What a guilty pleasure it is to proclaim oneself a feminist while secretly watching "traditional wife" videos that promote a return to the patriarchal values of the 1950s. I confess to being spellbound by this trend with 309 million views on TikTok – this column was actually written on a vintage doily embroidered with flowers. But how can we resist the charm of these pretty young women, with their well-crafted blowouts, vintage looks and aprons tied at the waist, striving to teach us how to stay on top in all circumstances, even while eight months pregnant?

This epiphenomenon appeared in the US in 2013 on the Reddit forum "Red Pill Women," which currently has 71,000 members. During the election that saw Donald Trump become president in 2016, women appropriated his campaign slogan and transformed it into "Make Traditional Housewives Great Again." Then, during the emergence of the #MeToo movement against sexual violence, the "tradwife" stood in opposition to feminist advancements. Since 2016, Alena Kate Pettitt of the UK has maintained a blog titled "The Darling Academy." The blog exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic. In mandatory lockdown, many women fell back on memories of "cuddly times" perceived as gentler.

Conservative, anti-abortion and ultra-patriotic

The tradwife aspires to a return to the gendered (and essentialized) division of roles, where the wife gets up long before her husband to get ready and prepare breakfast, take care of household chores, bake her own bread and educate her brood herself. Conservative, anti-abortion and ultra-patriotic, she campaigns to keep the nuclear family at the center of her life. At times, it's like hearing our little old grannies reincarnated as TikTok dolls with filters.

Nostalgic for the 1950s, this great coquette does everything to please her husband. Very proud of his social status – even more so when he's in uniform – she never stops singing his praises in public.

In France, Thaïs d'Escufon, a far-right activist and former spokeswoman for Génération Identitaire, a far-right identitarian political movement from 2018 until its dissolution by the government in 2021, promotes this reactionary trend. However, she expresses some reservations about the 1950s lifestyle on her blog. The YouTuber invites men who might be attracted to this type of wife to ask themselves this very pragmatic question: "Can you afford to support a housewife?" For the 24-year-old antifeminist, at a monthly salary of less than €4,500, it's not even worth thinking about, especially if he's planning to have five children with his tradwife and send them to private school.

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