductive, no?

Lastly -- only because you chose to get political -- Usha's parents are legal law abiding immigrants, NOT illegal ones crossing the border and being housed, given insurance, and three meals a day with our tax dollars. Big difference.

Expand full comment
Marta Neic's avatar

Thank you! I was looking for this kind of comment here. Unfortunately I found only one - yours.

We don't have to agree with everything some other people choose for their lives. Why is the way this "trad-wife" lives "problematic"? It's her own choice to have as many children as she likes and birth them the way she likes. It's pure speculation, that she is brainwashed by religion or otherwise. Aren't we all "brainwashed" by some kind of culture?! Everything the author of this article or the readers agree on can be seen as another kind of cultural norm (e.g. the use of painkillers for birth).

And it's just as problematic how this community brandmarks "those people" (trad-wifes etc) as it is for example when some racist despises the way of life of some immigrant - a thing this community would surely condamn.

As long as they don't harm anyoy, why should they not live according to their values? Why do we have to judge and condemn?

Expand full comment
Jess's avatar

In the article, Hannah is quoted to have sneakily told the reporter when her husband was in the other room that she used painkillers for a birth he wasn't present for. It appeared her husband would not have approved of that.

Expand full comment
Jess's avatar

Did you read the article? The part about her playing a homesteader who does everything herself while actually having 30 employees and billions of dollars...? Do you not think that gives the women who follow her unattainable expectations for themselves?

Expand full comment
Jess's avatar

Hannah and other conservative women who play pretend as a homesteader while having 30 employees and literally billions of dollars helping them are manipulating other women to make decisions that will lead them to not be billionaires with 30 employees - rather these women will essentially be birthing slaves for their husbands and will have zero options or skills to find work to survive if they ever want to leave the marriage.

Them being Mormon doesn't excuse their horrific impact on their fanbase and, by extension, the world. Mormonism is the issue, actually. It's a cult. And it manipulates people, particularly women, to make choices like this. Fundamentalism IS the issue. Natalism IS the issue.

I sincerely hope you aren't caught up in a cult that you feel you cannot question or leave. If so, know that there is a whole world outside waiting to accept you, help you, and love you, including myself. I can't recommend Alyssa Grenfell's content enough for deconstructing Mormonism and the cult of fundamentalism.

Expand full comment
Lindsey Hubbard's avatar

Preach.

Expand full comment
Owl Green's avatar

I think you're spot-on in your analysis here. One point that always gets missed in pieces about Neeleman (and for good reason, because professional ballet is such a tiny world) is that her ballet career was unlikely to have reached a high enough level that she would ever be something besides a starving artist. I'm a former professional ballerina myself, and what others outside the field usually don't know is that if your goal is to join one of the professional ballet companies in the U.S., you must be recruited from one of a few very selective training programs while still in high school. Almost without exception, only those who didn't have the chops by 18 will go on to college dance programs, as Neeleman did. People hear 'Juilliard' -- a famous arts college -- and justifiably think "elite." But for ballet, it's not. That said, college dance programs can lead to good employment in contemporary dance, or Broadway, or other places. I am speaking here of professional ballet. The competition is so incredibly fierce and intensive training begins so young that it is clear by age 15 or 16 (and often earlier) who is going to be a candidate for placement in any of the top companies in New York or San Francisco or Seattle. I've seen photos and videos of Neeleman from her Juilliard days. She was absolutely lovely, an angel in human form. But she was only moderately talented in that field. She was not ever going to be a star, which is the only way to make money in ballet, and of course she knew that, otherwise she'd already have been recruited by one of the ballet companies in New York or elsewhere, probably years before she ever met her husband. (It's possible to take alternative paths to wealth in ballet, like becoming a choreographer and/or company director, but that's a very hard and narrow road that requires outlandish talent. My take is that wasn't her.) I think your perspective, that she began to see a different path to wealth and fame upon meeting her husband, with the added layer that she knew ballet was a dead end for her, is the correct one. She strikes me as nothing if not pragmatic. And definitely not a girl-victim whose childhood dream of becoming a ballerina was stifled by her patriarchal husband. By the time she met him, the writing would have already been on the wall for several years.

Expand full comment
Aurelia's avatar

I really like this article and the points you make. As my grandmother once told me, "You always have a choice and your values are defined by the choices you make". I'm definitely worried by the surge in Christian fundamentalist rhetoric we are seeing now, especially in the US but also in Europe. They are gaining a worrying amount of traction and have found how to use social media to their advantage, e.g., tradwife influencers. However, I think that there is another key aspect to consider. Deep down, many left-thinking women (members of the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood", as you say) are drawn to this kind of "homestead" lifestyle (whether it's real or not) because the mother/girl boss corporate dream we were sold hasn't turned out the way we thought it would. It's easier for wealthy corporates to sell an idealized housewife dream than to contribute to a fairer society - one that truly supports women and mothers. They wouldn't make the same kind of profit! I wrote about this in one of my previous articles: https://femmefactale.substack.com/p/i-want-to-hate-tradwives-but-i-dont

Expand full comment
Sarah May Grunwald's avatar

This is so well done and needed. I am tried of us infantilizing adult ass women who marry into rich, powerful families. They know their choices, beside the religion part, they aren't brain washed. And they are perfectly free to wear their disgust and disappointment with those choices on their faces and at every public appearance. They aren't being help captive.

Expand full comment
jenniska's avatar

I don’t think you can just ignore the religion aspect and then claim she isn’t brainwashed. It doesn’t do good to ignore the effects of indoctrination.

Expand full comment
Sarah May Grunwald's avatar

I didn't say ignore. I am saying they are adults. I went to Catholic school and converted to Mormonism, and yet, thanks to resources available to nearly everyone, I lifted the veil and I'm not in a cult.

Expand full comment
jenniska's avatar

You said she isn’t brainwashed *besides* religion which means you’re not taking it into account. Her experience is not yours, she didn’t even have any formal education up until Juilliard. It’s not so easy to get to adulthood and realize you were raised in a cult and undo all that indoctrination, like you’re saying, that’s all.

Expand full comment
Sarah May Grunwald's avatar

👍

Expand full comment
sarahjedmondson's avatar

The ex-Mormon YouTubers Jordan and McKay just put out a great video that analyzes what the Neelemans said in their interview through a culturally Mormon lens, helping explain the origins of their views.

Great piece, I especially appreciate how you refuse to look at Hannah as purely a victim.

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

oooo this sounds really interesting, thank you for the rec!!!

Expand full comment
sarahjedmondson's avatar

Here’s a good quote from the video: “Despite him being who he is, we want people to understand that he did not just become this way. There are a lot of things regarding Mormonism that informed his behavior, his beliefs, and…how he sees the world.”

“That ultimately is what we think is the real villain behind these things.”

Expand full comment
Diane D’Angelo's avatar

Thank you for this! I have been bullied and mistreated by women in power several times in my work life. When discussing a wretched female boss with my friends, however, her behavior is rationalized/explained away as a result of sexism. That leaves me not only without support, but is induces guilt that I'm not "supporting a sister." Assholism is an equal opportunity trait, friends.

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

oh lord, I could write a whole other piece on how mean women can be to one another in business settings, especially bosses to subordinates. I kind of chalk it up to a petty "I had to suffer to get here so you should too" mentality.

Expand full comment
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD's avatar

So well done! I find it so hard to swallow the unsisterhood pill but it’s real :(

Expand full comment
Jax Preyer's avatar

Oh thank you so much, Jo-Ann! I'm a longtime big fan of your work so this means a lot <3

Expand full comment
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD's avatar

❤️❤️❤️

Expand full comment
Kelly's avatar

I can hold as true that Hannah is both a victim and victimizing others. She's a victim of a patriarchal society, and deeply problematic religion, that pushes women toward certain choices over others. (I find "choice feminism" loathsome and toothless for this reason: it always focuses exclusively on individual choices while never examining the systemic forces at play that make certain choices more available and appealing than others.) Consciously or not, she is then perpetuating that system through her content glamorizing those lifestyle choices. It's uncomfortable, but that's duality: I can be angry at her and her ilk for their regressive, anti-feminist propaganda, while also recognizing that in a just world, these same women might have made very different choices. That is to say, my empathy stretches, but only so far.

Expand full comment
Sarah Lee's avatar

"Deeply problematic religion"?? You do realize it's a global Christian faith, right? And that people from all kinds of cultures around the world practice it. I think what you're describing is problematic religious Utah culture. That is a very different thing as I've personally experienced. A lot of things about Ballerina Farm concern me and elements of the trad wife trend are also concerning, but it's also a push back against other more "liberated" women who demean homemaking as a legitimate desire for modern women.

Expand full comment
Kelly's avatar

I was referring to Mormonism when I said "deeply problematic religion," not Christianity as a whole. (Though Christianity in the U.S. overall has its own issues with patriarchy. See: purity culture, "men as the head of the household," women being barred from faith leadership, etc.) The trad-wife trend is propaganda for the alt-right. I see very little demeaning coming from "liberated" women, and more *warnings* of the risks/dangers that trad-wifedom exposes women to. If that makes SAHMs feel some type of way, then I'm sorry, but that doesn't make it not the reality.

Expand full comment
Sarah Lee's avatar

I understand that's who you meant. Thus my comment.

Expand full comment