Choosing to break with tradition

The trad wife genre, which involves frequently white, western women ‘choosing’ to be homemakers and caretakers, is anything but feminist. Representation Pic

I often wonder about the elaborate nature of certain influencers' content. Where do they find the time? How do they hone their aesthetic? I have often fantasised about having a social media persona, but I haven't even been able to decide on what that alter ego would be called, let alone what it would wear and how it would be positioned. As someone with a literature background with an emphasis on pop culture, I am, however, endlessly fascinated by the content that is churned out daily by people around the world and find the algorithmic nature of how one accesses that content curious. I even wonder if algorithms are like a contemporary manifestation of ‘fate'. How something comes into our digital purview is less random than we imagine. We feed the algorithm, consciously or subconsciously, and are, in turn, fed or overfed by it.

Off late, I've been involuntarily exposed to cooking montages by the South African-origin model Nara Smith who can be seen behind her kitchen counter dressed in runway clothes making eccentric things like bubble gum or Cheetos from scratch. Smith occasionally also reveals her maternal obligations, she is seen breastfeeding her littlest of three, for instance, or she talks about managing life with Lupus, an autoimmune disorder. I suppose knowing about these personal struggles is meant to endear one to her, make her seem relatable, but I personally struggle with the exposure to her wealth. It's probably earned. She's been a model since she was 14. Her husband is also a model, but more notably, is Mormon, and knowing this makes me as suspicious of the whole enterprise as I am of Hannah Neeleman, aka Ballerina Farm, who also has a huge following of about nine million and also revels in making things from scratch, although not in a more overtly ‘rustic' wardrobe. Neeleman's Mormon husband's Mormon father is super rich, and they are in line to inherit billions. Of course, as I was researching for this column, I found out that Nara Smith and her family just paid a visit to Ballerina farm. How eerie!

There's a legacy to the whole ‘trad wife' genre. Remember how Nigella Lawson was marketed as the domestic goddess? When I was in college, she had seduced millions with her curved body and her husky voice which frequently carried deliberate sexual innuendos. Her brand was premised on being her children's primary caretaker and her husband being this absent person (rich as hell) who was only ever alluded to. Years later, she ditched the husband and lost the curves. I remember feeling deceived by her transformation. I revisited older videos and noticed how much more fast-paced her voice used to be. At some point, I suppose, her brand settled on an aesthetic that was about more in-your-face seduction. I've no doubt that influencers like Smith and Neeleman also go with what ‘clicks' with their subscribers. Like all content producers, they try out a range of things until something suddenly resonates. Then they stick to that formula until they are entrapped by it.

The trad wife genre, which involves frequently white, western women ‘choosing' to be homemakers and caretakers, is anything but feminist. It seems to align itself with what is called ‘choice feminism' - the belief that the individual choices a woman makes are inherently feminist - which is, really, just privilege in action. The trad wife seems to glorify a woman's presence in the kitchen as something noble and uses the rhetoric of caretaking as the centrifugal force behind the decision. It makes the content produced by people like Smith and Neeleman seem ‘harmless', when in fact, they both are actively adding to the discourse around the many roles a woman can be expected to perform at home - with the added twist of them monetising their performance. What we see as end consumers is the edifice, which is aestheticised as reality, which leads to an even more skewed notion of what their realities must be. We are exposed to a world that is so loaded with privilege, it is the opposite of the reality inhabited by someone like Renad Attallah, a 10-year-old displaced child in Gaza whose cooking videos are inherently political in that they attempt to defy the ongoing horror of genocide.

I struggle to make my peace with living in a world where such polarities exist. Yesterday, my sick toddler asked for Schlutzer, a South Tyrolean version of ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta. I went to our local supermarket and bought the frozen ones from Ahrntal - the valley known for producing this delicacy. My 12-week-pregnant body couldn't stomach the idea of non-desi food, so while I put a portion of frozen Schlutzer in boiling salted water, I decided to make myself samosas from scratch, because they are impossible to find where I live. I didn't even consider whether buying high-quality frozen food for my toddler makes me a bad caretaker. I drizzled melted butter and grated Grana Padano over them. He devoured it all. I waited until he was asleep to stuff and fry the samosas. Then I relished them, substituting a Mother's Recipe sweet mango pickle for tamarind chutney. My partner dutifully cleaned up the messy kitchen as I ate, and then he did a load of laundry. I thought about how I pride myself in not knowing how to use our washing machine. I have other domestic strengths. Every day I choose having an equal partnership over being a trad wife.

Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.