A trad wife is a married woman who makes it a point to live according to traditional gender norms. Essentially, a housewife, but with a religious fundamentalist attribute. Trad wives, including trad wives of colour, tend to be politically right wing. Another thing that makes them “trad” is that they are usually based in societies where they don’t really have to do all that, i.e., places where women’s rights are a thing in the law, among society and, to a large extent, properly enforced.
I started thinking about trad wives two years ago when they were popping up on my Instagram reels. I blocked them everytime. I remember when I felt I had had enough after seeing one African American trad wife’s TikTok about picking cotton and her saying that it was part of her DNA. I wish this was fiction.
In the last few months, i.e. in these tough recession times in Germany (yikes), I’ve been wondering what my life would be like if I hadn’t chosen to pursue an academic-adjacent career path. The rejections, the constant feeling of not being enough and non-stop grind has been exhausting and demoralizing. So, naturally, I have been questioning my career wants and wondering why I didn’t dance on TikTok during lockdown.
One night a few months ago, I wrote a text in my notes app with the title of this post. The title was inspired by another article whose title used similar words and style. I thought it was a smart way to summarize opposing perspectives of the same situation. This text was my way of writing out my feelings at a time when I had doubts about my chosen path in life. I also thought of the “girlboss to trad wife pipeline” and whether my mind was going that route. (It is not lol).
The note went like this: In another universe, I had trad wife fantasies early in my adulthood. I pursued them and now live in a nice house, paid for by my husband, with my 3 kids. I am happy because my husband is loving and I have everything I need. In that world, I don’t dream of being a girlboss. I don’t have to network over hot beverages, or embarrass myself in people‘s inboxes. I‘m just me and that‘s enough to be a wife and a mother. I love to cook and play with my kids. In that world, I don’t spend 9 months of my life scrolling through LinkedIn and obsessively checking my emails everyday, waiting for something that’s not there, chasing after a career not meant for me. In another universe, I just know better. In this world, I am who I am: a girlboss at heart. I feed off the self-pat on my back that I’ve done a good job. When others say they love my work, I love that too, but it doesn’t make or break me. I’m a bad b*tch and I know it.
A girlboss is “an ambitious and successful woman (especially a businesswoman or entrepreneur)”, according to Merriam-Webster. First, I need to say that, depending on who is using it, I think the term girlboss can be somewhat misogynistic. Calling a grown woman a “girl” can be disrespectful, but I don’t see an issue if we call ourselves that (maybe I’ll change my mind about this one day). I like this Merriam-Webster definition because it’s broad and doesn’t paint all ambitious women as mean girls who “gaslight” and “gatekeep”, unlike other interpretations of the term that I read elsewhere.
Some might say that a trad wife can be a girlboss, but I don’t think this to be true. Yes, online trad wives are, in fact, working as content creators and chasing after fame and followers; they make money doing what they do. However, I think being a trad wife or labelling oneself as such is a limitation: I have to dress a certain way, have babies, serve my husband, act a certain way, etc. When it comes to a girlboss, these limitations do not exist. She does what she wants to get what she wants. A girlboss, in my view, is not characterized by how she fits into the patriarchy-defined attributes of a good woman.
I’ve been in the girlboss mindset for my entire conscious life. I never ever seriously believed that I needed to live my life as a woman according to what the culture around me or my religion told me. I had concrete career plans in politics and policy that are not anything new, but ambitious enough to characterize me as a girlboss. And I pursued them as aggressively as I could. In these trying times, however, when I’m not able to picture the path ahead in the way that I envisioned, I feel lost. Who am I outside of my political grind?
A friend wrote to me recently, “I really feel like the universe is pushing you towards something you can do for yourself…” I feel this too, I guess. I decided to get serious about writing (which is why I finally got a domain for this blog and started a Substack). While I love to write and have never not enjoyed it, even in school or university, I vented to my friend about how I wish a detour felt more like my choice rather than a semi-forced path because I had no other options. Maybe this feeling of lack of choice is why I’m the opposite of a trad wife: I hate doing things because I am made to by tradition, a husband, society, the economy, etc.
That is why, dear reader, my trad wife fantasies are just that: fantasies. Regardless of the circumstances, I stay locked in on all my pursuits until I get what I want or die trying. This is my reality as a girlboss. Here, I’m reminded of a quote from the movie Dolemite Is My Name, “shoot for the moon and if you miss it cling on to a m*****f*cking star”.
the writing nib 