I don’t think people know what a housewife is.

She has been demeaned for decades and recently the housewife has been replaced in people’s minds for an Instagram version of a trad wife, who looks elegant and bakes sour dough. Feminists like Ash Sarker metaphorically pat her on the head and say there, there, I too love baking. I wish I had more time but I’m just so busy being an adult…

Although I am paraphrasing, Sarker made a video pretty much demeaning women who are more traditional than her but I actually prefer her honesty over what is covert feminism. You may have seen a video of a woman ranting her in car about housewives and it was a rant, these people always give their true intentions away. She said that women dreaming of the trad lifestyle are heading towards a marriage where they are trapped by their husband. So, they are heading towards an an abusive marriage basically.

This isn’t what being a housewife is about. It is not dependency in the childish sense but that’s what Sarker and car rant- lady depict housewifery as. What they are talking about is the nightmare some women have experienced and they are projecting their fears onto others.

The feminists and covert feminists I’ve come across all assume that housewives are deficient and vulnerable. They assume their marriages are infantilising and cult like. There is apparently no autonomy in comparison to theirs and that their lifestyle is always better. They may deny this but always give their true feelings away. The fact is, if you are happy with your own life and you are as busy as you say, you don’t sit in a car and make funny noises whilst describing women you don’t actually know.

As for baking sourdough bread, that sounds like a luxury, you know the kind of thing you do after you defrost the fridge, clean the washing machine, hoover after your dog and do everything else. Which you do because it’s your house! If it doesn’t give you some sort of pleasure to look after your own home, if you can’t at least appreciate the fruit of your labour, then personally I find that attitude strange. Housewifery is not a burden nor even would I describe it as some utopia, because nothing is. It just one choice you can make but the discourse around it has become so warped and subverts what women have been doing for decades, sometimes in addition to a part time job.

If you are genuinely concerned over someone making the wrong decision in life, that they maybe naive or coerced by some form of ideology or doctrine, then make your video about that. Say what you mean, instead of talking in cliches that actually aren’t relevant to a lot of women like me.

Thanks for reading.

You can buy me a coffee here if you so wish

Ash’s video;

Matt’s take;

Carl Benjamin’s video;

Remember this lady? She packed in the shark infested waters of corporate work for working at home. Look at Holly’s face!