Keeping it Together: Did trad wives influence the election?

"Trad wives," a growing realm of content creators, aren’t aligning themselves with a political ideology, but are presenting a lifestyle that president-elect Donald Trump and JD Vance are promoting. Gender studies and media experts say it all could be correlated with the rise in women and young people voting for Trump.

Hello! I'm Alyssa, a wellness reporter here at Paste BN, and this week, I looked into the potential influence of trad wives on young voters.

Trad wives embrace "traditional" values and gender roles, where married women are tasked with cooking, cleaning, mothering and being a dutiful wife. Jess Rauchberg, an assistant professor of communication technologies at Seton Hall University, says amid a growing distrust in the media, young people are starting to see homestead creators as role models.

“There's a lot to say about the effects of romanticizing the past and how that has played in this election," says Juliet A. Williams, a gender studies professor at UCLA. 

The connections between trad wife content, gender stereotypes and conservative ideologies can be subtle, Rauchberg says. But, as a growing number of young people are moving towards right-wing politics, Rauchberg and Williams say it's not a huge jump to make the correlation. In October's VP debate, Vance said he wants the Republican party to be "pro-family in the fullest sense of the word."

“(Trad wives) are endorsing a lifestyle, and they're endorsing a way of moving through the world that is very political,” says Rauchberg.

You can learn more about the influence of trad wives here and find these other fascinating reads from the week below.