My mom is the antithesis of "trad anything." I remember one day I said to my mom, "Can we get some KFC?" And then my mom was like, "We can't afford KFC." Then my mom said, "You know what, honey? I'm gonna make you KFC." And I was like, "What? You can make KFC?" She's like, "I can make KFC." I was like, "That's not possible." I was like, "If people could make KFC, everyone would make KFC." You're telling me KFC doesn't only come from a colonel? How do you have the secret? I went into the kitchen and then she made it. And then she fried it. And then we then I was like, "Wow, my mom made KFC." And I'll never forget, I ate it. And then I looked at her and I was like, "This shit is not KFC." Some of my issues that I deal with in therapy are probably because of that moment. You know when they said you lose trust in your parents? I looked at this woman and I was like, "Why would you lie to me? Why would you say you can make KFC when you can't make KFC?" And then she looked at me and then I started doubting myself. 'Cause I was like, "Why would you think your mother can make KFC? If she could make KFCs, she would have opened KFC." This is What Now with Trevor Noah. This episode is brought to you by Ricola. I think we can all agree that having an irritated throat is one of the worst feelings. Thankfully, there's an easy solution. Ricola cherry drops. It provides the soothing throat relief you need and even better, it's packed with flavor. So you can make every day more delicious and still feel great. Try Ricola cherry drops now to find out where to buy it near you. Visit Ricola.com. This episode is brought to you by Atlassian. Atlassian team collaboration software like Jira, Confluence and Loom help power collaboration for enterprise companies around the globe, with products that enable AI-powered teamwork doing the impossible just became possible. So join the 83% of the Fortune 500 that trust Atlassian to help transform their enterprise. Learn how to unleash the potential of your team at Atlassian.com. All right, this is going to be a fun one. I know. This is one of those, what I call like, landmine conversations. Because everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. But it's probably my favorite type of conversation to have, my favorite type of topic. Because when you say trad wife, so I've been saying that to everyone, my friends will be like, oh, what are you doing on the podcast? I say, we're going to be talking about trad wives. Some people don't know what it is at all. And then I have to explain it. I go trad traditional wife. And then as soon as I describe the videos, everyone knows what I'm talking about. I say it's these women who are dressed in really old school style or dressed up vibes. But then they're cooking, they're preparing everything from scratch. And then everyone's like, oh, yeah. Go ahead. And then they start listing off their favorite ones. I'm excited to talk about it because I don't know what you're going to say. Oh, you don't even have a feeling about where I'm at. No, I'll be honest with you. I don't. Because this is one of those topics where you could go either way. I'm nervous because I'm afraid to offend people, which I never am like in life. So I couldn't be a trad wife because I'm rude. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I don't want any of my friends who are trad wife-ish to be upset with me. Wait, so do you think some of the people in your life are trad wives? No, but are they actually trad wives? Or do you think they have traits that you would associate with a trad wife? I think they have a lot of the traits. Yeah. I think they are living. Oh my God. Do you already get me in trouble? No, I just want to know. No, okay, so I want to know how many of those traits you see in people before you say they are or are not a trad. I know. Trevor, can you see how careful? I can see. I've never seen you like this, by the way. I know. That's why I'm like, I wanted to do the conversation, but I've been like, oh God, I don't want to. Okay, so I think there are the traits, but they wouldn't necessarily embrace the label. And then because, you know, I grew up very churchy and very Christian. I know people who are like, straight up man is the head of the household. I'm here to honor him and honor God and raise my children. That all sounds good to me. Keep going. Keep going. Raise my children. This is fantastic. They call their husband like, my mom actually used to call my dad, my lord and master, to piss off my grandmother. That's a family fact. Oh, okay. It's a piss off your, your, I mean. Yeah, ironically, but like, you know, I, especially being like of African descent, even the women who are not, who have jobs and all of that, embody the trad wife thing, you know, they'd be like, my husband is ahead of the household. That's the world I comfort. Okay. And I don't want to offend those women because I think there's a way we can speak about them and say they don't have autonomy and their victims or they've, like, we either met them victims or villains and I think it's a bit more complicated. And then I have my own personal view on it, how I've chosen to live. How, how far do you think you are away from trad wife or how close do you think you are to trad wife? You know what? It's so funny. I have a friend who is like the opposite of a trad wife. So she, what does that, what does that mean? She's not traditional and she's not a wife. But then how are you a trad wife? Well, she's like, she, she doesn't even have any of the labels. Like she, she, she's child free. Okay. She's child free by choice. Okay. She speaks her mind. Yeah. She, she comes from a long line of matriarchs. Okay. She came around. This is when I was pregnant with Obie. She came by the apartment and I was doing something and I did something for Lewis. And she was like, so is this how you keep a man? And I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, you're being so nice and good. And I'm like, I'm not nice to him because I think I'm a mean wife, right? And she was like, no, you'll be, I've never seen this side of you. So it was, it was, I don't, I think about that a lot. What is, what if you're secretly a trad wife and you don't know? I don't cook. So I think that takes me out of the equation. It is one of the biggest factors. Yeah. And it's not just cooking. It's cooking like everything from scratch, like from scratch, scratch. Yeah. Obie says to me, mommy, what are we going to order tonight? I think it goes delivery. And my mom is like, you have ruined this child. Oh, man. I don't cook because I find it very laborious. Yes. And obviously I work, but ironically, a lot of trad wives are doing work. Like that, like I work outside of the home. You're right, right. But I think they're actually doing work inside the home because they monetize it. Yeah. Like they have a lot of contradictions. That's why I'm excited to have the conversation because like, you know, if you look at it as, as a topic in isolation, it's, it seems like a, like a really small one. It's just like, oh, what is a trad wife? Why is this thing blowing up everywhere? Why do people want to be a trad wife? Or why do people idolize or hate trad wives? Yeah. And then it gets into the larger topics of like, what does it say about us as a society, as a whole? And I'll guess today is the perfect person to have this conversation with. Right. Because, um, and I mean, you know her writing. Yeah, I'm a fan of her newsletter. Yeah, no, she's fantastic. So Ann Helen Peterson is a, um, she's an author. She is a writer who, you know, she has substacks. She wrote for BuzzFeed. She also writes for L magazine. She's got these fantastic articles that cover everything from politics to celebrity culture, gossip, everything we deal with in the world, essentially. That's interesting. She looks at and she's been spending a ton of time on the trad wife movement. So it's not just her experience, but like her insight into this world is, is, is really, really fascinating. And maybe, actually, maybe from your side, you can help me understand this. Like, how far would you say a trad wife is from what people would quote unquote, call a regular wife? And I'm, I'm, I have all the quotes up for this entire episode, for anybody who's going to come after me. Everything is quotes from now on. All right. Nothing I say is, is my voice or my, my, my, but yeah. And welcome to the podcast. What would you say is like a, like a, a trad wife versus a regular wife? Yeah. You know, well, first of all, I'm glad that we're coming into this with the ambivalence that we have, right? Like there is so much contradiction. There is so much complexity. And I think I often have conversations with people who are like, oh, obviously these women are evil, right? Or like they're the, the, the, you know, or their ideal. Yeah. Right. So there's just not a lot of in between. So the way I think of it is there's actually like these bigger buckets of trad wives so we can think about buckets of trad wives. There are, I think the, like the OGs, which are absolutely women who are deeply, deeply invested in either evangelical Christianity and its vision, specifically of the, the future of America. And I would also put a little caveat on there and say like white evangelical Christianity. And, and there are some Mormons are kind of in that bucket. So a very famous trad wife who has never, ever claimed that the moniker trad wife is ballerina farm, who has been in the news a lot lately. Ballerina farm is the moniker, the handle for an Instagram account that is run by this woman named Hannah. She is married. She was a ballerina. Thus, thus the ballerina part. But she was married to, or she is married to the son of the founder of JetBlue Airlines. Oh. And they're Mormon and they have, I believe eight kids. She also is a pageant queen and recently competed in, it's like Mrs. America. Yeah, Mrs. America. Mrs. America. Very shortly after giving birth to her most recent kid. But so she like the aesthetic there is very aspirational. That's so, so ballerina farm. So I've gone, I've gone on a deep dive in the, like my Instagram algorithm is trash now. Like TikTok algorithm. I just need to start brand new accounts. Just so you know, because everything that I've now like researched for this conversation has led me down a deep path. Now all my, all my explore page is, is like random white women in the middle of nowhere, making a cow for their children's breakfast series. Yeah, we're like coming to, like they're putting together like their homeschool. Yes. Yes. Elements for like 10 kids. Yes. And then there are people who just want to live like a 50s housewife. And that is different, right? Like they do not have their religious component. They do not see this as God's plan for the world. They are not necessarily invested in them more like white supremacy components of this. But they would like to spend all of their time doing things in the domestic sphere. So that includes homesteading, right? And like the, the aesthetic of homesteading that's very popular. That includes not working for pay, right? Um, and I think that that is the part that people are actually attracted to who somehow, who find themselves fascinated by these accounts and find themselves continually going back. Or like, why do I keep following ballerina farm if her life is so distant from mine? Yeah. It's because I think there is some sort of fantasy about, well, what if I didn't have to do all of the things all of the time? What if I got to focus on these parts of being a mother, of being a partner, of being a person in the world that felt fulfilling to me? So that's, that's a different sort though. And also like the stay at home girlfriends, which are oftentimes linked into or put into this bucket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People who like they tape for TikTok, especially like, here is my life as a stay at home girlfriend and it's like making chia movies and like doing Pilates and they're not even buried. Like a trad wife would die if they were associated with these stay at home girlfriends. Like those women are living in sin. Like they are not, they do not belong in the same hemisphere. Yeah. I, so, okay. So I'll, I'll be honest. I've been on a, I've been on a rollercoaster of emotions here, digging into the world of, I'm going to call it tradism. You have, because like when I, when I first watched the videos, I, my first thought was this is evil in some way, shape or form. And the reason I thought that is, is because of, I guess like my indoctrination, like what I've seen in movies and things. So it's these videos, you know, it's a static shot. It's a woman who's dressed impeccably, but like really made up in a kitchen. Yeah. It has a step forward, stepford wives vibe to it. You know, so it's like, Yeah. Every morning I try to make cereal for my children. Granola made from scratch. I pick the almonds from the soil. And you watch this and you're like, oh, this is evil. This is the devil. This is, but then when I, when I, like, you know, like ballerina farms, and I watched, I watched a few more videos, I watched a few more videos, then I was like, hmm, do I hate this idea? And I, I, I'll tell you, I'll tell you where I'm coming from, because I see your, your side. I already, Christiana, I'm not saying do I hate this idea or do I like it as a man. I'm not saying that. Or what, what I mean is there were, there was something strangely liberating in the idea of somebody just living a simple life, where there are predetermined outcomes or, or expectations for what you need. Because I don't know, like, I, I, I have this feeling oftentimes in society where I go, you know, in America, I feel it more than most countries. But I, I don't know about you. I hate the fact that we don't know how much we're supposed to do and sort of what we're supposed to do. You mean the rat race? Yeah, it's the rat race. How much money do we need? Yeah. Okay, how much success do you need? When is it done? When is it achieved? When is it finished? Are you successful? Oh, you didn't get your masters? Oh, you didn't get your PhD? Oh, this is the only house you've stayed in. This is your only car. This is the only vacation. Like when does it end? And when I was watching these videos, there was a simplistic completion that, that I enjoyed about them where it was like, all you have to do is wake up every day. All. No, no, no. I'm saying this is what I mean. What I mean is I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not infinite. But it is infinite because there's always more kids. There is. And because-- There isn't always more kids. Because then you become a Trad grandma. The labor never stops. This is the thing. Okay, now I'm jumping ahead. Cool. Now I'm revealing myself. Tradwives never get to retire. That's the thing that breaks my heart. Okay, so now I-- About the role. Because it's a beautiful role. Okay. But your husband who goes off to work in the world, there's a day he's going to have his retirement and the expectation is you get to play golf. You get to see your friends more. Maybe you'll go on a board somewhere. A Tradwife is still going to have to have three meals on the table every day. She's going to have to look after the grandchildren. Okay. She's going to have to look after whoever-- Wait, wait, wait, wait. But if she's looking after the grandchildren, who's looking after the children? Maybe I don't understand the trend. No, my children have the-- Well-- Because you guys are clearly on like the final stages. You guys are like spoiler alert to me. No, I know. That's the only-- I'm on season one of Tradwife. In season six, there's different options for a Tradwife. There is the Tradwife to divorcee pipeline, where you lose because you can no longer have children or your husband's left interested. A lot of Tradwives, honestly, are start wives, even in very Christian circles. The man looks at her and he's like, "I have nothing to speak to you about because you're with kids all day. And I'm in the world as an adult, and adult socialization is important forever. You get to have certain type of conversations. And this woman has spent the last 15 to 18 years raising children, and he feels she limits her-- Or maybe her body is broken down because it's what children do to your body because they're fucking evil. And then children, 10 children-- 10 children, they've had so many children, does something to your body. And they say, you know, "I need a new wife." Or maybe she dies. You know what I mean? This is a real life. You know, in Africa, you see it all the time. The woman dies or the woman's gone, and he's found someone else. But what this woman has done, which is an incredible thing, take care of the home for 18 years, you can't put that on your resume. So if you go into Amazon warehouses all over this country, it's full of women who embodied trad wife ideals, whether in a secular or Christian way, and they now have to fend for themselves, make minimum wage. They have no retirement. They have no 401Ks. And they are like having to-- So I'm saying this, that's one outcome. I'm going to challenge both of you on this. And this is me playing a little bit of devil's advocate. I know I'm the only guy in the conversation. So my job is also to like spice things up. But, but I talk to many men, old men who will say the phrase to me all the time, they'll be like, Trevor, let me tell you something. Happy wife, happy life. You make sure your wife is happy. And she says something and you say, yes love, yes darling. What else do you need, honey? And your life will be smooth. And some of those guys, to be honest with you, are like trad husbandy. Yeah, right? Like the way they live their life is they go, I wake up, I make sure the family's up as well. We have breakfast, I kiss everybody goodbye, I go to the office, I work my ass off. You know, like I come back home and then I smile and I have dinner with everyone and then I go to bed and I do it again. And they tell me where they want to go on vacation. They tell me what they want to eat on Friday night. And that's all my job is. And I go, isn't that like, you know what I mean? And off to you. Well, first I just want to differentiate between stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home parent and the ideology at work with the most, with a lot of these women, which is that they really believe, they really believe that women should not have power, right? That women should not be educated. Like they really believe this, right? They don't have been in the posts, okay. No, that's not as explicit, right? Like Project 2025, absolutely on board with that. Like their larger goal is control over women's lives and their bodies. And so that's when like when, 'cause I think sometimes we get into this game of like, if you're a feminist, then you shouldn't critique any other woman's choices. But these women, and I'm talking specifically about the ones who are very much invested in this evangelical version of this understanding- Like the real trad, real trad, is what you're saying, okay. They believe in a larger project in which all women's rights are subsumed under the will of men. Ah, okay, okay. This is where like the ideological specificity becomes important because there are some of these women who grow up in the church and get married, or convert to Christianity, they become part of the church at a slightly later age. Education is frowned upon. So maybe you go to a little bit of Bible college, but we probably don't. You get married as soon as possible, so that you can have sex, right? Because you do not want to have sex outside of marriage. Right. And then you become pregnant, as you become pregnant, as soon as possible. And so a lot of these women have incredibly little in terms of formal education. And if they were themselves educated in a traditional home, they were likely homeschooled and did not have a great foundation. I'm not saying homeschooling creates bad education simply because it's home schooling. A lot of these curriculum practiced in these homes is almost like I've heard tradwebs who've left that lifestyle call it a form of educational abuse. Because they learned so little and it equips them so poorly. So let me ask you this then. What you've just described to me now sounds cultish. It sounds oppressive. It sounds terrible. This is not what I see on my feed. Like my feed, it looks sexy. It looks fun. It looks rewarding. It looks engaging. So help me understand this. How did something? Because if you just sold that to me now, no one would buy it. How, why is that trending now? Like why is that huge on TikTok is like now? We're talking about today. Yeah. There's not like a Facebook trend. Yeah. There's a TikTok thing that people are loving. Gente are loving. That's what I mean. Gente are loving. So why is that becoming popular now when it has all of those negative side effects that you're talking about? Do people not know or do they not care? I, and I have so many thoughts on this, but as a millennial woman who has a lot of friends who have chosen to be stay-at-home moms, who are super progressive, very educated. Yeah. The workplace is really hard. People are burnt out. So I speak to friends and they're like, why work for 10 men when I can work for one? You know, and I can-- Right. Well, and you're only making enough to cover child care. Child care. And so the calculus is broken. So here you are making barely enough. You're still-- Yeah. You're behind in the workplace, in part because, you know, the pay gap and all of the sorts of like various discrimination that happens in the workplace, but also because you took maternity leave, which puts you backwards in the work clock for various reasons. And I think that like Gen Z-- I mean, Gen Z loves to razz millennials, but I think one of the things they see when they look at millennials is like, oh, they're trying to have it all. Or like millennial feminists are trying to figure out, how can I be a great mom, a great parent, a great partner, and like a really like have a career that I like? And it's impossible. So what is your choice? I think this is where you get almost like this reactionary move. And I don't think that if a Gen Z person is watching this on TikTok, it means that they necessarily have conservative politics, right? It's more that the choices laid out for them seem like they suck. I mean, let's take a step back and let me ask you this then as a question and like help me understand. Is being a tradwife problematic in and of itself? Or is being a tradwife problematic when you live in a society where capitalism will define your end game or your outcome on the other side? So if we lived in a world where you didn't have to worry about like surviving on the other side, is being a tradwife bad? Like, like, you know, I read, you know, you're writing. And one of my favorite articles of yours was the L one where they asked you to be a tradwife for a week. And forgive me, because I guess maybe I've never done this. I couldn't believe that you were like, I can't do it. I was like a week? This doesn't seem difficult for a week. All you have to do for a week is like serve someone and just like, no, no, no, okay. Well, my editor was like, yeah, try it out for a week. I was like, oh, yeah, this will be fun. And then as I sat down to like figure out how to do it, I was like, first of all, I really can't lose a week of income. Like, that's not, that's not something I'm willing to do for this. Like, I would lose money writing this story for L magazine. And the other thing is I talked to my partner. I'm not married, so I'd be a bad tradwife in the beginning, right? Like, I'd be a living and sin partner. And he was like, this makes me feel uncomfortable. All right, so that's the other part of the story, is that I think some men don't want to be served in this way. You know, like, I cook a lot of the food, not all of it, but I do some of it. I mean, like, a lot of families, like, we're always in the struggle to split the mental load. But I don't know, I just like, we couldn't get on board. And it turned out to be more interesting to write about, like, not being able to do it. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. If you love iPhone, you'll love Apple Card. It's the credit card designed for iPhone. It gives you unlimited daily cashback that can earn 4.40% annual percentage yield when you open a high yield savings account through Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app. Subject credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners, subject to eligibility. Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch. Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com. Okay, because when I was going through it, I'm not going to lie. I was like, this is a little sexy. It seemed, no, I'll tell you why. It seemed to me like people were like living out some sort of fetish vibe, you know? Totally. There's an element of that. No, so it felt like it was like... I mean, they have like 10 kids, so they are having sex. Exactly. And it was also the... But they're having sex like, we're talking about like the old fat, like they're having sex any time the man wants it. And some of this is it for worse. You're selling this to Trevor right now. This is wheat and you really have to bring it back. No, no, no, you actually aren't. And I'll tell you why I'm on that element. Why? That doesn't appeal to me as much, because I think one of the problems we have in modern relationships and in society is this lopsided, you know, appetite for sex. I think sex in a relationship works best when both parties get to want it when they want it, because the spark needs to come from both sides. But I actually don't like the idea. But that trap dad you described. Yes. Part of why he does that is the expectation any time do you want to have sex with this woman? You shouldn't have sex with him. No, no, no, I think those guys that's why this is interesting what you're saying is. And I think we need to drill down on this because to your point, I think some people see this as let's say the sexy version, where it's like he tells me what he wants and I do it. He says, I want your hair like this and I wear it. And when you're listening to that, you're like, yeah, it's a little 50 shades. I'm down for this. This sounds cool, but it sounds voluntary. And now what you're telling me is the real, like the real, not the gloss, not the stuff we see online, ironically, because they aren't online, is like they're like, no, you do not have a right to say no to your man. You should not tell him you don't want to do something. You have no control over yourself. That's essentially what you're saying, real, the real trend culture is. Yeah, there's the idea like, oh, this is all a choice, right? And so I should critique it and it's okay. And of course, that's what they're going to show on TikTok and on Instagram. And of course, they see this. And this is where the contradiction, you two were talking about before I came on, of like, they're not supposed to work, but they're monetizing their feeds. They see this as ministry, right? They want to sell this vision to as many people as possible. So to them, it is not at all at odds. Yeah. And you know, when you mentioned that them seeing it as ministry, I think it's interesting for me because my father's a pastor. So I'm in a very religious bubble. I was talking early up to the guys about the fact I tithed until very recently. My dad is going to lose his mind if he hurts this. And now I like tied to causes. And anyway, so holding, but I know that world of evangelical Christianity and Pentecostalism and, you know, faith without works is dead. So I can understand why a woman is like, I am going to evangelize through making sour bread, dough from scratch, on the other side, because of the life I live now, a lot of the women I'm around are very secular and in many ways, very progressive. But then it's also in the world, you meet a woman said, yeah, I was like a partner at a law firm and I had my second baby and I said, I'm not doing that anymore. What do you say to that? Because that's not a neutral choice, but it's a choice she's had to make for her betterment. I think that's my personal struggle with it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why do you think it's everywhere right now? I think that it touches on something like someone we're trying to figure out about the place of feminism, the place of like everything to do with like J.D. Vance of it all. Like, I mean, I think white liberal feminism has failed, like as an ideological profile. No, as an ideological film, I mean, papa. They can't even get abortion, which is like the, which is like a right that people got like 50, 60, like, if you go to most Western countries, white liberal Americans. No, it's a failure. It hasn't, it hasn't got women maternity leave. Women cannot have abortions across this country if they want. Like the pay gap seems to be intensifying. Like feminism was supposed to have an answer to all of these questions. As an ideological project, it failed. Like it's not like this cohesive block, whereas if you go to France or the UK, there is a lot more unity among the idea of feminism because they safeguarded just like basic feminist rights. Well, maybe, maybe then that's, that's part of the question. Or like an interesting aspect of the puzzle here is, you know, when you're saying, and why is it so popular? You know, obviously I can't speak for any women in this. But if I, if I just try and put myself in somebody else's shoes, I do think there's an element of this, even if it's, even if a lot of it is fake, I think there's an element of this trad wife movement that's like celebrating a form of femininity that has been sort of like lost in the, in the demonized in the feminine fight. And then this is giving people just a little, a little enclave where they can say, actually, I, I do want to spend time with my kids. I do want to, and you know, sometimes this happens in life. I don't know if you've experienced this in a relationship in a friendship or even in a general interaction. Sometimes, sometimes I almost feel like it becomes easier for people to adopt an extreme ideology only because they want aspects of it. So now there's a woman out there who goes, look, I don't not want to work and I don't want, but it's easier for me to say and be a trad wife because then no one can sort of like judge me out of this because I'm not a feminist who's doing it wrong. I'm just a trad wife who's trying. Do you think it gives women the space to explore all sides of being a woman? Or do you think like, you know, this, this, this modern feminism has become about like, no, if you don't do it like this, then you are not. And I want to hear from you first. You know, I don't know if I would, I would frame it in terms of feminism. I would frame it more in terms of society that society doesn't give, especially American society does not give a lot of space to figure out different ways of being a woman with safety, right? So if you're looking at different ways, you can go through the world, go through society today. And let's say you had something like you grew up in a precarious situation for some reason, right? What, what looks most safe to you? Is it going to be, oh, someone else makes all the decisions and brings in all of the money and navigates the outside world. And then I just get to like make some decisions about things that I care about, or I'm going to figure this all out alone with no social safety net and no economic safety net. So I think that like that's, if you're looking at the world around you, it's easy oftentimes, especially given your situation to choose something that seems safe, that seems like a path forward. And patriarchy feel, can feel very inviting when dressed up this way, you know, it's so interesting you say that. And because I thought a lot about the fact that given, given my religious upbringing, you know, given elements of my own faith, why I'm not a trad wife, apart from the fact that I've got a slick mouth. And so wait, so trad wife, you're not allowed to have like what a vibe? No, no, you can't be, you can't be, you can't be, you better go bake bread. Okay, whatever, we're timid. And no, but that it's part of that like godliness and timidity and humility. I'm never humble. Wait, but is this yeah, but yeah, I can't exactly. So what I'm saying is, yeah, but, but can you, like, can trad wives, or they, can they be like sort of bawling out living their lives when the men's not around? No, because you want to model for your sons. This is the idealized womanhood. And you also want to model for your daughters, this trait of meekness, right? And I've never, never been meek. And it was always interesting to me to be in like a black majority church where these women were actually being that for their husbands, but like in their nature, they weren't these are Ghani and Nigerian and Jamaica women, like we ain't meek. And the reason I think that, we are seeing that like someone like Norris Smith, biracial, you know, biracial black girl with a white man, and she makes food from scratch. They recently did a GQ photo shoot that was very 1950s inspired, but they're like gorgeous people. They've got this, these gorgeous children with like multiracial curly hair, you know, I think embodies a lot of like future America. The important thing about her is that she's Gen Z. She's 22 years old. That woman is 22. She is 22 years old. Or maybe 23. She's three kids. She has three kids. Wow. Anyway, we're seeing this movement become increasingly diversified. I know a lot of black women who are into the femininity movement who are like, I'm embracing my divine feminine and my soft life. Right. So I can find this man out there to take care of me. And as much as I was like, I was never going to be with a man that couldn't take care of himself because I'm very Ibo in that way. The message I was told growing up implicitly by the women around me was like, have children because men are not safe. Your children will always be there and man will leave you. And I think that's deeply in the, well, I'd say the West African psyche of like retreating to the home is not safe for you because a man may beat you or a man may assault you and man can just, I come from a polygamous family. My grandfather had 18 wives and man will get another wife, right? So that I say in a West African context, being a complete trad wife is being a woman who is not safe. Whereas I can see why in America, the domestic sphere can become something that is safe because America's such a capitalist house game. But this is what I mean. Okay. So let me, okay, let me ask you both this because, you know, Anne, reading your story of like trialing tradism, you were allergic to it on all levels. One of the big ones was money. So then let me ask you both this. Let's say we took money completely off the table forever. You would be fine. There is no issue whatsoever. I love money so much. No, forget it. Money's out of the, there's no money. Don't worry about money anymore. Don't worry about money. Okay. We live in a moneyless world. Okay. Okay. Does being a trad wife become more attractive to you now? No, not for me. Okay. So not for you. Still no. I'm just going to keep throwing things out. And then I want to see where I get you because I don't want to lose power. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. So, so money, no problem. Still no for you and no for you. Well, but so like then all I would just do all day would be doing stuff for the home that also served my partner. Like I would be okay with it if I could just like garden, like I could do stuff that I wanted to do. No, no, no, no, no, you're not understanding. I now see why you would be a bad trad wife. You're not, you're not listening to my commands here. I'm saying you're tasked with everything, but you don't ever have to worry about money. And I mean, even if the man disappears, the state or the entity will look after you. So Christiana, you're not in. No. No. Okay. Okay. Okay. I mean, it's about the safety, but it's also about. Is it the dresses? What if I said no dresses? No, I want the dresses. That's the, that's the part that's getting me. Oh, I love the dresses. Oh, geez. I like the clothes. Okay. So not the clothes. Yeah. Not the clothes. I'm trying to understand what is children. I cannot be with my children all day. I love them. You make children. I know, but I don't want to be around them all the time, especially my own ones. People don't. Most people don't. I don't even think these trad wives want to be around their children. Wait, wait, before you before you say that, let me pitch you. So now here's where I'm going to pitch you something else. Because I'm, I'm, I'm truly trying to like think of how to get this back into society. But I think one of the biggest things we're struggling with now in society, and we have been for a while, is our village is shrinking. Yeah. Right. And I think humans need a village more than anything else. Right. And as the village shrinks, people struggle to find ways to connect. So what if, what if I traded with you? What if I said, okay, trad is still on the table, but now you would be in a village. So your kids wouldn't always be your kids alone. You would be in the village. There would be other trad wives around. The kids are running around doing their thing. Am I, am I getting any buyers? Yeah. No, because I actually like using my intellect. I like the idea of like, my home should be my retreat. Because when you're video games, you know, Trevor, I'm just, have you played video, video games are complicated. I'm so bad. That's a lot of intellect that's required. No, I just, I just feel that like, if by becoming a trad wife, the domestic space also becomes your workspace, right? Yeah. And for me right now, my home, as much as my kids exhaust me, yes, I get to go home and we have a break from each other, and we have this. Okay, this is the reset. And we start again. And I love that I get to do this. This is a job. It's with a friend, so it doesn't feel like a job like I'm cheating. But I get to have conversations like this, speak to you, Anne, and write and use my mind in a way that I think is important just for like, I don't know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, just like the highest state of development and consciousness and just using this thing we call our brain. And I think that's important. And I do feel like all my friends that are trad wives, that stay at home, others, they talk about like the mundanity and how it's so repetitive and how they do miss the little interactions that you would have in an office, like when you're going out to make coffee or like, just the things that I think make an adult human and adult human. People miss the office affairs. I see what you're saying. I'm stealing the office copy paper. You know, it's like these different things that we do. And losing that, I think I would, it would be, it's a big part of my identity. Yeah. And my identity would just be subsumed into being Lewis's wife and the mother of my children, and then someone's daughter or someone's sister. And then what about that, big other part of ourselves? Imagine you couldn't do comedy at Trevor. No, no, I understand this. Yeah. No, no, no, that's what that's why I'm digging because what I've been trying to understand in this is not what the bad side of it is. Let's, let's, let's, for a moment put aside, you know, people being oppressed or not having their freedoms. What I, what I struggled to find even in the article, and I was like, I was trying to understand like what your allergic reaction to it was. But to what Christian is saying now, do you share the sentiment or is there something in addition to that, that you thought to yourself, by doing this, I'm giving up X? Well, you know, being a nanny for infants is what actually convinced me that I shouldn't be a parent. Like I love kids. I don't want to be them all around all the time. And it was like, I know that it's different when it's your own kid, but like it gave me such a taste of how mundane the day can be when you have absolutely no one to talk to, except for a six month old, right? Like it's just you. And this was in a wealthy community, like just me walking down the street, waving at other nannies, right? And hanging out with a six month old. But I think that for me, so much of it is about like that fear of not having a future. And this is something we've, this has been a recurring thing in our conversation, right? It's like, what happens when the man leaves, right? Like where is your life raft? If you've never had a chance to make it. And then the other thing that I keep thinking about is if we flip this on you and we're like, do you want to cook all the food and take care of the babies? It's like some men I know would say, yeah, I want to do all that stuff. But they also still have the benefit of living in a society where they are praised immeasurably for that work and for that decision and where they still have all of the power. So like that, it's almost like an unfair thought experiment because we can't even flip it around and be like, well, would you like that? You're like, yeah, I would love to live in a society where I get to do the caregiving that I want, but still have all the power. Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this? I wonder if the tradwives we don't see online are pissed off at the tradwives that we do see online. Only because one of the elements that both of you have mentioned, and I've actually heard a lot of people speak about, is the lack of outside interaction? Is the lack of outside connection? Is the lack of just expanding your mind? And so I wonder if like OG tradwives are a little bit pissed off at these like internet tradwives because they're like, no, you're interacting with people online all day. You're not living the trad. It's like these, have you ever followed these like TikToks where people live off the grid and they're like, I live by myself. I'm in a forest and I make my food. I don't talk to people. I don't but they're on a live telling people this and they respond to people, you know what I mean? And I'm like, but you're not living the life. By virtue of the fact that you are displaying it, you are not living the life. And so I don't know because you've written so much about it and you've interviewed so many people about it. Is there like an inner conflict within the trad movement where they're like, these people are fake trad or do they look at them as missionaries where they go, no, they're necessary to spread our movement? Well, I think that some on like the far extreme side of the spectrum would definitely say that some of those cute dresses are way too revealing. But then like, I don't know, I think a lot of women aren't at all aware, like if you're really deep in this stuff, you're not, you don't have a TikTok account. You're not watching this, right? Like you don't have that exposure because your husband wouldn't let you have even that sort of freedom. Okay, so now wait, wait, so now let's let's go to that. Is the truest expression of a trad wife the fact that you are not opting into it? Because you see, it's interesting that you just said your husband wouldn't let you. So are like real, real, real trad wives not choosing to be trad wives or can you choose to be somebody who is oppressed? I know it seems like a paradox, but can you? It's interesting because, and maybe you have a different perspective on this because I come from more of like a black Pentecostal evangelical circles and there is a degree of indoctrination, like just purity culture. You're not supposed to have sex before your marriage, save yourself for your husband. You know, even if you're going to university or college is to be a good wife or whichever man will marry you and like anything in society, you can opt out even though you become a backslider. Yeah. Right. And I think the daggers are a great example because you see the whole spectrum, you have like some daggers girls who are like, I'm gonna wear trousers and I'm gonna show my arms. I married someone, but I'm not like my other sisters who do it in that way. So I'd say as much as these women are quote, unquote indoctrinated, oppressed, there is still an element of choice and some people choice it, choose it more than others. I think there are some women who weigh more zealot, the one who would never have TikTok or even ask her husband to have TikTok. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is like the ballerina farms with the contradictions who are dipping their toeing it and ministering, but when you're kind of doing a puret in this gorgeous kitchen, it shows that you still have a longing for the career of a ballerina. Like, do you know what I mean? So there's stuff going on that it's like you are not as far as zealous as the other girls that have been quote, unquote indoctrinated in this way. Yeah, and it's contradictory. And then there's one myself who were like, I'm gonna marry an atheist and be on a podcast with a comedian who has a very devilish job. My mom is always praying that Trevor finds Jesus, right? That's this is an ongoing thing. What do you mean? You must tell your mom, Jesus is who brought me here? What are you talking about? She should start a church. She's like, he just I just see him being a pastor. Youth pastor. He's like, he's a man of God. But like, you know, it but then still has some of the quants pushes and pulls the tensions of it. Because I'm like, am I being a guy? I think I'm like, I don't take these kids to charge right away. So you can opt out, but I think the indoctrination is there. But I don't think it's fair to act like these women have no choices at all. Right. They do have choices. The ones that we're seeing in particular, in particular, they do have choices, even if choices are limited, they are making choices, but they're also indoctrinated as many things at once I feel. And I'm curious to hear from you. Oh, there's so many things to talk about here. But I think that some of them have witnessed examples made of women who leave their own entire lives. If you left, if you weren't enough of a part of the church, like you're a fallen woman, and the way that those women are narrativized in the stories that they hear in their church, in their homes, like it's the end of your life. It's not just a spiritual death. It is like you are over. And so that is like, do you actually have a choice? You're like, either I'm going to risk everything, or I'm going to follow this path. I think there's also a risk that happens when people like us from the outside are like, oh, these women think that they're choosing, but they're not choosing. You're giving them this sort of false consciousness, which is very, I think, demeaning, like it's saying that they don't actually have any awareness of the world. But man, a lot of the women are the ones leading the charge with this. They're the ones who are encouraging their husbands to become, you know, to go deeper into the trad funnel, right? And it's because they see it as the route to their salvation. But I also think it's like more and more safety, right? Like it's that's that's a complicated puzzle that I have to make, right? Yeah. And I do you know, it's so funny because I speak to my friends about this about like the matriarchs being the ones that policed what we would wear the most. It was never like an uncle saying that skirt is too short. It'd be a woman in church being like, why are you wearing that? I think it's a complicated loop, you know, in the same way that black parents will oftentimes beat their children more than most cops would ever, because they're going, if you do not follow the letter of the law, these people, the law will come down and take you away from me. It will end your life. I need to brutalize you so that you do not get brutalized by somebody who does not care for you. In a weird way, I sometimes think that it might be the same thing with these societies is that these women are not going, how dare you wear that sort of from my perspective, they're going like, how dare you endanger yourself? How dare you? How dare you walk around with a skirt that short? Do you know what that says to those men? Do you know where that puts you? Do you understand the position that you're now in? How dare you in a strange way? It's sometimes it feels to me like the people who are trapped in the system are trying to protect the other ones from the harshest elements of that system. Do you know what I'm saying? No, that's a really compassionate take. I've always felt that the footshot soldiers of patriarchy have to be women, because women nurture and raise children. It's not the men. So it has to be women. Okay. Okay. So let me throw something at you here. And this is really just for thought exercise. But what if the trad movement turned around and said to you, no, you have been brainwashed, you have been brainwashed into thinking that a woman's role is to be in an office and a woman's role is to be in a factory. And they're like, this is not what a woman does. Every month, your body releases eggs for a purpose. And if you do not, then your body responds accordingly. And so they go like, no, you've been indoctrinated. You've been tricked into thinking that your role is outside of the house. And then they may even turn around and say to you, look at how much strife and turmoil you have, look at how stressed you are, look at how you struggle to have children and look at how hard your life is. If they say that to you, do you, is there even a part of you that goes like, what if? Well, I, first of all, they do say that explicitly. Like there, there is messaging that like feminism has brainwashed you and feminism is the work of the devil, like the devil is winning. And I don't ever attribute any of my misery to feminism or the idea that like women have rights, right? I'm not talking about white feminism specifically, but like the idea that women should have rights in society, I attribute it to the way that our government works, right? The way that humans sometimes function, the way that we have difficulties thinking in terms of long-term planning, our addiction, particularly in America to individualism, like those are the things that come to mind, never like, oh, I was sold down the river by like the right to vote. I mean, voting is stressful. You have to admit it's a stressful, you know, you know what I mean? Not in Washington state, I get them envelopes in the mail and just check the little box. Okay, let me ask you this on a political level. You know, at the beginning of the conversation, you said there's a reason this is bubbling up now more than ever. And it's true. I'm assuming trad culture didn't start yesterday. I'm assuming it's been around for a while. I'm assuming it will be around for a while, but the trend has really gotten steam. The trend is really moving in a certain way. And I'd love to know as somebody who, you know, obviously works in this space, but explores many others. How do you think they tie into each other? Like, what is the seduction that they're using to bring people in? Like, why is that resonating with anyone? The idea of what is a real woman or we need to go back to the way women were. Why is that connecting? You know, if it's not true at all, or some of it true. I think women are exhausted. And I think that that has only become more true in the wake of the pandemic. So there's new research out that I saw in the New York Times recently about like looking at, you know, two years on from COVID isolation and kids being home during like, especially that first year of COVID on who took on the primary care in two parent homes with separate genders and like the women, right? Like just the bulk, the incredible bulk of care. And then that fatigue just continued on. There was never any recovery. And so they had kept people develop caregiving burnout, but also work burnout. Like, oh, all of these things together. And then we just never had any sort of way of coping with any of that. If anything, parenting norms have become even more intense in the last four years, especially as people have anxiety over, like learning law. Yeah, yeah. Actually, you're real, right? So like everything all the time. And maybe you thought that like, oh, my kid gets a little older, but be a little easier. And it's not, right? Like there's still all these anxieties about screen time and safety and just everything. And so if you're dealing with that every day, just peak of exhaustion. And the only thing that you can do when you're that tired, the only thing that you could like find, muster the energy to do is either watch some Netflix or lay on your bed and watch TikTok. What's going to catch your eye? And you know, the way that the algorithms work, as you know, right? Like you watch some of something and it gives you more of that thing. So that's part of it. And it's not so much like, I don't want to have rights. It's this way is clearly not working. Yeah. What are what other options do I have? Because like, the government is not going to change anytime soon because of the way that it's organized in this country. Like we are still going to have people in power who believe that offering affordable childcare is like encourages women to work outside of the home. And thus, we should not have a affordable childcare. So if you can't beat them, join them. It's funny you talk about the trends and what they actually say about society. You know, I think it's, is it Gabo Mate, the writer who says, he always talks about how when dealing with addiction, he says, like, don't focus on the thing that you're craving, focus on the pain that the addiction is covering. Do you know what I mean? And in a way, I think that with society as well, I think to myself, oftentimes we'll focus on the trend. We'll focus on what people are gravitating towards. We don't focus on the pain that that is covering, you know, the tradwives. I think you just eloquently laid it out. We don't ask ourselves why it's becoming more popular. There's a lot of people going like, yeah, well, wow, that sounds nice to have a home. Just even start with that. Yep. The idea of having a home, having a kitchen, because I've never seen one tradwife go, hey, today I wanted to make chicken wings, but the price of chicken's gone up. So we're just going to do like carrot sticks fried. No, they never, there's not a single trad wife video that I watched that addresses scarcity or tough times in some way, shape or form. Yeah, abundance, true abundance. And so I, that's, that's, yeah, like, I think when we look at that, it's, you know, it's interesting to think of it as a, you know, as an indicator of where society is, as opposed to is it good or is it bad? It's just an expression of women's exhaustion. Yeah. And this capitalist hellscape. Yeah. Well, I do think that some, like, this is something that's been going on for like 10, 15 years, is the return to like crafting. Yes, yes, yes. And like fiber arts and like domestic arts, for lack of a better word, what we used to like teach as home ec, like those things, people like doing them, they're rewarding. It is fun to make things with your hands, whether it's something like a piece of wood or gardening or whatever. Like I do think that, and we know, we hear about this a lot, because I think a lot of millennials who like worked their bots off throughout their 20s and 30s are like, okay, do I have any hobbies? Do I have a personality? Yeah. What do I like to do? And figuring that out. So I do think that there are ways of dabbling that aren't full, you know, submission to the patriarchy. Like there's a half way. Can I tell you guys a little secret on behalf of the patriarchy? Men are also exhausted. Yeah. And I think sometimes, I don't know, sometimes I find myself feeling like we're all playing like a game and it almost makes me wonder like, okay, well, if everyone is experiencing this oppressive force, who's applying the force? Capitalism. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it, but like, because you know who's not complaining about his companies. I've never existed. Companies have never exhausted. Companies are never like, oh, yes, we're having a tough time. We are so tired. We've decided to stop being a company for a while and just take a break. Just being, oh, we've been listed for 50 years and it's time to take a break. You're not wrong. Companies are the only entities that are not tired. I think it brings me back to our conversation previously about abundance, right? And part of the allure of what they represent is abundance, right? And we have abundance on this planet. We have more than enough for everyone, but capitalism makes it so that that abundance is not. Oh, yeah, you have to create the scarcity. Yes. Right. So there's scarcity for almost for nearly everyone. And so, but if you created abundance, right, if you created a scenario where you could care give and share that caregiving, right, in the village that we all crave, you could hang out with friends because you weren't constantly exhausted from the dual tasks of parenting and working your job because you're terrified of getting laid off and losing your health care. If you could also dabble in various intellectual endeavors, you could be, you could have hobbies that you were bad at, right? Like you could be a parent and a person at the same time. And that was facilitated by the spread of all of this abundance we have on a global level. Like, that's a way of being in the world, right? We don't have to fetishize it. We don't have to hold it behind a locked door that's available only if you buy into these other ideas. I mean, maybe someday, maybe some, but for now, shredding is the way. No. Wait, did I learn the wrong lesson from all of this? Oh, I thought you were saying for now we all. And this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Anne. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sonaz Yamim, and Jodi Avogan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Smolta is our producer. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannah S. Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now? This episode is presented by Lulu Lemon. Everyone has those moments where they say, not today when it comes to fitness. I mean, I know I do. Well, Lulu Lemon Restorative Gear is made for those days. Days where you want to max out your rest and not your reps. 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