I was drawn to tradwife content. I'm glad I saw through it. | Opinion

Sheryl Sandberg is leaning back in.

The billionaire technology executive and philanthropist recently instituted an organizational overhaul of her feminist nonprofit, Lean In, shedding a quarter of its staff, appointing a 25-year-old former Meta employee as its new chief executive, and refocusing its energy on combating the tradwife (traditional wife) movement.

Sandberg, who served as the chief operating officer of Meta, formerly Facebook, from 2008 to 2022, is one of the world's most prominent advocates for women in business. Her bestselling 2013 book, "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead," sought to encourage women to assert themselves in the workplace, and her nonprofit is dedicated to the same cause.

It makes sense that she’d see the tradwife internet subculture – which romanticizes women’s roles as stay-at-home wives and mothers – as a threat to feminism and progress.

As a right-of-center woman, I have my disagreements with Sandberg’s brand of girlboss feminism, which seems to valorize women who put their corporate lives above all else. Nevertheless, I welcome Sandberg’s effort to push back against the tradwife trend.

Why? Because tradwife influencers promote a message that misleads young women, particularly conservative ones, all while living by vastly different sets of rules themselves.

I was drawn to tradwife content. I'm glad I saw through it.

For those who may not be chronically online like myself, a tradwife is a woman who lives her life according to traditional gender roles. She’s the stay-at-home wife of a man who (at least in theory) earns enough money to support their entire family, and she spends her days caring for her children, tending to the household, and preparing home-cooked meals for her husband and kids.

She also films videos of herself engaging in these tasks, often accompanied by social commentary on the importance of reviving traditional femininity in the modern world, and posts them online in hopes of growing her social media presence.

I’ll be the first to admit that tradwife content appealed to me when I first encountered it in my late teens. I envisioned myself having a family someday and didn’t yet have clear career ambitions.

When I came across social media influencers telling me that feminism’s liberation of women into the workforce was a scam and that I could live a much more fulfilling life serving my loved ones, I was intrigued. “Why should I sell my soul to a faceless corporation when being a homemaker and mother sounds so much more appealing and meaningful?” I wondered.

Looking back a few years later, however, I can say I’m glad I didn’t take the tradwives’ advice to heart. If I had, I might have made what I believe would have been poor life decisions, like choosing not to pursue higher education or gain work experience and instead expending all of my energy on getting married and having as many children as possible, as young as possible.

In doing this, I would have not only lacked a solid educational and professional foundation I'd need if the man I married stopped being able to provide for my family and me, or the relationship didn’t work out. I would have also been deprived of the opportunity to have formative experiences – and to meet female mentors in academia and journalism who have meaningful careers in addition to being wives and mothers.

Young conservative women see through 'trad life' hypocrisy

Learning from my mentors further instilled in me the importance of attaining some level of wisdom and emotional maturity before getting married and ensuring that you have the financial means to raise kids before you have them.

This is, of course, well supported by data: Research shows that those who wait until they are over 25 years old to marry are less likely to get divorced, for example, and that children who are raised by parents who are better off and more stable financially have better life outcomes than those who are not.

Moreover, financial strain is associated with greater marriage conflict and higher rates of divorce – consequences that are good for neither parents nor children.

What makes online tradwives’ advice especially sinister, though, is that these social media influencers don’t practice what they preach. Content creators with hundreds of thousands of followers, like Savanna Stone, may claim that they “just want to be a traditional woman … to stay at home, be a stay-at-home wife.”

If that were truly the case, why would they be creating social media content, loudly espousing their social and political views on podcasts, racking up brand sponsorships and providing paid “femininity coaching” services?

In a similar vein, Erika Kirk – though she is not a tradwife social media influencer per se – routinely tells women that they should get married and have children young, prioritizing family over their careers and education.

Yet she herself holds multiple degrees, got married in her 30s and now, at 37, serves as the chairwoman and CEO of Turning Point USA while being the mother of two young children.

The blatant hypocrisy of advocates of the so-called trad life reveals that many women, whether they admit to it or not, do feel called to work, to build a business, to advocate for a cause, or otherwise do something they feel makes a positive contribution to the world in addition to being a wife and mother. This isn’t the result of feminist indoctrination – it is a genuine desire.

The tradwives’ hypocrisy also inadvertently demonstrates that, especially with the help of modern technology that allows for remote work and reduces the labor involved in maintaining a household, it really is possible for women to have both meaningful careers and family lives.

Conservatives would do well to be honest about this reality and adjust their message to young women accordingly. If they don’t, young women will come to see through the grift, just as they saw through that of the girlboss.

Surya Gowda is a fact-checker with USA TODAY Opinion.