Recent research published in Women’s Psychology Quarterly It suggests that young men who favor the Internet subculture known as the tradie wife movement tend to have hostile, patronizing, and sexist attitudes. The findings provide evidence that the appeal of this lifestyle for men is rooted in a desire for traditional power relationships, rather than simply a preference for a stay-at-home partner.
The term tradwife is a combination of the words traditional and wife. This refers to an Internet subculture comprised of women who promote a return to traditional gender roles. These women often use platforms like TikTok and Instagram to share videos of themselves cooking from scratch, cleaning, and caring for their children.
The subculture relies heavily on a nostalgic aesthetic that glorifies the American suburbs of the 1950s. The women in these videos are often seen doing domestic work wearing vintage dresses, aprons, and high heels. The movement emerged in part as a reaction to modern girlboss culture, which encourages women to prioritize corporate careers and personal wealth.
This lifestyle is based on the idea that women should be submissive to their husbands while still focusing on household chores. In this dynamic, the husband is the sole financial provider and serves as the family’s primary decision maker. Women who identify with this subculture often reject the idea of working outside the home.
“The overarching goal of this study was to better understand how men perceive the #tradwife movement.While the traditional housewife/breadwinner lifestyle is not new, social media trends that identify as tradwife “Influencers have newly popularized this lifestyle by sharing an idealized image of the housewife role that evokes simplicity and nostalgia,” said study author Rachel Robnett, director of the Nevada Women’s Institute and professor of psychology. Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Tradwife also emphasizes the importance of submission to their husbands, with some deciding not to leave the house unless accompanied by their husbands. Only a few studies to date have focused on the #tradwife movement. Of these studies, all have focused on women who identify as tradwife.”
“So far, no studies have investigated men’s attitudes toward the #tradwife movement. This is surprising, given that the husband’s financial support is a necessary component for women to live the tradwife lifestyle. Because tradwife grants substantial personal and financial autonomy to husbands, it is critical to better understand what types of men are attracted to the tradwife lifestyle.”
Researchers recruited a sample of 595 young adults living in the United States. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 29 years and were recruited through an online survey platform. They represented a diverse mix of racial backgrounds, including white, black, and Hispanic or Latino individuals.
The men completed an anonymous online survey measuring their familiarity with the Trady Wife movement. To ensure everyone was on the same page, the survey provided a standard definition of a trade housewife before asking for opinions. Participants then answered 12 questions designed to measure how favorably they viewed the lifestyle and the women who adopted it.
The researchers also measured the participants’ levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism refers to overtly negative feelings toward women, such as the belief that women seek to control men. Benevolent sexism is a more subtle and patronizing form of sexism that frames women as pure creatures who need to be protected and provided for by men.
Benevolent sexism is divided into three parts. The first part is protective paternalism, the belief that men should protect and financially support women. The second part is complementary sexual differentiation, which suggests that men and women have distinct innate characteristics that make them suitable for different roles. The third is heterosexual intimacy, the idea that men are incomplete without romantic relationships with women.
This survey includes one open-ended question. In this question, we asked men to explain why they think the trade wife lifestyle is attractive to some couples. The researchers read these written responses and identified common themes in how the men reasoned about the movement.
After looking at the data, the scientists found that about 31 percent of men were already familiar with the trade wife movement. Most of these men found out about this through social media. White men are more likely to be familiar with the movement than black or Hispanic men, which is consistent with the subculture’s emphasis on white aesthetics.
Unexpectedly, men who identified as Christian or Republican were less familiar with the subculture than other participants. Scientists believe this may be due to social media algorithms. Tradwife’s content is primarily targeted at a female audience, so it may not appear frequently in conservative men’s digital feeds.
When researchers investigated what motivates men to approve of the movement, they made an unexpected discovery. They initially predicted that protective paternalism would be the strongest predictor of favorable attitudes. They base this on the idea that the Tradif lifestyle emphasizes the role of men as providers and protectors.
The data did not support this prediction. Instead, hostile sexism emerged as the strongest predictor of whether men liked the tradie wife movement. Men who scored high on overtly resentful attitudes toward women tended to view the Tradif lifestyle very positively.
“We expected protective paternalism to play a central role in explaining why some men view the #tradwife movement positively,” Robnett told Cypost. “We were appalled to discover that it was rather the men’s overt sexism that played the most important role in their attitude towards the Trady Wife movement.”
Heterosexual intimacy was the only part of benevolent sexism that predicted favorable views of trad wives. Men who believed they needed a woman to feel complete were more likely to support the movement. General religious commitment, being married, and having a high level of education also predicted more positive attitudes toward the subculture.
“While hostile sexism was the strongest predictor in our statistical model, our findings also showed that men who believed that men needed the intimacy (both physical and emotional) that only women could provide were more likely to view the #tradwife movement favorably,” Robnett explained.
“Taken together, these findings suggest that men who view the #tradwife movement favorably believe that they are dependent on women for intimate relationships, while at the same time resenting this fact. This mindset can place tradwife in a precarious position, given the amount of financial and other control they are ceding to their husbands.”
Written responses provided deeper context for these statistical patterns. Many men write that the trade housewife lifestyle provides fulfillment and a sense of purpose through traditional roles. These participants often suggested that women are naturally predisposed to caregiving and housework.
Some men pointed out that a strict division of roles would make running a household much easier. They liked the straightforward nature of the husband working and the wife managing the household. A small group of men preferred this lifestyle because it enabled traditional power relations and clearly demonstrated their desire for submissive women.
A final theme that emerged from the written responses focused on the trendy nature of the movement. A minority of men perceived their lifestyles to be heavily influenced by internet algorithms and their desire to view social media. These participants saw the movement as a glorified aesthetic rather than a practical way of life.
Some of the written responses revealed a darker, more derisive view of women in the movement. These men suggested that the trade housewife lifestyle was simply an easy means for women who wanted to avoid the hardships of real work. They described women who choose this path as lazy people who just want to stay at home and do nothing.
The researchers note that these findings include some exploratory evidence for racial differences. For example, the belief that men are incomplete without women did not predict support for trade wives among Black participants. This particular analysis is exploratory, so scientists need to conduct further research to confirm and fully understand these differences.
Another limitation is that the sample consisted of men between 18 and 29 years of age. This means that the results may not apply to older generations. Rather than focusing specifically on men who are currently married to trade wives, the study also looked at men in general. Men who actively live this lifestyle may exhibit different psychological patterns than men who simply observe it online.
“However, our findings provide new insight into the traits and belief systems that may lead men to explore the tradwife lifestyle in their current or future relationships,” Robnett told SciPost.
“The association between men’s hostile sexism and tradie wife attitudes was moderate in statistical magnitude, even after accounting for a range of control variables including demographic background, political affiliation, religiosity, and other forms of sexism. Therefore, the association between men’s higher levels of hostile sexism and their more positive attitudes toward the tradie wife movement appears to be fairly robust.”
“It is also worth noting that the sample included 595 men from a wide range of sociopolitical backgrounds. The large sample size and sample diversity are methodological choices we made intentionally to increase confidence in our findings and their generalizability.”
In the future, the research team plans to investigate whether there is a connection between the tradie wife movement and the manosphere. The manosphere is a collection of online communities that promote masculinity and anti-feminist ideas.
“Our next step is to see if there is any crossover between the manosphere and the #tradwife movement,” Robnett said. “Certain communities within the manosphere are advocating a return to traditional gender roles, paralleling the messaging in the #tradwife movement. However, it is not clear whether these communities (i.e., the manosphere and tradwife) are directly engaged with each other. These may be two broad communities, both shaped by the same sociopolitical forces.”
“In the social sciences, there is a growing interest in understanding how strict adherence to gender roles can pose challenges for men,” she added. “For example, if you look at economic trends, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to support a family on a single income.”
“Thus, men who take on the role of breadwinner in trade wife marriages may feel under great pressure. While we do not equate the challenges faced by women and men in trade wife marriages, we would like to emphasize that gender role norms that place men in positions of power (whether in relationships or in society) can have downsides for men’s well-being.”
The study, “Ambivalent Sexism Theory as a Framework for Understanding Men’s Attitudes Regarding the #Tradwife Movement,” was authored by Rachel D. Robnett and Matthew D. Hammond.
