this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2026

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Leopards Ate My Face

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Why tradwives are fleeing the movement: ‘I can’t undo my past – but I can warn other women’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by begrudgedcarfolk@sh.itjust.works to c/leopardsatemyface@lemmy.world

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[–] Hanrahan@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

“I would cook parmesan chicken and film it on Instagram and say, ‘I’m being a good wife, here are my pies

how does it happen that anyone watches that? her's a pie... and ??

my GF's a chef, she grows lots of fruit and veg, (i help with the heavy lifting) she bakes cakes, bread, cookies and cooks superb meals, works part time as a chef for 4 months a year, we hike, mountain bike ride, go fishing, kayak, wild swimming, she catches crabs byerself in a her little fishing kayak and we travel for 8 months a year overseas. Not one bit of that would be interesting to anyone else ffs.

why is this even a thing.

[–] aeiou@piefed.social 67 points 1 week ago

Not one bit of that would be interesting to anyone else ffs.

If you mean your life, I think you underestimate the number of people who daydream about a lifestyle that lets them travel 8 months a year (or at all), and the closest they can get is watching someone else do it

[–] beejboytyson@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This man living a dream with a wife that has a hobby job. "Why would anybody interested in a perfect life?" Idk try and figure it out.

[–] CedricWhaley@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm wondering how "part time chef for four months" works out to travel for 8 months of the year.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

I've literally seen, on Instagram, private chefs who post about their daily life. They work on private cruises (not cruise ships, yachts that carry up to 20-ish people for a high-end private cruise for a few nights) which help facilitate the travel and scenery.

Still, though. They caption it with shit like "wake up at 1 in a hammock on the beach, go fishing to find something that I can cook for dinner that night, do it, then relax and party for the rest of the time until the next night. "

[–] Feidry@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, you're 100% wrong about no one being interested in watching that. There's hundreds or thousands of YouTube channels that do exactly this.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

My aunt and uncle, who are already constant world-travellers, watch almost nothing but Rick Steves travel videos on YouTube.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not one bit of that would be interesting to anyone else ffs.

I would watch your vlog religiously. You both sound as cute and interesting as hell. Many people would like to experience a life like that vicariously through video.

I am not asking you to do it, though. Your life sounds rich and adorable. Broadcasting yourselves on social media could ruin what you have.

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago

Not just could, probably would. Unless you're an entertainer at heart who just needs the fans... better to live in the moment. You'll be happier that way.

[–] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Mate your life sounds idyllic, if I were still on social media I'd watch the shit out of your life vlogs to live vicariously through yours and your wife's so for a brief moment mine felt less mundane.

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago

not one bit of that would be interesting to anyone else

You're quite wrong on that one

[–] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

People will watch what's put in front of them, and the recommendation algorithms on social medial aren't neutral.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

For a lot of people its fetish content.

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'll probably regret asking this but... what part is the fetish? The relationship dynamic, or, you know, the actual pies?

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Mostly the relationship dynamic. There's often also a racial component - a LOT of tradwife stuff is also white supremacist under the onion skin.

[–] Sharkticon@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Very much so yes. Also sometimes it's more blatant. The outfits they wear, the cleavage they show, sometimes they focus a lot on their own feet...

[–] Malica@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

It's how they sucker in the girls to the right wing, manosphere for the boys.

[–] Sharkticon@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

And the tradwives know it to. A lot of content is made with this in mind.

[–] tankplanker@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

A lot of people wouldn't work if they could still fund a good life style, big chunk of those would like to do homely things instead like cooking and gardening. Its aspirational fantasy content, as long as they ignore or stay ignorant of the bad aspects of being a trad-wife that apply to many of them.

Could most people do this stuff while working? Assuming they have the space, equipment, skills, and aren't completely destroyed by work. Obviously there are those that would like to do this who have those but when it actually comes to putting in a sustained effort they dont because of laziness, or lack of skill, etc.

[–] ladicius@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

It's the same reason why people watch trash TV and other ridiculous shit: Entertainment is opium for the dumb.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

No one has this right, which drives me crazy, as they misunderstand the draw of this.

Making things can be fulfilling. I fucking love it. I make all sorts of stuff because is gives me joy.

Lots of people watch videos of people making things because it gives them a sliver of the same joy and satisfaction. Shit, that's all HGTV is, the dopamine draft on other people's work.

It's the core conceit of disaffected youth.

So when young people try to do things without in person peers or sensible family to correct them, they think they have to make bread in a prairie skirt and bonnet like Ballerina Farm or whomever, and video it all, to be fulfilled.

They can't separate the satisfaction of doing a thing from the dopamine hit of updoots and likes. So they conflate the two. Not their fault! It's how they were raised.

Teach kids to do things with their hands. Build and make for the sake of doing and making and building. Even if it's pie and bread and lasagna. Lasagna is fucking good.

[–] Malica@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

I would be very interested tbh, especially the travel bits

[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 28 points 1 week ago

I think a big part of this is also: a lot of these Tradwives started that crap when they were YOUNG!

I went to a pretty conservative evangelical university from 2003-2007. A lot of the women I went to school with got married while still in school (at like 19 or 20 years old) and had a kind of tradwife outlook (before the term existed) and now many of them have rejected all of that. And the catalyst, in a lot of cases, was just growing up. Big difference was that they didn’t have social media quite like we have today, where your dumb twentysomething ideas and lifestyles are broadcast all over the world and come to define you for all time.

One example comes to mind: Joshua Harris and his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. The thing was enormous in the evangelical world in the early 2000s and youth groups and young adult groups were getting it pushed at them. It was all about “courting” instead of dating and pressured people to get married if they wanted to have sex. A ton of my peers who bought into it had horrible marriages are now divorced, in many cases due to infidelity. Joshua Harris, almost a decade ago, himself got divorced and issued an apology for the damage he caused. But here’s the thing: he wrote the book when he was TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD! No one who can barely legally drink is going to be an authority on marriage.

I think we’re going to see a lot more Gen-Z MAGA types growing out of the movement. Especially women.

[–] JayK117@aussie.zone 11 points 1 week ago

Not sure who needs to hear it but Tradwives is not BDSM. There is no safe word. No after-care. All Dom until one of you dies, probably at the hands of the other.

[–] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

Fool

[–] Malica@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 week ago

This is why they call us bitter old women when we try to warn the younger ones. Im a housewife, please listen, never put yourself in a vulnerable situation like trad wives say you should. You will be abused and miserable even if you find a "good" one.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

[–] begrudgedcarfolk@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Thank goodness for conservatives, we never have to worry about the leopards starving.

[+] SouthernShao@lemmus.org -9 points 1 week ago

I'm seeing a lot of notions that traditional housewife also correlates to Christian. My wife very badly wants to be a traditional housewife in many aspects of the word (she holds multiple degrees and works in education as of current.) I happen to make a lot of money but we want to continue brining her income in to help with things like house payments.

Our family is completely atheist and open-minded. We're all fundamentally voluntarists who believe in some aspects of conservatism and some of liberalism. For example, we believe in equal treatment for everyone regardless of sex, sexual orientation, race, etc., but we're also very critical of actual philosophy and reasoning. This tends to make our household not only atheist but also anti-government and often, anti-establishment. We're also anti socialist/communist as well as firmly anti crony capitalist and more or less anything associated with an abuse of force monopolization.

I think there's a lot that goes into being blanketed into a worldview. My lived experiences have taught me that if you can tell me only a few things about yourself I can likely guess 75% of your entire worldview, which generally not only makes me perceive you as utterly closed-minded, but also pretty NPC-like.

If you have blue hair and a nose piercing, you're probably a self-proclaimed feminist who believes not wearing a mask during Covid was the worst thing you could do, backs Ukraine, thinks Trump is more evil than Hitler or Mao, probably believe in socialism in some "form", believes in things like trans rights, and backs Palestine. And if you drive a large pickup truck and wear a trucker hat you're probably Christian who believes Covid was a complete sham, think Trump was ordained by God, are pro-capitalist and anti-communist in every form, believes trans is a mental disorder, and finds the notion of Gays for Palestine to be the single stupidest thing you've ever heard in your entire life.

No man should be able to discern so much from you from so little. If this is the case you probably do not think for yourself and you're fundamentally, at your core, just a collectivist and authoritarian who has never had a rational thought in your entire life that wasn't simply something you heard someone else say.

And that's sad. Truly.

Not everyone fits neatly into these little bubbles. There's nothing wrong with being a "traditional" housewife, it just depends on all the other aspects of your worldview you're bringing into it. Much of the perceived problem for instance likely has very little to do with being a housewife and more to do with organized religion and the way social stigmas fall behind it.

[+] Gaslov@lemmy.world -83 points 1 week ago (11 children)

Propaganda. Why does the guardian hate their readers? Time and time again one person earning and one person working the home proves to be the optimal family arrangement. Children in these families consistently outperform children in any other arrangement in all areas. Following the advice of the guardian is hurting your kids, permanently.

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 37 points 1 week ago

[citation needed]

[–] dragonlover@lemmy.zip 36 points 1 week ago

The article isnt about that, its about rigid gendernorms. You didnt even read it

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

optimal family arrangement.

I think you mean: it's not optimal to have wages be so low that both parents need to work.

The optimal arrangement is to automate everything and have neither parent work

[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 week ago

The article isn't about how having one person do money work for corporations and another do actual work for people is a bad arrangement, but specifically about the "trad" movement as it relates to the alt-right and their backwards views on men, women, and children. And how it's just... Not a good time.

“I no longer believe in extreme gender roles, especially when they’re wrapped in spiritual language and used to justify control, silence or harm.”

That's a snip of the ideology that's being contested. Notice it has nothing to do with the value of housework or how a single wagie should be able to support a nuclear family.

[–] DeLacue@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Well kids who's parents interact with them more do better than kids who don't receive as much attention. This is well known and consistently proven. But that is a very different statement to 'one parent staying home and one earning is optimal'. The evidence suggests more access to both parents for children is optimal. Of course with the way things are economically few parents get to choose how much time they spend with their kids.

But the trad wives thing isn't solely about one parent staying home; it's also about the wife's complete submission to her husband and all the other toxic ideas that flow from that. I can assure you that research clearly shows that environments where one parent is deeply controlling of the other is not good for children's development.

But no you want to twist studies into meaning things they don't then quietly append an entire ideology into them and then claim others are posting propaganda.

[–] begrudgedcarfolk@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago

The guardian is one of the few rags that is independent and highly rated for their factual unbiased reporting, where as garbage outlets like fox news are highly regarded for how much misinformation they spread.

[–] Tartufo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

As someone who massively got fucked sideways by my "mom" who stayed at home 24/7:

The best would be if both parents work, half a day each. Then both the dad and mom can take turns taking care of the kids, and the kids are less likely to become the victim of a parent that goes on a power trip due to being able to control everything at home.

[–] blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago

This is a 4chan argument, derived from the "White male/Asian woman is the optimal racial pairing because they earn the kept money" line of thinking.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Time and time again one person earning and one person working the home proves to be the optimal family arrangement.

this is true. why, then, do republicans not increase federal minimum wage and stop rolling back worker protections?

Children in these families consistently outperform children in any other arrangement in all areas.

also true. why do republicans insist on forcing two parent homes to work for financial stability? also, why are republicans destroying two parent families by:

illegally deporting citizens
illegally detaining citizens
illegally executing citizens
illegally extracting children from families based on their gender identity
illegally targeting gay/trans families

Following the advice of the guardian is hurting your kids, permanently.

I'd say the guardian is doing less damage than republicans are, though that won't be a problem for long 😏

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Who the fuck said anything about having kids?

[–] Gaslov@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago

The tradwife movement? Look, it's not anything you need to worry about.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

your conflating parenting with having money. if you have money you don't need two incomes. if you have money you can throw that money at your kids education. that's all that's happening here. the people with money have more money to pay for better education for their kids, and a lot of rich kids with stay at home moms aren't getting even good parenting out of their parents.