Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Women's and Gender Studies

Advisor

Matt Brim

Subject Categories

Asian American Studies | Digital Humanities | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Labor History | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Women's History | Women's Studies

Keywords

Tradwife, Housewifization, Girl Boss, labor, witches, enclosure of commons, housewife, digital studies, memsahib, manosphere, feminist internet, the domestic, covid-19, Alt-right, wages for housework, unwaged labor, stay at home girlfriend, clean girl, TikTok, stay at home mother (SAHM), feminism, decolonial, Christian nationalism

Abstract

This thesis examines the reemergence of a particular performance of domesticity in the post-pandemic era, focusing on the rise of the "tradwife" (traditional wife) movement alongside the normalization and spread of Alt-Right ideology through popular social media platforms. It argues that the tradwife is not a return to tradition, but a commodified performance of domesticity built on the erasure of social reproductive labor. Tracing the lineage of the “housewife” from the enclosure of the commons to imperial domesticity and from the “girl boss” to tradwife influencer culture, this project situates the tradwife within a longer history of "housewifization"—wherein women's labor is essential yet rendered invisible. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened structural inequalities, forcing women—particularly working-class women and women of color—back into unpaid caregiving roles while simultaneously fueling Alt-Right digital and political movements among young men and women due to isolation. Through digital ethnography and historical analysis, this thesis shows how the tradwife aesthetic flourishes in an attention economy shaped by disillusionment with neoliberal feminism, offering an escape through “white nostalgia” and bourgeois domestic fantasies that mask the failures of state policies and the neoliberal capitalist system. Rather than a genuine choice, the return to domesticity and the relegation of women to the domestic sphere as an innate biological function is shown to be a cultural performance responding to the failures of late-stage capitalism. This thesis ultimately urges a politics of solidarity and collective care, rejecting individualized solutions and calling instead for structural and political transformation beyond the nuclear family.

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