If you’ve followed my work, you likely know I’m critical of both Christian culture and secular culture. When it comes to womanhood and motherhood, I see issues everywhere, and I’m going to call it like I see it.
This isn’t easy. My thoughts never fall neatly into one camp, and therefore I’m frequently misunderstood. Christians question my faith (lol but they do) because I ask questions and don’t always agree, and secular folks assume that because I talk about God (and sometimes ask questions about things like feminism) that I must be one of those silly religious people.
It’s exhausting ya’ll. I’d rather it not be like this. I’d love for my thoughts to slot neatly somewhere; it would be easier in so many ways.
A few weeks ago, something interesting happened on Instagram: two very big accounts with women at the helm shared posts announcing their personal abandonment of feminism. This, unsurprisingly, inspired extreme reactions from most: either very supportive, or very horrified.
In the comments section of one of those posts, I said something about it being interesting that so many women are having similar revelations about feminism in recent years1, and I had some good dialogue with another commenter, who then invited me to carry on the conversation in DMs (private chat). We’ve been conversing on and off ever since, and it’s been great. We have so much we agree on, despite not quite coming to the same conclusions (at least at this point). We’re both open to each other’s points of view as women and mothers, and it’s truly refreshing.
This woman runs a large feminist account, and a few days later, she2 decided to tag me in a reel she made and reference our conversation. It was a lovely move by her to share with her audience that she’s been in respectful dialogue with someone who doesn’t toe the (feminist) party line. I continue to chat with her and share the way I see things, and she does the same.
Over the next several days, around 40 women started following my work. But one woman was upset. She quoted several of my posts in the comments of the reel and proceeded to list problems with “the trad wife movement.”
I only recently learned about the term “trad wife,” probably not much later than a lot of people, as it has seemingly blown up the Internet and mainstream media this year. I’m very curious about the term—its origins—and the “movement;” I really don’t know a lot.3 Apparently, though, I’m part of a movement that I don’t even understand and only recently heard about!
(And if you know me at all, you’ll know that I can hardly be identified as an uber-traditional woman, for better or for worse. And my work is reflective of my life and experiences.)
It’s wild out there, folks. We so badly want to pigeonhole. We so badly want to know who’s on our team—and who isn’t.
In this post, I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of any of this. I want to step back and talk about this at a macro level, because I’m seeing something again that I’ve felt for a long time, both in general and in the motherhood space: labeling and division.
SAHM/working mom
I’ve written quite a bit over the years around the SAHM/working mom dichotomy. The language of the terms are an irritation, but more importantly, it’s a framework that is loaded with rigidity and stereotypes that absolutely do not serve women.
The stereotypes that come along with these two terms are the most damaging aspect of the dichotomy. The duality/rigidity is harmful as well, as it makes it seem that you either a) continue your work life as normal after becoming a mother or b) quit paid work altogether, an absolute falsity4, but I think the stereotypes impact women more. Mainstream culture would have us believe that these are the *two* possible identities when a woman becomes a mother: the ambitious, smart, empowered working mom with her Very Important Career, or the stay-at-home mom, who lives a lazy, small life dependent on her (obviously rich) husband, has little ambition outside of motherhood, and—hate to say it—but is probably kinda dumb.
(There are also unhelpful ideas about these two identities from the more religious/trad side: that “working moms” are selfish and unwilling to engage in the necessary sacrifice of motherhood and that “SAHMs” are holy and righteous and appropriately self-sacrificing. These ideas are less powerful/prevalent IMO than the secular ones, but they do exist.)
As if it’s not enough for mothers to have two oversimplified options loaded with awful stereotypes to boot, culture would also like the two groups to be pitted against each other. Through the idea and language of the “mommy wars,” women have been encouraged to take pride in their particular choice and see moms from “the other camp” as competition or adversaries, or simply just as women they can’t or don’t want to relate to.
It seems clear to me that “feminist”/”trad wife” is just the updated language for these two camps. Are you empowered? Strong? Smart? Or are you oppressed? Small-minded? Cringe?
“In a feminist way”
There’s no denying that feminine energy is rising. Women are increasingly choosing to embrace traditionally female roles and work and doing it joyfully. (See the hashtag #softlife, for example, or the proliferation of baking bread). Let’s have a look at another thing that’s been happening on the ‘Gram lately, shall we?5 A popular type of post recently has been saying something along the lines of “I like to (insert traditional female activity), but not in the ‘Women shouldn’t have the right to vote’ kind of way.” Essentially, these women are signaling: I may do traditionally feminine things, but I’m not like those women.6 I’m not a TRAD WIFE.
I can actually understand it this urge to differentiate, deeply. These posts surfaced an embarrassing-but-true memory: when I was pregnant for the first time and getting ready to be an at-home parent, I remember having the thought that yes, I was going to do the SAHM thing, but “in a feminist way.” I remember thinking those exact words. I’ve wondered at this, and this is the truth I’ve come up with: I thought I was above those sad, uncool women who only want to be mothers. Yes, I was going to not work outside the home, but I wasn’t going to be like a typical SAHM. I had totally (though unconsciously) bought into the stereotypes. This stuff runs deep.
But you know who, of course, also does this virtue-signally stuff? People on the Christian/traditional side of things. I feel like the use of the word “trad” itself is probably a signal (again, no expert on the term): I’m not one of those women, those loud, angry, man-hating, abortion-loving psychos.
At war
Ah, are we tired yet? I sure am.
So instead of “working moms” vs. “SAHMs,” now, it’s the feminists vs. the “anti-feminists.” (A term becoming synonymous with trad wife.) So far this is just on social media, but with the phrase “trad wife” making it into mainstream news, I wonder how long it will be until we have another term like “mommy wars” to describe what’s happening. But maybe we don’t need it. Maybe at this point we so willingly pigeonhole and fight with other women we don’t need a phrase that encourages us to divide into two camps and see the other as an enemy.
And yet, I have hope. I wrote this in an old post:
We, the mothers, all know what’s true. What’s true is that we’re all making the best decisions we can for ourselves and for our families. That we all get stressed and overwhelmed on the regular. That, sometimes, we question our choices. It’s all a lot more complex—and beautiful—than the cultural narratives about “working moms” and “stay-at-home moms” make it seem.
And so it is with “feminists” and “trad wives.”
There is so much more to be said about all this, but the thing I’d like to say today is this: Ya’ll. Women. Can we stop? Can we not buy in? Can we come together? Can we listen?
We do have a choice here. We don’t need to buy into labels. Instead of lumping women into binary categories, we can choose be curious about each other’s lives and choices and share our stories. If we want a more supportive world for women and mothers, we need to start by rejecting the division.
And that includes the newest iteration. Let’s stop with the labels and start listening. It can be done. It must be done.
If you’re new to my publication, you can find a little of my story in this post or this podcast.
Her handle is @feminist.mom.therapist if you’re curious.
And one I plan on addressing with a little project which I’ll announce soon! If you follow me on the ‘Gram you may recall I talked about it in my stories. I have way too many ideas for the amount of time and energy I have to dedicate to them, lollol.
You may think it silly, but I think Instagram is a good illustration of our cultural consciousness, as women especially as we are the main users. And whether we like it or not, social media does influence behavior and choices; it’s just a reality.
I do think there could be a genuine and reasonable urge to differentiate, as there definitely are some questionable beliefs and practices with regard to men and women in hyper-religious communities. I’ve seen and heard about them first-hand.
I wonder how much of the 'mommy wars" are rooted in our own insecurity of our choices in how we mother, and how we embody the role of a mother.
When women 'break the code' and go outside of the expected bounds of our own idea of mothering should look like, instead of cheering for them we judge and criticize. There is ample room for compassion and curiosity, I'm trying to share more of that with other women and not save it all for my kids.
I will be your hype girl whether you are baking bread in a feminist or trad way!
I sometimes wonder if before women worked outside of the home/farm and when everyone was essentially “traditional” by default-how did women differentiate and label themselves from one another? Or did they at all? My first thought is it likely was a matter of class-rich women, poor women. Which is ironic in the sense that working mom vs. sahm and trad wives vs. girl boss feminists both have a lot of class implications as well, and I truly think the actual divide in many areas (not just with women, but all people) is actually a class divide. Racism and sexism, ageism, conservatism vs liberalism etc-in my opinion, are often rooted in class disputes more than anything, because it is a matter of power.
I think the need to differentiate comes from this fact coupled with the current state of things where victimhood is out on a pedestal in our society. Because isn’t the actual argument between sahm vs working moms who suffers more? Same with feminists vs trad wives-who is sacrificing the most (and therefore doing better) seems to be the underlying conflict.
Definitely a weird place to be when you are in the middle, as you and I both know.
Very interesting topic, Amber! And I appreciate your thoughts and insight as always, friend ♥️