Trad wives are all over the internet. Turn to Instagram Reels and you’ll find one dressing a salad, flip to TikTok and you’ll see another making SpaghettiOs from scratch.
Often characterized by vacant eyes, a pleasant smile, and a very tidy kitchen, much has been made of these creators. Are they in danger, or are they fully in charge of their own empire? Do they pose a threat to feminism, or is their ascent simply due to their frothy frosting topped aesthetic of playing house? Trad wives’ true rise and eventual impact still remains up in the air, but one thing is clear: The original influencer finds them grating.
“There’s someone else I started to watch because there was such a big thing about this ‘trad wife.’ I hate it so much,” Martha Stewart told the Wall Street Journal when asked of some of the influencers she appreciates in the space.
Stewart, 83, who recently has been making the press rounds while panning her Netflix biopic Martha, was painted by said documentary as the original influencer in a pre-social media era. Indeed, Stewart made a fortune off of her content regarding lifestyle and homemaking, becoming the first woman to be a self-made billionaire.
Indeed, despite building her brand off of a picture-perfect home and parties, Stewart doesn’t seem to adhere to the same idea of tradition like so many popular accounts today. “I dislike aprons and house dresses,” she said in the opening scene of her first documentary interview.
“At the time, there were women’s magazines but they didn’t have the beauty, the depth of information that I wanted. That was a huge void,” Stewart said in the doc regarding pitching the successful Martha Stewart Living to the male-dominated publisher Time Inc.
Her pitch was as follows: “Living is a subject that can be covered over and over again for years to come. Living is limitless.” Thus she began her media journey, an empire that would be worth more than $1 billion in its peak, even though it sold for much less than that in 2015, per the New York Times.
It turns out, lifestyle content is most definitely still a place that creators can build franchises off of—and cooking and homemaking remains a fixture. At times, the content can take on a patriarchal tone, perhaps indicating a larger ideological shift. Exit polls show more white women voted to re-elect Donald Trump, whose first presidency oversaw Roe v. Wade overturned. Trump also gained traction with younger generations (making gains with both Gen Z men and women, though appealing most to men).
Stewart’s main gripe with trad wives, though, appears to not be as systemic. “I don’t like the name,” she told E! News, adding that she’s a fan of some of the creators, including controversial account Ballerina Farm.