An increasing number of women are taking to social media to discuss their lives as ‘submissive’ wives and girlfriends in a trend which has seen them ditch their jobs to look after their partners full-time.
Videos on TikTok, under hashtags including #submissivewomen, #submissivewives, and #tradwives, include both men and women discussing the lifestyle, what it means to them, and why they enjoy it.
Among the thousands of videos online are ones featuring US and UK housewives discussing how happy they are to have ditched feminism and replaced it with ‘femininity’, opting to relinquish financial independence and control, and replace them with domestic chores and subservience to their husbands and boyfriends.
Well-known UK tradwife Alena Kate Pettitt, founder of lifestyle website The Darling Academy, writes on her blog that she ‘learned to love [herself] and [her] feminine identity’ after an early midlife crisis ‘left [her] shattered emotionally and wondering why the world, despite all its opportunity made me feel so unsatisfied with [her] life, and how [her] supposed “modern and empowering” choices had destroyed [her] self-esteem’.
She ditched her stressful London career for a ‘a traditional homemaker’s life in the Cotswolds’, which includes living off an allowance given to her by her husband, and which, if she’s frugal with expenses, is allowed to keep for herself.
According to Alena, she has never been happier.
UK tradwife Alena Kate Pettitt, founder of lifestyle website The Darling Academy, says she has never been happier since becoming a traditional housewife
For UK TikTok creator Mrs Pocketwatch (pictured), who has used hashtags inclduing ‘tradwife’ and ‘antifeminist’ in her content, being a housewife gives her fulfilment, and she says that is why she does it
Elsewhere, submissive wife Jasmin Brown, shines a further light on the lifestyle in a viral TikTok
When asked in the video what a submissive woman ‘does for her man’, Jasmin says: ‘Everything. Just making sure [he gets] all the things that he wants, and I pretty much read his mind.
‘So it’s like if I know you, and I study you, I know how you are in the morning. I know how you are about midday. I know when you’re in this mood, what you mean like before you can ever ask me for something. I’m already on it.’
She adds: ‘You know, I love to see him eating the meal that I cook. I love seeing him sleep easier every night. Like clockwork, I scratch this man’s back to sleep.’
