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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

> meaningful things were raising kids and gardening instead of yoga, matcha brunches and ayuhuasca retreats it got conservative-coded instead of liberal-coded along culture lines.

You are being disingenuous here. The primary and most important thing it did, was religion driven complete submission to husband and complete dependence on him.

> who are reclaiming aspects of femininity which have been stigmatized,

Which would primary be that submission and dependence part. Not gardening vs yoga, plenty of progressives have gardens and don't do yoga. Also, having kids is not stigmatized.

> but because it has a veneer of similarity to pre-feminist norms

If he beats you, it is your fault for not being obedient enough is definitely pre-feminist norm. Which is part and parcel of the culture these women embraced and are from.

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And now I can't tell if you're being disingenuous, or we're just running into the problems of the modern media landscape. I haven't seen any tradwife content that suggests any of the things you're claiming it represents. Not even close.

Maybe I'm only seeing the cottagecore, homesteader end of the spectrum and you're only seeing the religious fundamentalist end of the spectrum, but both are happening under the same label on various TikToks, Instagrams and Podcasts.

I suspect the way you've framed it is very misleading, and represents only a tiny sliver of content, but, as I conceded in my first statement, I've seen a whole lot more commentary about tradwife content than the actual content itself, so there is a real possibility I am wrong and I've only seen the friendly tip of the iceberg but it's actually full of badness underneath.

There’s absolutely a huge strain of homesteading, family farming, cottagecore. There is also a relatively large strain of tradwives. I can’t think of a single instance of the first group referring to themselves as “tradwives” — “traditional”, “back to nature”, sure. “Tradwife” is very specifically about the wife’s duties and the ones that espouse it absolutely mean it in the conservative, religious, patriarchal sense.

I’m envious that you have avoided that rabbit hole, but it absolutely exists and is not niche.

> cottagecore, homesteader

Does not imply tradwife. Tradwife has submission as unambigous part.

But also, the article is all about tradwifes influencers who were presenting beautiful life while being abused, controlled and part of religious cult. And in some cases white supremacists.

And THAT or risk of that was also primary criticism all along. Except critics talked about it as "risk" or "likelihood" rather then "you are actually lying about your reality".

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