The Forces at Work in Today's Tradwife Movement – and What Comes Next - Invented: The Myth of the American Housewife - Episode 3

Invented: The Myth of the American Housewife Episode 3 In the conclusion of our "Invented" podcast series (listen to Episodes 1 and 2), we take a look at the far-right forces driving much of the renewed interest in housewives and traditional gender roles. Just like in the 1950s, the mentality of "a women's place is in the home" has seeped back into American culture. For example, we look at how football player Harrison Butker's controversial commencement address at Benedictine College in 2024 eerily mirrors presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson's address to Smith College in 1955. "They are really selling this dream, exactly like they did before," says Kristen Thompson, who researched 1950s housewives for her master's thesis at University of Massachusetts. "It's almost word-for-word exact, talking to these college educated women at the peak of their academic careers, [saying] that the best thing you'll ever be is a wife and a mother, which is insulting at best and just horrifying at worst." Also in this episode, we talk to Madeline Peltz, author of "Good Girls and Alpha Males: How The Conservative Media Is Targeting Gen Z," and Catherine Rottenberg, a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. Peltz thinks we may soon be seeing less of the tradwife. She points to the buzzy publication of "Yesteryear," the novel by Caro Claire Burke. "I personally think that 'Yesteryear' is the high watermark for the tradwife thing," she says. "The cultural fascination with tradwives is on the way out." Could massive transformation be on the way in? Join us for the final installment of "Invented." (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr) More From This Series Episode 1 Meet the Cold War-Era Housewife, Complete with Pearls and Aprons With men back from World War II, working women are thrust back into the home – and become a potent new symbol of the American way of life. Episode 2 When Never-Ending Domesticity Isn't As Blissful As It Seems In the 1950s and 60s, women relegated to the home turn to martinis and "mother's little helper." Behind the glossy sheen of social media, today's tradwives face similar struggles.