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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. Now we're going to end today's show with a question that seems like it's from another century but has been hotly debated on the internet for the past few months. What is a woman's role in society and particularly in the home? Perhaps you've seen Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker make news for his commencement speech at Benedictine College this graduation season, particularly his suggestion that the majority of women graduating should be most excited about marriage and child-rearing rather than achieving accolades or satisfaction through careers and work.

Or maybe you've come across a video in social media of Nara Smith, a 22-year-old influencer who amassed 7.2 million followers on TikTok by posting glamorous videos of her life as a stay-at-home mom. It sounds a little bit like this.

Nara Smith: This morning my toddlers requested some cornflakes for breakfast, but I don't usually keep those in the house, so I just decided to make them. I combined some cornmeal, corn flour, and a tablespoon--

Brigid Bergin: Okay, so across many platforms, it seems there are some people telling women it's time to return to the home. While many of you listening to this show likely remember a time when women couldn't even have their own credit cards, there may be some younger folks out there who are most familiar with today's conditions, you're overloaded with work both in and out of the house. Joining me now to discuss the rise of what's being called the tradwife, more on this shortly, and what separates those kinds of partnerships from single-income households is Monica Hesse, columnist for The Washington Post's Style section who frequently writes about gender and its impact on society. Monica, welcome to WNYC.

Monica Hesse: Thank you so much for having me. This topic is so fascinating.

Brigid Bergin: Well, I agree. Maybe just start us off with a quick explanation of what exactly a tradwife is.

Monica Hesse: Sure. I'd like to make a little bit of a distinction because there's a little bit of the definition being in the eye of the beholder. There are plenty of families that choose to have one partner stay home and take care of the home and the housework and the childcare. To me, that doesn't really define a tradwife. That is a family making the best decision that it can for its current finances and its current situation. It's really two people acting in equal partnership but in different roles in the house.

What we see more in women who describe themselves as tradwives is a return not only to being a stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home wife but also a return to a bygone concept of gender where the man is still the head of the household, the husband is in charge of the household, the wife considers herself more of a helpmeet and someone who is in more of a subservient role. When we talk about tradwives, the definition that I think makes the most sense isn't just what you are doing but why you're doing it and whether you see that as a women-specific role to fulfill.

Brigid Bergin: I mentioned Harrison Butker's commencement address at Benedictine College seems to maybe embody the ideals of what you are describing to be the way people who identify as tradwives might identify.

Monica Hesse: Yes.

Brigid Bergin: Can you talk a little bit about how his speech triggered a debate among lots of people, but particularly NFL players and specifically Jason and Travis Kelce?

Monica Hesse: Yes. What he seemed to be saying in his commencement speech was not, "Look, life is chaotic and you might choose to have a partner at home." He was specifically saying to a group of graduates, including women who had spent the past four years working hard for a degree, he essentially told them, "Look, this isn't going to matter. What's going to matter to you is raising a child and supporting your husband," which might be partially true, but it definitely read as insulting to women who had come there to be celebrated for their academic achievements on that day.

As you might expect, members of the NFL are reticent to criticize one of their teammates too heavily. What I thought was interesting is that on a podcast that's co-hosted by Travis and Jason Kelce, Jason Kelce remarked that he felt like if his daughters felt compelled to grow up and be housewives, he would feel like he had failed as a dad. What's interesting to note is that his own wife primarily does not work outside the home, but they consider their relationship to be an egalitarian relationship based on what's currently working for their family rather than based on the fact that Kylie Kelce's largest aspiration and only desire is to be a stay-at-home parent.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, for moms who have husbands or male partners, if you work at home or outside the home but are the primary parent who winds up doing most of the so-called homemaking duties, we're talking cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, or tidying, how did you and your spouse come to that division of labor? For those of you who stay at home full-time, which we also consider working at home because of all the work that's involved that's just perhaps unpaid, if you've stumbled across this tradwife culture on social media, how is it similar or different from the way you view your partnership and how it works?

Was the NFL player Jason Kelce do you think being hypocritical for disagreeing with what Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker said about women that they should only aspire to work in the home and raise children since his wife is a primary caregiver? As you know, they define their relationship differently. We want to hear about your experiences, how you made your choices. Give us a call. The number is 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. Monica, you wrote an essay about the rise in popularity of tradwives on social media.

What do you think makes that lifestyle appealing to young women who are interacting with this kind of content despite what might be considered a regressive nature of the ideals being showcased?

Monica Hesse: I think that that is a really fascinating and complicated question. I think that part of it, as you point out, you used the phrase young women, and a lot of the women following these accounts are, in fact, young women, college-age or even younger, who might not have the historical memory of what it was like 50 years ago when staying home was not a choice but was rather something that was forced upon women. It's easy to romanticize this when you are not fully aware of the cultural storm that went into women gaining the right to work outside the home if they chose.

The other aspect of this is just that modern life is really hard and it's really expensive, and [inaudible 00:08:03] we all have less laundry to do, it doesn't mean that we all have fewer groceries that need to be purchased, it doesn't mean that kids don't need to be taken to school or that they don't get sick and they don't need to be taken to the pediatrician. We have all of the things that need to be done in a home, but now more and more often because of financial realities, we have two parents who are working outside of the home. What studies have shown us is that even working women are still left holding the bag of these domestic duties.

They might have a full-time job, but they are still doing the majority of the childcare. They are still doing the majority of the housework and the shopping for groceries and whatnot. I think that part of what you see is a younger generation just looking at how exhausted and stressed married women are and thinking, "I don't want that exhaustion and stress. I will just choose to stay home," rather than thinking how can we make marriage and household duties more egalitarian so that nobody is exhausted.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to some of our callers. Let's try Suzanne in Maplewood, New Jersey. Suzanne, thanks for calling.

Suzanne: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I find it quite ironic. I am getting ready to end a 43-year career as an educator. I was married for 27 years, had three children, and I have always worked. I am quite incensed as I'm getting ready to retire that this is even coming up again. I think that had I not continued with my career, when my marriage dissolved, I would've been in a very different place. I don't think I would be where I am today, an owner of my own home, getting ready to sell, getting ready to move to a major city.

I think it is such a disservice to women when men speak for women and say, "We need to have you in the home," as if the only job for us is to bear children and be in a home and take care of a family. If you're a partner, you're in a partnership, both of you need to be aspiring to be better at making it equal so that the next generation will see that as the norm. I really am so upset to hear that this is now something coming back. I thought we put this to bed.

Brigid Bergin: Suzanne, thanks so much for your call. Let's go to Nicole in Nassau County. Nicole, thanks for calling.

Nicole: Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say that I'm a mother of girls. Part of the reason that I work is because when I was young, my parents got divorced, and my mother had a really hard time financially, and kind of like your caller just before. Part of the reason I tell my children to work is, one, it gives you freedom, meaning I can buy what I want. I'm married, I'm happily married, but I can buy what I want, I can do what I want with my money. It gives me the freedom. It also gives me the ability to know that if something was ever to happen to my spouse, whether it's divorce, death, or whatnot, that I could provide for my family.

Then, thirdly, it's been great for us because it allows us to have that extra income so that we have the security financially that if one of us was to lose a job, there was always someone else who could pick up financially, and also benefits and so forth. I think, just like the caller was saying before, it's a disservice to women to say, you shouldn't have a career, you should be at home and be dependent on someone else. Then, lastly, I would just point out that I know that there are people who say, "Well, you're missing your kids when they're growing up." Maybe. There's a lot more flexibility in jobs these days.

Regardless of whether you stay home or whether you go to work or work full-time, there's going to be sacrifice in things. It doesn't matter what you do. If you're home with your children, maybe you feel like you're missing your career, or maybe you feel like you don't have that extra outlet. Then, if you're working and sometimes there are things that you're going to miss too. Either way, it's very hard for it to be perfect.

Brigid Bergin: Nicole, thanks for that call. Let's go to Caroline in Albany. Caroline, thanks for calling.

Caroline: Hi. [chuckles] Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to call in. I work part-time, my husband works full-time, and I don't identify as a tradwife. The one question I wanted to ask or point out is a lot of social media influencers get commissions or are getting paid, and I'm wondering how many influencers who purport this tradwife lifestyle are actually doing it as a career and in their own way are getting paid, even though they're also trying to show themselves as being this-

Brigid Bergin: That's a great question.

Caroline: - submissive female lifestyle.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, that's a great question, Caroline. I'm going to, Monica, give you a chance to respond to that. We have about 30 seconds.

Monica Hesse: Yes. That's the aspect of this where the jig is up, isn't it? That isn't a new phenomenon. When you go back and you look at Phyllis Schlafly in the '60s and '70s fighting against the passage of the ERA because she thought that women belonged in the home, and instead, this became her full-time job. Whether you are working in the home, out of the home, or working being paid telling women they shouldn't be paid, all women are working in one form or another.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. I'm curious to know if those influencers working to promote tradwives get to actually keep the money they're making or if that is not in their control either. We're going to leave it there. My guest was Monica Hesse, columnist for The Washington Post's Style section. Monica, thank you so much for joining us.

Monica Hesse: Yes, anytime.

Brigid Bergin: I'm Brigid Bergin. This is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Tune in again tomorrow.

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