The Accidental Trad Wife

On Reddit and feminism 

My day started with feminist musings before 7am. 

Most days I have a scroll through Reddit over my morning can of Monster. I still haven’t given up that habit, not sure if I ever will. The first post that came up on my feed was on the ‘tradwives’ forum, where the poster claimed that: A) a Trad Wife lifestyle isn’t real and B) it is anti-feminist. 

I’ll address point A first. Statistically what this person is saying is absolutely incorrect. Of course, there have always been women in the workplace, no one would dispute that, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t more women than men who do unpaid work at home. In the UK, even when both parties in the couple work, on average women do 60% more of the housework and childcare. I totally understand why some women chose the Trad Wife lifestyle, these women are working, the work is just unpaid and often invisible. 

Onto point B. Over the last couple of weeks my views on feminism and how it fits in a Trad Wife relationship have started to clarify. And I am firmly in the belief that these two things can live side by side. The person being anti-feminist is not the Trad Wife, the person being anti-feminist is the person who judges women for making this choice. Feminism is about equity and equality, you do not need to fit a certain mould to be a feminist, just as you don’t need to fit a certain mould to be a Trad Wife. 

So to the person who posted this, I would ask “Isn’t it anti-feminist to judge women based on their choices?” 

The oven 

I tried again, with no luck, to fix my broken oven. If I can’t fix it, at least I can clean it. Anyone would judge me if they saw the baked on grease. I definitely judge myself for it. I pulled out the trays, unscrewed the glass of the door, and covered the lot in the strongest oven cleaner imaginable. My advice to anyone, is not to let the corrosive materials from those boxed oven cleaners get into an open burn on your hand. I washed my hands and covered the burn in germolene. 

With the noxious chemicals and lack of oven, making a Sunday roast as planned is a challenge I’m not ready for. So, my husband and I went out for lunch. Chicken wings, charred garlic bread, mac and cheese bites and buttered corn on the cob will have to do. Pair it with a Sauvignon blanc, peach iced tea and discussions around how to fix UK politics and it’s perfect.

We went back home, and following yesterday’s failure of a nap, today I’ve decided to nap in the bedroom with the curtains closed and door shut to muffle my husband shouting at his Xbox.

It was a good nap. It was actually a great nap.

Achievements and goals

After scrubbing the oven to a state I’m not embarrassed to get someone over to fix it, I sat and thought about whether I’d met the goals I set myself last week. I’m awarding myself a passing grade, but not a distinction. 

• I organised half of my clothes and have a big bag to take to the charity shop next week. 
• My name is now updated on three different accounts from my maiden to married name. 
• I may not have had a beauty treatment this week, but I had a consultation and booked one in for next week. 
• And of course, I finally cleaned the oven. At least it’s cleaner than it was before. I’ll call out someone to fix it tomorrow.

I now feel I should be setting myself goals every Sunday. So here are mine for next week:

With all the good eating, I have put on weight since the experiment started. I don’t want to start calorie counting or getting obsessed with numbers again. In a healthier approach, I’m going to do yoga every day for a week. I used to love yoga when I was in my twenties, so hopefully I still will. 

One day I’m going to go full 1950s and meet my husband at the door in a dress, heels with a cocktail in hand. Caveated with, I don’t believe this is all being a Trad Wife is, but it’ll be fun, and that’s a good enough reason to do it. My husband doesn’t drink, so I’ll need to master non-alcoholic cocktails.

I’m going to tackle sorting one of the worst organised parts of the flat. My kitchen cupboards. They overflow so much that on Friday night a pile of plates fell from a top cupboard, landed on my glass of wine and shattered both glass and wine everywhere. I’m not looking forward to this, but it needs doing. 

Finally, I’m going to iron. I don’t iron anything. My ironing board was last used to hold my tomato plants I was growing a couple of summers ago. I may not iron everything, but I’m going to iron at least something. 

I’m two weeks in, I don’t hate it, my husband doesn’t hate it. We might even like it. But it’s still a novelty not normality. 

The Trad Wife round up:

Hours scrolling Reddit: 124
Chicken wings eaten: 5 55
Oven: Still broken and slightly cleaner
Feminist views: Not changed by the Trad Wife experiment