Are Tradwives Just Girlbosses Reincarnate?
With the 2016 throwback trend sweeping the internet, let me take you back to my 2016. I was 26 and completely swept up in the girlboss era. Hillary-for-President. Sophia Amoruso. Audrey Gelman. The message was intoxicating: women could be the boss. We could run companies. Build movements. Have it all. Children were nowhere near the picture for me then. I was busy imagining my first startup, completely convinced of my limitless possibilities.
Me in 2016, fully bought into the girlboss era. Hillary-for-President, startup dreams, and a strong sense that women were about to run the world.
Then November happened. Hillary lost to Trump, and it felt like a cultural rupture. Not long after, Audrey Gelman’s women-only club The Wing imploded, exposed as elitist, exclusionary and toxic. The glossy girlboss dream started to rot from the inside. Slowly, the fantasy died. And I’ve been wondering lately whether what we’re seeing now is a reaction to that moment. Women were suddenly criticised for wanting it all. For being too ambitious. Too visible. Too threatening.
So what replaced the girlboss? The tradwife.
But here’s the thing that fascinates me: the tradwife isn’t necessarily the opposite of the girlboss. She might actually be her reincarnation. Look at figures like Ballerina Farm or Nara Smith. They are presented as icons of domestic femininity — baking bread, raising children, embracing traditional roles. But they are also extremely successful working women.
They run content empires.
They manage audiences of millions.
They generate serious revenue.
This isn’t anti-work. It’s rebranded work. What we’re seeing is a wave of women building businesses around the aesthetic of staying home. The contradictions are obvious. They aren’t “just” cooking, cleaning and caring. They’re filming, editing, negotiating brand deals, managing audiences and running media businesses. Underneath the aesthetic of domesticity sits a very modern entrepreneurial model.
And that’s what makes me wonder: is this really about rejecting work? Or is it another attempt by women to make work fit within the constraints of a world that still struggles to accommodate motherhood?
I recognise something of myself in this tension. I’m building Branch in a space I know well, motherhood and work. I’m doing it in a way that fits around family life. I’m not a tradwife (very much not). But perhaps I am an evolution of the girlboss.
Which makes me think the question isn’t really girlboss vs tradwife. The real question might be: how are women reinventing work so it can coexist with motherhood? Because right now, we’re all trying to figure that out.
A question for readers
I’m curious how others see this. Do you think the tradwife trend is a rejection of career ambition, or just another version of women building businesses around their lives? I’d love to hear your reflections.
