During course selection at the end of my junior year, Coral Azarian, my college counselor, told me that AR Humanities would not only be a great fit for me, but would also stand out on my transcript when applying for college. All I knew about the class at the time was that we would pick a topic to research and write a ~20 page article on our findings and try to get it published. As someone who takes pride in my essay-writing skills, I figured the class wouldn’t be too bad. 

Looking back now, it is different than anything I expected, and the pride I took in my five-paragraph essay skills doesn't mean as much. Learning how to write in a way that doesn’t fit into the five-paragraph essay template is seldom something that high school students have the opportunity to experience, but is really important. AR Humanities is different in that I could pick literally anything to research. Greta Filippone, a member of my class, told me she was “so happy to be able to choose her own topic” and that it helped keep her interested.

I learned how to read and take notes efficiently on scholarly journal articles, something that previously was daunting to me but is now normal. Senior Vivian Turner agreed with me, saying she is “no longer intimidated by reading scholarly articles.”

When I was trying to pick a topic, I thought about the world around me and Utah-specific things I could write about. As a Jew in the predominantly LDS Salt Lake Valley, I’ve always felt like I didn’t exactly fit in with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Mormon girls. I didn’t understand why nearly every girl I saw looked and acted the same, but the more I dug, the more sense everything made. I decided to start investigating tradwives and went into a kind of a rabbit hole. I started looking at videos posted by tradwife creators to look for specific rhetoric that connected their lifestyle/ideals to Mormon theology and gender constructs, and in no time I was able to draw parallels. 

The term tradwife surfaced on social media in 2020 and refers to “women who eschew feminist values in favor of homemaking, child-rearing, and other conventional domestic pursuits.” Through my research, I’ve found that there are some universal elements that all tradwives have/take part in. One of these universal traits is the appearance of “domestic bliss.” In every picture, blog, or video, tradwife influencers are enthusiastic while cooking and cleaning, happy to homemake. Another trait is the tradwives’ physical appearance. More often than not, they are blonde with perfectly manicured hair, nails, and makeup, even though they work to take care of their children and homes for most of the day. Surprisingly, or maybe even unsurprisingly, this is what most Mormon women in Utah look like as well. 

Mormonism plays a large part in the tradwifery of Utah through constructed gender roles and husband-wife dynamics established by the Church. The Ensign, an online magazine of the Church, publishes anything from “gospel principles to Church news.” I have found lots of primary evidence from The Ensign that illustrates a dynamic between husband and wife in which the husband is the primary breadwinner for the family and the wife stays at home to cook, clean, take care of their children, and serve her husband's every need. Ann S. Reese, a faithful member of the Church, said in the September 1984 publication of The Ensign that “nothing will bring more blessings to a home”  than a “wife as she supports [her husband] in every needful thing.”Reese’s ideas are supported by LDS leader James E. Faust in his 1973 Friday Morning Session speech. He emphasizes the importance of a woman building up her husband and “giving him love, understanding,” and “appreciation for his efforts.”

Now, I am going to analyze the specific rhetoric used in many videos/images, pointing out some of the universal tradwife principles and how all of these elements are used to unknowingly influence audiences.  

First, I’ll start with an image taken from a video made by Ivy Van Dusen (@ivyoutwest on TikTok). Ivy typically posts “content of homemaking, pro-life, motherhood, beauty, and makeup.”

Without even reading the text on the screen, you can see Ivy’s sleek blonde hair, painted nails, and well-done makeup. She is also wearing a more modest-style babydoll dress, using her hands to point out she is pregnant. Coincidentally, she is also in the kitchen. Now, looking at the text, the “they” Ivy is referring to most likely means the government or policy makers. She is speaking in a conspiracy-style tone critiquing second-wave feminism, in which the fight to close the wage gap between men and women was a priority, but Ivy actually thinks that second-wave feminism was a ploy for the government to tax families more. In response, Ivy has opted to be a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) as she has written, “No thanks! #sahm” in the caption of the video. Ivy uses her outfit, appearance, and perfectly clean kitchen and background to portray being a SAHM as peaceful and pretty, when in reality, SAHMs actually end up working more hours than a 40-hour work week but without any pay. This kind of work without pay is something that isn’t very attainable for everyone, as many households need more than one income to survive, so people viewing this video are being misled as to what being a SAHM actually looks like, the effects of it, and how it can even be maintained financially.

Next, a few images from videos made by Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, a famous tradwife from Utah who posts content about her life on the 328-acre ranch: taking care of the animals, her eight children, and her husband, all while wearing a pretty prairie dress and having her shiny blonde hair neatly tied up.

From left to right, Hannah is posing with her husband and newest baby; getting ready to knead the dough for hamburger buns (the hamburger is made completely from scratch, including the buns, ketchup, cheese, and the beef is even from her farm); and rinsing out a milk pail before going out to do her "Saturday morning chores,” as she captions the video, around the farm. Notice her hair: always perfectly tied back, not even a wisp falling out. Her clothing: 1950s-esque dresses, very modest and prairie style. And her face: clean, rosy cheeks with subtle makeup so she looks effortlessly beautiful at all times. Focusing on the leftmost image, Hannah is kissing her cowboy-looking husband with their baby in her arms, somewhere in a field. It's idyllic, blissful, and may even be envied by viewers online, but the way her life looks in these snapshots, however put together and perfect, isn’t actually real. She can’t run a 328-acre farm on her own, and she certainly can’t take care of all eight kids by herself. Behind the scenes, she has help but chooses not to make content about it to keep up her online persona as the wife who does it all. But she doesn’t do it all, she has help behind the scenes, which is very misleading to an uneducated viewer.

After looking at these screenshots and analyses, it is clear that videos and images that seem harmless, fun, and even idyllic can be very misleading. By making their lives appear attainable and easy, tradwives influence their viewers into believing they are better off living life the better, “traditional,” way, but to what end? How is this lifestyle attainable for people who aren’t able to live off a single income? How might this influence affect young women's views about independence and autonomy? How might these videos change boys’/men's thoughts about how they treat their (future) partners? Although I do not yet know the exact answers to these questions, I want to keep investigating. That is why I am going to conduct a survey at Rowland Hall in the next month to investigate the influence on and susceptibility of students (young boys and girls) to traditional messaging, to find out what their initial thoughts/feelings are versus what they are after learning about the messaging behind traditional content, so please keep a heads up for that if you are interested in participating.