The whole trad wife debate is typical of both Left and Right who see treatment effects rather selection effects in their favorite intervention for people who aren't acting the way they think they should be acting. The whole trad idea that "duh - look at the data - people with nuclear families, religion, etc. just do better than people who don't have those things" when obviously, people select into those cultural institutions precisely because it adjudicates their tradeoffs and those people are different from other people. Trad arrangements mean one thing for educated women with good mate selection opportunities than those without and trad arrangements just don't offer as many benefits as costs for lots more people. Both left and right are in love with false consciousness arguments that try to come up with reasons why people aren't doing what they think they should be doing when it just seems to me that when cultural norms stop offering more benefits than costs, people stop doing them and the people left still doing them are the ones for whom it still offers more benefits than costs.
Yeah, but I think the incentives are much deeper than the usual conservative canards about welfare or whatever. I am astonished at the degree to which conservatives are also social constructionists when culture is just as much cope as it is causation. I don't think ideas have that much prime causative power - I think ideas come to the fore to rationalize what is already going on or what has proven functional. People aren't just sitting around with empty brains waiting to be brainwashed. Humans have to balance individual needs with the benefits they get from being part of groups and culture is how we do that and culture changes as that algorithm changes - not because some evil people have brainwashed passive morons into believing things that hurt them.
"I think ideas come to the fore to rationalize what is already going on or what has proven functional. "
Hey, that's my idea! IRL I expect we have sources in common. However, I think your use of judgemental language like "conservative canards" etc, is especially unhelpful in text based exchanges if you want the other party to constructively engage. Don't be a foot soldier in 'the culture war'. Nothing good will come of it.
I traveled through Turkey doing market research for a well-known global brand. As man going into homes to interview women moms, I was accompanied by four Turkish women from Istanbul. As we traveled east we traveled back in time to increasingly traditional lifestyles with arranged marriages of 17-year-old girls, often to cousins. My traveling companions could not hide their disdain, but when I pointed out that they were losing the culture war, they were confused. I pointed out each of the women we interviewed had at least two children, while among the four college-educated women they collectively had only one child. Women hold the keys to the future, but men build societies. In the West, women can opt out of marriage and children (as they are doing), but low birth rates inevitably weaken societies.
Maybe, but consider survival rates. My understaanding is that those who fall from the elite displace those below ie in England, perhaps according to a Greg Clark paper/book, the numerous poor are the descendants of the earlier and few elite (as traced from say 1500 through 1900).
Of course. And your explanation in fact proves the point that lower birth rates amongst the elite does not impact their survivorship and thus it makes no sense to say that the elite are "not winning".
Maybe, but are the current reproductive rates of (urban) elites higher than those of the rural poor? Current, as in 'short term' deviation from long term outcomes.
It seems clear to me globally urban people have a low total fertility rate, lower than their rural counterparts. That is compatible with observing that a small fraction of those urban people are more reproductively successful than the bulk and these tend to be the elite within a given society, whether that be the descendants of 'Long March' communist commanders in China or the legacy graduates of 'selective' private universities in the USA.
Do you have a beef with elites 'winning'? Poke 'em in the eye by being successful enough to keep a wife with you and raise a bunch of successful kids.
Who says her progeny are going to vote for her their mom tells them to? Also, multi-generational cousin sex is currently, right now in 2024, putting a HUGE burden on UK's healthcare system, and hence, UK tax payers.
“…these months were filled with episodes of Red Scare, Areo magazine and rewarmed Camille Paglia. I swiftly was red-pilled on this neo-prude feminism.”
I’m not sure these are examples of content that traditional marriage-minded women would indulge in.
That said, social relations between the sexes in Greece seem quite grim. Surprised that Greek women aren’t moving to northern Europe in droves to marry and start families with men from more sensible though boring cultures.
Life is all about trade-offs. Both men and women have to navigate the minefield of the sexual revolution and romantic individualism.
“Even in mainstream ideological corners, women started questioning liberal and queer feminism’s excesses. Books, podcasts, and Substacks popped up and did very well: these months were filled with episodes of Red Scare, Areo magazine and rewarmed Camille Paglia. I swiftly was red-pilled on this neo-prude feminism.”
Dasha, Anna, and Camille are all people who openly “question(ed) liberal and queer feminism’s excesses,” which is what the author is suggesting is a contributing cause pushing women toward considering the trad wife lifestyle.
It’s a gamble to be unemployed and dependent on a man. If he’s a good fellow, then sure. If he is violent or unfaithful, then what recourse does a trad wife have? So how confident should a woman be that her man will be one of the good ones?
Women, prior to the industrial revolution, worked in and near the home. Women with children do so increasingly today (my wife does). That women work a 'job' far from home is an anomaly born of 2nd wave (1970's) feminism when the masculine model of work was promoted by (mostly male) economists.
It’s great that you have the courage to believe in love and other people. I don’t think that I do, but I am a man, so maybe that path was never open for me.
In lasting male/female relationships, women are moved by both expressions of devotion by their partner and a pragmatic assessment of their partner's abilities. Men are moved by the inverse. Sex appeal rather than devotion and expressions of caring rather than competitive spirit.
Well written .Reactionaries want to have their cake and eat it, and free ride on the benefits of feminism. There are no restrictions on being tradwives in Britain, but it will take generations of work to liberate the women abroad.
Except it is hard if not impossible to be a tradwive in Britain or anywhere else in the west, because the wholesale entry of women into the workforce thanks to Feminism post 60's has halved the cost of labour and thus required -both- parents to work.
Feminism was a reaction to the fact that trad wife societies are hellish for women, lonely, abusive and miserable. Men weaponise their economic power. On every metric, child mortality, women’s health, gender equal societies outperform. And furthermore if you want to look at the past, the male breadwinner was a post-industrial phenomenon. Women have always worked especially the non privileged. Economic growth benefits all women in society. If the exchange is that women are responsible for their finances, in return for safety and freedom, only a selfish individual wouldn’t make it. It is easy to romanticise the past, when you free ride on the benefits of change. Non-free riding, looks exactly like Stella describes in the article.
It’s stunning to me that people keep forgetting that most women in pre-feminism have always worked. It has always been a luxury for a woman to only be a homemaker. Women didn’t have careers but they always had jobs.
Women have always worked to contribute to the household economy. Prior to marriage and children, in pre-modern western societies, young women often worked in jobs away from home. As did young men. When they married and had children the wives of most men worked from home or near it. Men tended to work farther from home else they shifted 'home' closer to their work if they had the means.
Except 'gender equal' societies don't outperform in one crucial way.
Birth rate.
European birth rates are well below replacement level which means in the next 100 years those societies (and your feminism) won't exist anymore. And all these so called 'Patriarchies' will still be alive and kicking.
Which makes everything else a moot point.
'Traditional Gender roles' as you put it are only 'hellish' for a certain type of woman who privileges economic achievement above absolutely everything else, and it seems this 'Career über alles' feminist approach isn't working for most women and we see this amongst other things in the psychological distress amongst young women in the west which can't even be measured because of how massive it is.
Therefore it seems women in the west are rebelling against this Feminist assertion that the only thing that matters is career achievement.
Now, this is not an argument for a Taliban style system, but rather for a system that privileges family life like career life in a healthy balance at least, which was -another- of the major points of this article.
It's not either/or but both/and. The women with the most marriage longevity and children are those who are university educated, professionally employed and married to men who are the same. At least here in USA. Women are not choosing career OVER family. They are choosing both, when they want them. What's being overlooked in your stance is the fact that there are a growing number of women (and men) who do not want children, regardless of whether they have or want a career or not. There is also a growing number of women who don't even want to get married, live with or even date men, again, regardless of career status. And apparently there is a growing number of men who don't want to marry, live with or even date women, though they admit that going without sex will be hard for most of them.
Not to mention the rise in housing cost relative to income.
Speaking of the United States, in 1974, federal banking regulations (FDIC and OCC) were amended to allow banks to take two spouses' incomes into account when making a credit decision to give mortgage loans and on what terms. Before, banks were permitted only to take one spouse's income into account; the other income was considered "temporary".
The upshot of this change was that, if you wanted to own a home in a semi decent exurban neighborhood and you weren't a hedge fund billionaire or a feral cat, both spouses had to work. Otherwise you were against two income families, the equivalent of bringing a pocketknife to a gunfight. This also was partly responsible for the upward surge in residential real estate prices in the later 1970's. More money was chasing a relatively inelastic number of properties. It was great if you were a seller or holder of residential real estate.
This seemingly minor change in an obscure regulation probably had more real world impact on families and on the way most people live today than any Supreme Court decision or presidential election ever, not to mention all the trannies ever to draw breath, yet it went almost unremarked at the time, and has not become more notorious since then.
We can also discuss later whether this change in regulations was justified or a good idea, but good luck getting that particular genie back into the bottle.
i concede that most women want to be mothers and stay at home in early parenting. I would also argue that most women want loving relationships more than security. Social restrictions and economic leverage, leaves women vulnerable to abuse and makes love more dangerous. Due to the fewer social pressures and economic imbalance, If you are a trad wife inclined woman, you are more likely to have a loving relationship in a liberal one than in a trad one. And since a lot of relationships fail, you have a safety net that trad societies don’t. And then obviously non-conforming women deserve happiness and dont get that in trad societies. You should check out Dr Alice Evans work. Shes studying human societies and explains this well.
Many of the issues presented should be viewed through the lens of individuals:
- A woman in an elitist urban context may be right to question the 9 to 5 slavery that has been normalized in our society (and not force her significant other on the treadmill either).
- A Thessanolikia would benefit from education on professional life and the freedom it brings from darker, more abusive power structures.
There no right answers, only trade offs. You yourself have a successful career but have admitted to wanting a mate. Had you forgone the career and stayed home you may very well have had a mate by now but not the career.
People have both. I don't know about the UK, but here in USA, the demographic with the longest marriage longevity is the university educated, professionally employed demographic.
Thank you Stella for such a true and authentic piece. Having grown up in Greece, and moved to the UK when I was 18 to study, I had the same sort of "culture shock". I have remained in London, and still to this day notice the differences when visiting back home. Not that one is superior to the other (trad wife vs girl boss) it's what would fulfil one more and give a meaningful and joyful life - neither should be pressured but rather the option for both should there. You can still be educated and have a good career and be a trad wife - they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. Marriage and having kids is beautiful and fulfilling no doubt, and sadly it is the case for many women that later in life when they were "mis-sold" the dream of being a career woman that they realised they would have liked to have children and be married. And of course the converse may also hold, but probably in a much smaller proportion.
On a general note, it's truly a shame about where Greece is headed and the lack of opportunities, even big corporate entities do not offer merely as much as elsewhere in the world both salary and growth wise.
"Not that one is superior to the other (trad wife vs girl boss)..."
The #TradWife that is trending on Tik Tok and social media IS the girl boss. These are photogenic women (before or after filters) that are simply aestheticizing and making big bank doing so. If it weren't for the interent and all the attention and money they get from it, pittling around a house all day is the last thing they would to. And to be sure, they are NOT pittling around a house and doing non-instagrammable chores (they hire help for that). They are running social media empires and "living their best lives". As for actual housewives who are not dolled up and on social media, these are women who are not glamorizing housewife life because it is not glamorous to beginwith. These are women who warn against the "tradwife to poverty pipeline".
I’m really far removed from social media, esp TikTok have never had it or plan to have it so unaware of this, but knowing social media not surprised…
But I understand the glamourising of “I’m backing muffins for my kids at 5 am”with a full face of make up while they’re outsourcing every single aspect of their life and hence why they have the time to do so and also benefit financially from it. I agree with what you’re saying, but say a woman after having studied worked for many years decided to become a stay at home mom, that is not a step down or degrade in my eyes yet society is hinting at that a lot esp in the West. That was the point I was trying to get across, whether you want to go up the corporate ladder or decide to focus on being a mother both are acceptable - as long as you’re consciously understanding what the sacrifices and benefits of each are. Of course, if you’ve never had the option to study or work and were forced to become a trad wife (which is difficult in itself) I comprehend the pressure and how they might feel this sense of insecurity and no back up.
" I agree with what you’re saying, but say a woman after having studied worked for many years decided to become a stay at home mom, that is not a step down or degrade in my eyes yet society is hinting at that a lot esp in the West."
--- People are concerned for the financial wellbeing of women and their children. A few years out of the work force can set someone back decades.
I admire your honesty. It makes me wonder, what is it about you that gave you the confidence to leave and seek something better — your hometown, the feminist wave, and the anti-feminist backlash? Is it just wanting to be one step ahead of others, or did something instill an intellectual confidence and honesty that others seem to lack?
The "Trad Wife" trend is nothing more than a Tik Tok meme. Take away the internet and the attention these women get from it, and there is NO WAY they would stay home pittling around a house all day. These Trad Wife "influencers" are making more money than their husbands (the good looking ones at least) and they hire domestic help for the non-instagramable chores. It's all fake.
There’s a lack of balance all around. Some people want to be housewives just as some people do not. Neither choice should be penalized. I get that for a lot of Greek women, marriage is the way out of economic hardship. Here in the states, many an American-born Greek man goes back to Hellas in the summer and returns with a wide . . . but I see a lot of American-born Greek women doing the same thing, coming back with a Greek man who doesn’t have any economic opportunities in the old country to come work at the family business here.
That said, the situation and the alternatives for men is different than for women, because women are not men and vice versa. Balance is the key.
You write very interesting pieces about all of this. I always learn something from your articles.
I am Italian, live since 2012 in Germany and went for a semester to Thessaloniki (hailing from Germany) and I can confirm: the experiences of women who grew up in the Mediterranean countries are quite grim (I have some horrible accounts from my own teenage years, both stuff that happened to me and my friends and girls I knew in passing) and it can feel very isolating in the feminist discourse in more northern countries.
Aren't Mediterranean men like Greeks and Italians considered hot and desirable by many non-Mediterranean women? I see them romanticized a lot in movies and literature.
The lack of opportunities for young women in our hometown devastates me. You give facts without describing the pain behind it. True British.
I have assimilated at last
In my experience, place without opportunities for young women also have very few opportunities for young men. Am I wrong?
The whole trad wife debate is typical of both Left and Right who see treatment effects rather selection effects in their favorite intervention for people who aren't acting the way they think they should be acting. The whole trad idea that "duh - look at the data - people with nuclear families, religion, etc. just do better than people who don't have those things" when obviously, people select into those cultural institutions precisely because it adjudicates their tradeoffs and those people are different from other people. Trad arrangements mean one thing for educated women with good mate selection opportunities than those without and trad arrangements just don't offer as many benefits as costs for lots more people. Both left and right are in love with false consciousness arguments that try to come up with reasons why people aren't doing what they think they should be doing when it just seems to me that when cultural norms stop offering more benefits than costs, people stop doing them and the people left still doing them are the ones for whom it still offers more benefits than costs.
So your saying . . . incentives matter?
Surely, the argument is solved through agreement over what is incentivised, and it is getting agreement that is the issue at hand.
Yeah, but I think the incentives are much deeper than the usual conservative canards about welfare or whatever. I am astonished at the degree to which conservatives are also social constructionists when culture is just as much cope as it is causation. I don't think ideas have that much prime causative power - I think ideas come to the fore to rationalize what is already going on or what has proven functional. People aren't just sitting around with empty brains waiting to be brainwashed. Humans have to balance individual needs with the benefits they get from being part of groups and culture is how we do that and culture changes as that algorithm changes - not because some evil people have brainwashed passive morons into believing things that hurt them.
"I think ideas come to the fore to rationalize what is already going on or what has proven functional. "
Hey, that's my idea! IRL I expect we have sources in common. However, I think your use of judgemental language like "conservative canards" etc, is especially unhelpful in text based exchanges if you want the other party to constructively engage. Don't be a foot soldier in 'the culture war'. Nothing good will come of it.
I traveled through Turkey doing market research for a well-known global brand. As man going into homes to interview women moms, I was accompanied by four Turkish women from Istanbul. As we traveled east we traveled back in time to increasingly traditional lifestyles with arranged marriages of 17-year-old girls, often to cousins. My traveling companions could not hide their disdain, but when I pointed out that they were losing the culture war, they were confused. I pointed out each of the women we interviewed had at least two children, while among the four college-educated women they collectively had only one child. Women hold the keys to the future, but men build societies. In the West, women can opt out of marriage and children (as they are doing), but low birth rates inevitably weaken societies.
Your metric for winning is number of children? The poor have always had more children than the elite. This has been true for centuries.
Maybe, but consider survival rates. My understaanding is that those who fall from the elite displace those below ie in England, perhaps according to a Greg Clark paper/book, the numerous poor are the descendants of the earlier and few elite (as traced from say 1500 through 1900).
Of course. And your explanation in fact proves the point that lower birth rates amongst the elite does not impact their survivorship and thus it makes no sense to say that the elite are "not winning".
In capitalism the one who dies with the most toys, wins.
Maybe, but are the current reproductive rates of (urban) elites higher than those of the rural poor? Current, as in 'short term' deviation from long term outcomes.
It seems clear to me globally urban people have a low total fertility rate, lower than their rural counterparts. That is compatible with observing that a small fraction of those urban people are more reproductively successful than the bulk and these tend to be the elite within a given society, whether that be the descendants of 'Long March' communist commanders in China or the legacy graduates of 'selective' private universities in the USA.
Do you have a beef with elites 'winning'? Poke 'em in the eye by being successful enough to keep a wife with you and raise a bunch of successful kids.
His point, which is absolutely the situation in Turkiye, is these rural women have far more power than urban elites.
Being forced give birth to incest children is not power.
Multiple-generational incest children are putting a huge burden on UK's healthcare system and hence, UK tax payers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxuKe2wOMs
What power do they have, exactly?
Votes. Erdoğan stays in office because her and her progeny say so.
Who says her progeny are going to vote for her their mom tells them to? Also, multi-generational cousin sex is currently, right now in 2024, putting a HUGE burden on UK's healthcare system, and hence, UK tax payers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxuKe2wOMs
“…these months were filled with episodes of Red Scare, Areo magazine and rewarmed Camille Paglia. I swiftly was red-pilled on this neo-prude feminism.”
I’m not sure these are examples of content that traditional marriage-minded women would indulge in.
That said, social relations between the sexes in Greece seem quite grim. Surprised that Greek women aren’t moving to northern Europe in droves to marry and start families with men from more sensible though boring cultures.
Life is all about trade-offs. Both men and women have to navigate the minefield of the sexual revolution and romantic individualism.
No this is content by people who are saying to put the cat back in the bag, saying that being a trad wife isn’t as bad as you might think.
Red Scare ladies and Camille Paglia are NOT trad wives
That’s not what I or the author said.
“Even in mainstream ideological corners, women started questioning liberal and queer feminism’s excesses. Books, podcasts, and Substacks popped up and did very well: these months were filled with episodes of Red Scare, Areo magazine and rewarmed Camille Paglia. I swiftly was red-pilled on this neo-prude feminism.”
Dasha, Anna, and Camille are all people who openly “question(ed) liberal and queer feminism’s excesses,” which is what the author is suggesting is a contributing cause pushing women toward considering the trad wife lifestyle.
What's wrong with a tradwife who reads lots of books?
And what's wrong with raising stray kittens?
It’s a gamble to be unemployed and dependent on a man. If he’s a good fellow, then sure. If he is violent or unfaithful, then what recourse does a trad wife have? So how confident should a woman be that her man will be one of the good ones?
Yup. Life is full of tradeoffs. Cats don't do romantic love or marriage, so I don't have a dog in this fight.
Who says cats don't do romance? Sister Minnie disagrees; https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Sxv6yZvRSBg
Videos like that are why I am glad that I am feral.
Women, prior to the industrial revolution, worked in and near the home. Women with children do so increasingly today (my wife does). That women work a 'job' far from home is an anomaly born of 2nd wave (1970's) feminism when the masculine model of work was promoted by (mostly male) economists.
"Women, prior to the industrial revolution, worked in and near the home. "
So did men and children.
It’s great that you have the courage to believe in love and other people. I don’t think that I do, but I am a man, so maybe that path was never open for me.
In lasting male/female relationships, women are moved by both expressions of devotion by their partner and a pragmatic assessment of their partner's abilities. Men are moved by the inverse. Sex appeal rather than devotion and expressions of caring rather than competitive spirit.
Spouses of both sexes don't want their spouse to compete with them but they do want their spouse to compete in their work force.
Men in general can't afford to raise a family on one income only and they don't want to. They want their wives to work jobs.
Do "trad wives" get paid for their labor? Do they retire at a certain age with a 401K or pension plan?
Well written .Reactionaries want to have their cake and eat it, and free ride on the benefits of feminism. There are no restrictions on being tradwives in Britain, but it will take generations of work to liberate the women abroad.
Except it is hard if not impossible to be a tradwive in Britain or anywhere else in the west, because the wholesale entry of women into the workforce thanks to Feminism post 60's has halved the cost of labour and thus required -both- parents to work.
Feminism was a reaction to the fact that trad wife societies are hellish for women, lonely, abusive and miserable. Men weaponise their economic power. On every metric, child mortality, women’s health, gender equal societies outperform. And furthermore if you want to look at the past, the male breadwinner was a post-industrial phenomenon. Women have always worked especially the non privileged. Economic growth benefits all women in society. If the exchange is that women are responsible for their finances, in return for safety and freedom, only a selfish individual wouldn’t make it. It is easy to romanticise the past, when you free ride on the benefits of change. Non-free riding, looks exactly like Stella describes in the article.
It’s stunning to me that people keep forgetting that most women in pre-feminism have always worked. It has always been a luxury for a woman to only be a homemaker. Women didn’t have careers but they always had jobs.
Women have always worked to contribute to the household economy. Prior to marriage and children, in pre-modern western societies, young women often worked in jobs away from home. As did young men. When they married and had children the wives of most men worked from home or near it. Men tended to work farther from home else they shifted 'home' closer to their work if they had the means.
Except 'gender equal' societies don't outperform in one crucial way.
Birth rate.
European birth rates are well below replacement level which means in the next 100 years those societies (and your feminism) won't exist anymore. And all these so called 'Patriarchies' will still be alive and kicking.
Which makes everything else a moot point.
'Traditional Gender roles' as you put it are only 'hellish' for a certain type of woman who privileges economic achievement above absolutely everything else, and it seems this 'Career über alles' feminist approach isn't working for most women and we see this amongst other things in the psychological distress amongst young women in the west which can't even be measured because of how massive it is.
Therefore it seems women in the west are rebelling against this Feminist assertion that the only thing that matters is career achievement.
Now, this is not an argument for a Taliban style system, but rather for a system that privileges family life like career life in a healthy balance at least, which was -another- of the major points of this article.
It's not either/or but both/and. The women with the most marriage longevity and children are those who are university educated, professionally employed and married to men who are the same. At least here in USA. Women are not choosing career OVER family. They are choosing both, when they want them. What's being overlooked in your stance is the fact that there are a growing number of women (and men) who do not want children, regardless of whether they have or want a career or not. There is also a growing number of women who don't even want to get married, live with or even date men, again, regardless of career status. And apparently there is a growing number of men who don't want to marry, live with or even date women, though they admit that going without sex will be hard for most of them.
Not to mention the rise in housing cost relative to income.
Speaking of the United States, in 1974, federal banking regulations (FDIC and OCC) were amended to allow banks to take two spouses' incomes into account when making a credit decision to give mortgage loans and on what terms. Before, banks were permitted only to take one spouse's income into account; the other income was considered "temporary".
The upshot of this change was that, if you wanted to own a home in a semi decent exurban neighborhood and you weren't a hedge fund billionaire or a feral cat, both spouses had to work. Otherwise you were against two income families, the equivalent of bringing a pocketknife to a gunfight. This also was partly responsible for the upward surge in residential real estate prices in the later 1970's. More money was chasing a relatively inelastic number of properties. It was great if you were a seller or holder of residential real estate.
This seemingly minor change in an obscure regulation probably had more real world impact on families and on the way most people live today than any Supreme Court decision or presidential election ever, not to mention all the trannies ever to draw breath, yet it went almost unremarked at the time, and has not become more notorious since then.
We can also discuss later whether this change in regulations was justified or a good idea, but good luck getting that particular genie back into the bottle.
Feminists want to have their cake and eat it too.
Life is tradeoffs, everywhere you go.
Perhaps. I support women that staying at home doing so. But if we look at the world, it is not a hard choice, which societies are better for women.
Which is cause and which is effect?
i concede that most women want to be mothers and stay at home in early parenting. I would also argue that most women want loving relationships more than security. Social restrictions and economic leverage, leaves women vulnerable to abuse and makes love more dangerous. Due to the fewer social pressures and economic imbalance, If you are a trad wife inclined woman, you are more likely to have a loving relationship in a liberal one than in a trad one. And since a lot of relationships fail, you have a safety net that trad societies don’t. And then obviously non-conforming women deserve happiness and dont get that in trad societies. You should check out Dr Alice Evans work. Shes studying human societies and explains this well.
Seems to assume a lot and not sure that answers my question.
The cause was power imbalances leading to unhappiness and abuse. And trad societies have more imbalances between men and women.
Its not assumptions - https://substack.com/@draliceevans?r=1ktkfk&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
Amazing read about the evolution of an open mind.
Many of the issues presented should be viewed through the lens of individuals:
- A woman in an elitist urban context may be right to question the 9 to 5 slavery that has been normalized in our society (and not force her significant other on the treadmill either).
- A Thessanolikia would benefit from education on professional life and the freedom it brings from darker, more abusive power structures.
A really great read, Stella.
Thank you!
Women can do one thing that no man can. That’s why men climb power poles in storms at night.
There no right answers, only trade offs. You yourself have a successful career but have admitted to wanting a mate. Had you forgone the career and stayed home you may very well have had a mate by now but not the career.
People have both. I don't know about the UK, but here in USA, the demographic with the longest marriage longevity is the university educated, professionally employed demographic.
Thank you Stella for such a true and authentic piece. Having grown up in Greece, and moved to the UK when I was 18 to study, I had the same sort of "culture shock". I have remained in London, and still to this day notice the differences when visiting back home. Not that one is superior to the other (trad wife vs girl boss) it's what would fulfil one more and give a meaningful and joyful life - neither should be pressured but rather the option for both should there. You can still be educated and have a good career and be a trad wife - they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. Marriage and having kids is beautiful and fulfilling no doubt, and sadly it is the case for many women that later in life when they were "mis-sold" the dream of being a career woman that they realised they would have liked to have children and be married. And of course the converse may also hold, but probably in a much smaller proportion.
On a general note, it's truly a shame about where Greece is headed and the lack of opportunities, even big corporate entities do not offer merely as much as elsewhere in the world both salary and growth wise.
"Not that one is superior to the other (trad wife vs girl boss)..."
The #TradWife that is trending on Tik Tok and social media IS the girl boss. These are photogenic women (before or after filters) that are simply aestheticizing and making big bank doing so. If it weren't for the interent and all the attention and money they get from it, pittling around a house all day is the last thing they would to. And to be sure, they are NOT pittling around a house and doing non-instagrammable chores (they hire help for that). They are running social media empires and "living their best lives". As for actual housewives who are not dolled up and on social media, these are women who are not glamorizing housewife life because it is not glamorous to beginwith. These are women who warn against the "tradwife to poverty pipeline".
I’m really far removed from social media, esp TikTok have never had it or plan to have it so unaware of this, but knowing social media not surprised…
But I understand the glamourising of “I’m backing muffins for my kids at 5 am”with a full face of make up while they’re outsourcing every single aspect of their life and hence why they have the time to do so and also benefit financially from it. I agree with what you’re saying, but say a woman after having studied worked for many years decided to become a stay at home mom, that is not a step down or degrade in my eyes yet society is hinting at that a lot esp in the West. That was the point I was trying to get across, whether you want to go up the corporate ladder or decide to focus on being a mother both are acceptable - as long as you’re consciously understanding what the sacrifices and benefits of each are. Of course, if you’ve never had the option to study or work and were forced to become a trad wife (which is difficult in itself) I comprehend the pressure and how they might feel this sense of insecurity and no back up.
" I agree with what you’re saying, but say a woman after having studied worked for many years decided to become a stay at home mom, that is not a step down or degrade in my eyes yet society is hinting at that a lot esp in the West."
--- People are concerned for the financial wellbeing of women and their children. A few years out of the work force can set someone back decades.
I admire your honesty. It makes me wonder, what is it about you that gave you the confidence to leave and seek something better — your hometown, the feminist wave, and the anti-feminist backlash? Is it just wanting to be one step ahead of others, or did something instill an intellectual confidence and honesty that others seem to lack?
The "Trad Wife" trend is nothing more than a Tik Tok meme. Take away the internet and the attention these women get from it, and there is NO WAY they would stay home pittling around a house all day. These Trad Wife "influencers" are making more money than their husbands (the good looking ones at least) and they hire domestic help for the non-instagramable chores. It's all fake.
There’s a lack of balance all around. Some people want to be housewives just as some people do not. Neither choice should be penalized. I get that for a lot of Greek women, marriage is the way out of economic hardship. Here in the states, many an American-born Greek man goes back to Hellas in the summer and returns with a wide . . . but I see a lot of American-born Greek women doing the same thing, coming back with a Greek man who doesn’t have any economic opportunities in the old country to come work at the family business here.
That said, the situation and the alternatives for men is different than for women, because women are not men and vice versa. Balance is the key.
You write very interesting pieces about all of this. I always learn something from your articles.
" I get that for a lot of Greek women, marriage is the way out of economic hardship."
Most people marry within their own socio-economic bracket so it's not really a "way out".
I see this in many parts of America too
Where?
I am Italian, live since 2012 in Germany and went for a semester to Thessaloniki (hailing from Germany) and I can confirm: the experiences of women who grew up in the Mediterranean countries are quite grim (I have some horrible accounts from my own teenage years, both stuff that happened to me and my friends and girls I knew in passing) and it can feel very isolating in the feminist discourse in more northern countries.
Aren't Mediterranean men like Greeks and Italians considered hot and desirable by many non-Mediterranean women? I see them romanticized a lot in movies and literature.