Woman Loves ‘Ultra-Conservative’ Tradwife Trend Inspired by 1950s—Called ‘Alt-Right Extremist’ by Some

Courtesy of Estee Williams

Some would say she’s looking to the past through rose-tinted glasses. Some call the trend a regressive step back for women’s rights, harking to when wives were “subservient” to their husbands.

Regardless, the Tradwife—traditional wife—trend is going viral on Instagram and has a stalwart following of women devoted to the old-school gender role of a traditional homemaker.

Each day, housewife Estee Williams, 25, gets up, slips on a vintage number, and does her hair and makeup in preparation for a day of cooking and cleaning. Believing in traditional values, she embraces the role.

Wives such as Williams, of Richmond, Virginia, have taken to the prospect of forfeiting college and career in favor of staying home, preferring the virtues of “serving” their husbands.

Among these virtues, Williams said, are “loyalty and love.”

Tradwife Estee Williams posts a video on her Instagram. Courtesy of Estee Williams

A modern-minded woman initially, Williams attended college studying meteorology but said she “wasn’t very happy” and “felt pressured to choose.” After nearly two years of studying, she quit school upon meeting her would-be husband, Conner, in 2020.

Both she and Conner share similar Biblical views. Together they decided that her staying home was best.

“On our first date Conner told me he would love to make his future wife a stay-at-home wife and mom,” Williams, a blogger and self-described Tradwife, told The Epoch Times. “My family thought I was nuts at first but they see that I’m exactly where I was meant to be.”

Tradwife Estee Williams during her wedding to husband Conner. Courtesy of Estee Williams

So with that, she rejected the idea of chasing a career and becoming a “boss babe”—and rejected the extreme “woke” agendas permeating today’s society even more.

“It’s so important to put your spouse before yourself,” she said. “And my husband does this as well which is what makes our marriage so happy and fulfilling.”

A day in the life of Estee Williams begins with coffee and a fresh breakfast, which she fixes for her husband. “I then tidy up the kitchen and move to skincare and makeup,” she said. “I enjoy wearing dresses every day and have ones for cleaning and cooking and others for nicer occasions.”

In between chores, lunch, laundry, and preparing freezer meals, she ensures she has time for bubble baths, reading, savoring a cup of coffee, and producing her Tradwife blogs on Instagram.

(Courtesy of Estee Williams)

She dedicates her blog to showcasing a “simple and beautiful lifestyle as a traditional wife to inspire others to find happiness” as she has. “I know there are other women out there pressured by society to be a career woman yet secretly want this life but perhaps they are afraid others will shun them,” she said. “That’s what motivates me.”

She describes their evening as thus: “I have dinner ready for my husband after work and we relax and enjoy the evening together before going to the gym and studying our Bible at night.”

As a Tradwife, Williams lives by a few simple rules:

• No opposite-sex friendships;
• We go to the gym together;
• We share locations and I don’t leave home alone after dark;
• He has the final say;
• I do all the inside work on the house; he handles the grilling and yard work; and
• I dress and style my hair the way he enjoys.

For better or for worse, Tradwifery has become a trend of some kind.

A Tradwife ‘Alt-Right-Extremist’ Trend?

If the 1950s were a “golden age” for housewives’ fashion, Tradwives like Williams dress the part to a tee by donning vintage dresses at home and doing their hair in strawberry blond “Marilyn bobs.” Homelife never seemed so retro—if not retrograde.

Yet Tradwifery is more than a fashion trend. It espouses “ultra-conservative” values that seem to harken back to the 1950s, which not all consider a good thing.

Tradwives such as Williams have drawn heat from progressives who have called them worse things than “retrograde”—the labels “alt-right extremist” and “white supremacist” have been piled on.

Some have tried to explain away the trend, arguing that “not everyone will be happy” with progressive social changes—such as gender equality—but prefer “simpler times” in exchange for less freedom.

Tradwife Estee Williams dons her wedding dress and serves strawberry cake. Courtesy of Estee Williams

“Freedom has obvious benefits like choice, opportunity and self-actualization, but it’s hard work,” Noam Shpancer, a professor of psychology at Ohio’s Otterbein University, told Today. “Handling it requires maturity, discipline and an ability to tolerate ambivalence and uncertainty.”

“Humans need structure and clarity to function well and for the story to be coherent,” he said. “In the human psyche, any order is better than chaos.”

Adding to the criticism, according to The New York Post, Political Research Associates say the traditional wife trend aligns with the traditionalist Catholic church. The social justice research group writes:

“In some circles, being a tradwife—short for ‘traditional wife’—also means being a fundamentalist Christian, and accepting that women shouldn’t work, shouldn’t have the right to vote, and should fully submit to their husbands and their faith to live a happy life of homemaking.”

Others have said worse, with bloggers like Lisa P calling Tradwives the “domestic equivalent to Make America Great Again” with “white supremacist undertones.”

Estee Williams poses for a selfie to go on her Tradwife-inspired Instagram. Courtesy of Estee Williams

Williams rejects this, saying, “Being a traditional wife has nothing to do with white supremacy nor would I ever associate with such awful things.”

Tradwifery Redeemed?

In an era of wokeness, Tradwives like Williams have taken refuge in traditional roots, returning home like the prodigal son. That’s not such a bad idea, according to one Nobel Prize winner.

The late economist and philosopher Frederick Hayek concluded something worth reviving: that traditional norms, transmitted through imitation, allowed civilization to survive.

“Disliking these constraints [traditions] so much, we hardly can be said to have selected them; rather, these constraints selected us: they enabled us to survive,” Hayek wrote.

He goes on: “And although this morality [tradition] is not justified by the fact that it enables us to do these things, and thereby to survive, it does enable us to survive, and there is something perhaps to be said for that.”

Tradwife Estee Williams poses with some home baking. Courtesy of Estee Williams

Maybe in this era of wokeness, staying alive is what Tradwives are after. That might not be so bad. But while survival is one thing, happiness is something else. Only Williams can attest to hers.

“This life is amazing and it’s simple,” she told 7News. “The roles are completely divided, so while he’s out of the home providing for us, I’m taking care of the home. And it’s a very simplistic, humble way of life and we’re very happy.”

Williams also reveals a surprising fact: despite her 1950s air, she has been imitating a culture far older and the happiness she witnessed in its women; she was inspired by the traditional Indian community she grew up around that has preserved its gender roles from time immemorial.

“I watched the mothers wear traditional clothing and be homemakers for their family,” Williams told The Epoch Times. “Those women showcased what I would classify true femininity, they were calm, nurturing, and obedient to their husbands and their children always seemed happy.

“Looking back, I took to these women.”

In contrast, she recalls her single mom caring for her growing up, working by day while simultaneously trying to provide fresh meals and keep a clean home. Williams saw the stress and didn’t want that for herself.

Tradwife Estee Williams enjoys dressing up for her hubby, Conner. Courtesy of Estee Williams

Traditional gender roles offer a beautiful, alternative solution by divvying up responsibilities, said Williams. As the breadwinner, her electrician husband “does not have to lift a finger” at home, as he works long hours doing physical labor at work; she handles all cooking and cleaning. Sometimes he offers to help, which she welcomes.

It makes life simple and survival possible.

But Williams has more to say about being a Tradwife.

“I cook him what he wants to eat,“ she said, adding that the wives who want their ”salad and green smoothies” may have them, but should not force their husbands to eat that way.

Moreover, contesting the notion of “happy wife, happy life,” she dresses up and does her hair in the ways that makes him happy.

Yet, as controlling as this sounds, she assures us it’s not oppressive.

Rather, “it’s all about mutual respect,” she said, invoking the Golden Rule.

“When you think about your partner, no matter the gender or whoever, and you think about them before yourself, all it does is make them want to give you the life that you want so much more,” she told 7News. “And that’s all he does. I don’t ask for anything, he spoils me to the moon and back.

“And that’s because I put him first, and therefore he put me first.”

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