Betz, Liss & Ramsey (2026) — Not the Solution We Proposed: Feminist Perspectives on the Tradwife Trend
Betz, D.E., Liss, M. & Ramsey, L.R. (2026). Not the Solution We Proposed: Feminist Perspectives on the Tradwife Trend. Psychology of Women Quarterly. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03616843261442440
What this source contributes
A feminist-psychological analysis of the tradwife movement as a response to an unfinished feminist revolution. The authors identify three enabling conditions that allowed tradwife content to flourish: frustration with feminism’s incomplete revolution in the domain of domestic labour, COVID-19 nostalgia for domestic life, and alignment with right-populist communication that validates gender essentialism.
They document how the movement carries white supremacist ideology and anti-transgender sentiment through the same nostalgic imagery, including in variants that are not explicitly political. The return to tradition is structurally available only to economically privileged women, which is the part the aesthetic is best at concealing.
Analytical function in Tradwife
Supplies the feminist-psychological frame for both the Appeal and the Friction sections. The three enabling conditions are what allow the entry to take the appeal seriously as a response to a real problem rather than dismissing it.
About the authors
Diane E. Betz, Monica Liss and Laura R. Ramsey are affiliated with the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Their research covers feminist psychology, gender attitudes, and women’s media use.
Related entries
- Tradwife — the three enabling conditions as the analytical layer of the Appeal section
- Purity Culture — tradwife aesthetics as a carrier of purity logic about body, family and nation
- Womanosphere — situates the movement within the wider female online ecosystem
- SMV (Sexual Market Value) — the market logic that positions tradwife as the mirror term of looksmaxxing