The tradwife movement has gained popularity online for years. Pictured: Hannah Neeleman, Nara Smith, Aria Lewis.
A few years ago, commentators and analysts often raised the idea of a ‘youthquake’ — young, first-time, left-leaning voters coming in and shaking up the political landscape.
In 2019, the number of elected officials under 30 doubled in city and district council elections in New Zealand, according to the Guardian.
It was after events such as the School Strikes 4 Climate and the rise of politicians including Jacinda Ardern and the US’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But recently, there has been a shift to more conservative views among our youngest voters, a yearning for the “good old days” has seen trends such as “tradwives” and a “return to traditional family values” skyrocket online.
According to a Harvard Youth Poll, the US’ youngest voters — those aged 18 to 24 — say they’re more conservative than the cohort that’s just a bit older.
The younger generation of men is more likely to identify as conservative than liberal — a new trend.
A recent survey for the UK’s Channel 4 found 52% of 13- to 27-year-olds believe their country would be better with a “strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”.
Forty-seven per cent believed how society is organised must be “radically changed through revolution”, and 33% think the country “would be better with the army in charge”.
Auckland University of Technology senior lecturer in communication studies, Christina Vogels told The Front Page she’s not surprised, but alarmed.
“I’ve done some work on young women and this growing trend towards the conservative and the far right and it matches with what’s happening with young men.
“If we look at young men in the rise of Jordan Peterson and these social media influencers promoting this return to some kind of ‘real masculinity’, this is not a new thing. This happens in waves across history.
“We last had a men’s liberation movement in the 1980s, where it was really popular, this idea of returning to a conservative masculinity identity. What we are seeing at the moment is it being complemented by a rise in young women taking on conservative gender roles. We see this, particularly through the ‘tradwife’ movement, which dovetails with the far-right women’s movement,” she said.
The ‘tradwife’ movement has gained increasing popularity since 2020 and depicts a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles and marriages.
Influencers such as Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, Kelly Havens, and Nara Smith promote their lifestyles of homestead living, homemaking, and femininity on social media.
“I follow this trad wife on Instagram called Aria Lewis. Now she is an ultra tradwife. She promotes that she is completely subservient to her husband. He gives her an allowance every single week. She even posts celebrating when her allowance comes in and what she’s been spending on it.
“The contradiction is that she is turning herself into an amazing businesswoman with great marketing potential. She’s got her own merchandise line. So we’re seeing all of these different ways of being a woman that in the 1950s, a woman would not have been able to be a tradwife as well as have an industry behind her.
“My question is, what happens to Aria’s finances? They must all go to her husband, I presume. So again, we have a businesswoman who is afforded that because of feminism, but then returning to this pre-second wave of feminism way of running a household,” she said.
Vogels is hopeful history will repeat itself and “we will come out of this”.
“The only thing that is a concern is what’s happening with the far-right movement. Because what we’re seeing in America is a new state of political play. This post-democratic America is something that we haven’t seen before in the Western world in this space.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about why young voters are leaning more conservative.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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