You've heard of 'tradwives.' Vox reporter wants to know: Where are all the 'trad-husbands'?

Online “tradwives” are content creators on YouTube and other social media platforms who document their lives as homemakers.

The “trad” in tradwife refers to a hyper-specific interpretation of gender roles, where the woman in a heterosexual marriage doesn’t pursue a career and instead spends her days wearing fancy jewelry, decorating her big suburban house, cooking elaborate meals and tending to a large brood of children.

Critics of the movement call the videos posted by these creators an exercise in false nostalgia.

Anna North has a different question about the tradwife phenomenon. North is a reporter for Vox, where she recently wrote a piece called, “Who is the 'trad husband'?”

North said the tradwife lifestyle implies the presence of a very specific type of man.

Full conversation

ANNA NORTH: The husband is supposed to be the breadwinner. And, in some cases, you'll see the idea that the husband should also be the spiritual head of the family and kind of, you know, potentially leading the family's religious lif. And even sort of making decisions for everyone, maybe in concert with the wife, but ultimately having the final say.

SAM DINGMAN: Yes, a big job. So, you know, brass tacks here. The idea of being this sort of figure would necessitate an income of what — minimum — several hundred thousand dollars a year?

NORTH: Right. I mean, I think what's interesting about the folks who are most visible as sort of trad-influencers is that they are actually making money from influencing. If you don't have that, some of the sort of traditionally male-coded jobs that I think politicians sometimes hearken back when they talk about the past that they would like to see return — jobs in manufacturing, for example, in agriculture — a lot of those jobs are either gone, or they are no longer very high paying at all.

And so these aren't really jobs where a father could be working in one of them and supporting eight kids and a spouse who is working at home taking care of those kids.

DINGMAN: And this is particularly interesting when we think about the demographics that a lot of these accounts are popular with.

NORTH: Right. So I think something that's so interesting that I kind of tried to pick apart in this piece, and that I think still needs even more picking apart, is what young men who might be ... ideologically, the kind of folks that are being targeted by trad-influencer accounts, like what those folks are wanting from their lives and from their family life.

Because there is polling suggesting actually that a lot of young men, including quite conservative young men, really want to have children. But it is especially young men, and it is especially young men without a lot of education who are really struggling in the job market and who are possibly likely to continue to struggle.

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I think it's an interesting crossroads for a lot of young men. And we're not necessarily seeing — at least coming from this sort of trad-ideology — I don't know that we're necessarily seeing an archetype that can offer them something viable.

DINGMAN: And am I right that there is also some polling which suggests that young men tend to be more interested in having kids than young women?

NORTH: Yeah. So I believe that that's true across the board, and I believe it is true among Trump voters, which is really fascinating. So it's a real question, you know, like, who is tradwife content for, right? Because often these are accounts that aren't necessarily showing a reality for most people.

So is that a fantasy that a lot of young men have? They wish that they could, you know, be going out and being a provider, and they have a wife at home who's taking care of their kids full time? Are there men who are watching these thinking, "I could do that. I could take care of these kids full time?"

I'm just so curious, like, you know, what is going through the minds of folks who are consuming this?

DINGMAN: I mean, I think we would tend to assume that the hypothetical young man who is interested in watching tradwife content is perhaps also oriented towards other male content creators in the so-called "manosphere" who are advocating for a certain type of masculinity.

NORTH: Right. I mean, I think something that I was interested in as I was thinking about this and reporting this out was, you know, if we have these female influencers like Nara Smith or Estee Williams or, you know, Hannah Neeleman who, maybe they're speaking to both men and women, but they are women. They have very female-coded content that's very aesthetic in a certain way. It's focused on the home. You know, who are their male equivalents? And it's not their husbands, right?

So Nara Smith's husband is a pretty successful influencer. Hannah Neeleman's husband, you know, also has a large number of followers, but they're dwarfed — in both cases — by their wives' fame. You know, they're not on their own. They wouldn't necessarily be this big powerhouse, and certainly not for, you know, their sort of family role or their breadwinning.

... I put trad-husband in quotes in the article for a reason. It's not the case that we have, like, famous trad-husbands who are out there telling conservative young men: "This is how to lead your life."

Instead we do have, you know, manosphere figures, someone like Joe Rogan. But this typically isn't content that is super family-oriented or is talking about, "This is how to be a good husband and father."

DINGMAN: Yeah, they're not advocating for a quiet, domestic existence where you go to your, you know, eight-hour-a-day job, and get your pension, and come home and live in this idyllic little bubble. If they talk about professional life at all, it tends to be much more focused on maximum hustle entrepreneurial.

NORTH: Exactly. I wrote a piece — this is a long time ago now — about the idea of "mascuzynity." Sort of like a Zyn-powered and nicotine-powered approach to masculinity, and also business, and sort of entrepreneurship and rising and grinding.

DINGMAN: Let me just say quickly and for our listeners, because I love this — in case people don't know, Zyns are nicotine pouches.

NORTH: Yes, that's right. And they became popular with a lot of right-wing influencers. And I think it remains true that ... for men, when we talk about success, it's often in these terms of entrepreneurship, and working really hard and working really long hours. And not necessarily a vision that's super compatible, like, with family life or seeing your kids.

DINGMAN: So the trad-husband phenomenon of influencers has not exactly materialized. But as you point out, there is a certain kind of male influencer that might be a little bit more relevant for the type of young men who — we're speculating — might be interested in this content, and that's "dad-fluencers."

NORTH: That's right. So there is a sort of growing niche of dads who make content around taking care of their kids. They're often stay-at-home dads — not always. It's often with a lot of comedy, sometimes lightly self-deprecating. These guys generally do not have the massive followings of tradwives.

... There's a lot of reasons for that, some of them are obvious; one is just that they might not be courting controversy. You know, if it's just a dad talking about how he loves his kids and he's, like, cleaning up their messy house, you know, that's not going to get "hate-clicks" in the same way that certain other things might.

DINGMAN: [LAUGHS] "Here I am being a responsible father. Deal with it, liberals."

NORTH: Right, yeah. It's not going to happen.

But these guys are building followings. Interestingly, it seems like, from the reporting I've seen, their followings are heavily female. You know, maybe women being like, "This is really nice ... I wish I could have this," or "I'm going to send it to the men in my life." Not that the men in their lives aren't behaving like that.

But I do wonder, is there a vision in which these guys could become more popular with young men or, you know, the kind of lifestyle that they're espousing. Which is like, yeah, a man, you know, he could be expressing masculinity in a number of ways, and he's also taking care of his family.

That does exist on social media and it does exist, you know, in the videos that people could be watching. And I'm interested to see if it becomes more popular as — as and if young men embrace their desire to actually be involved in families.

DINGMAN: Well, I've been speaking with Anna North, who is a senior correspondent at Vox, about her piece, "Who is the 'trad husband'?" Anna, thank you for this conversation.

NORTH: Thank you so much for having me.