Feminism selectively empowers women

The feminist agenda claims to be about women’s empowerment, but not when it comes to women who embrace traditional gender roles.

The “trad wives” phenomenon on social media proves just that. The trend features women on social media who have embraced a more traditional gender role, which includes homemaking and child-rearing. And as the trend has gained attention, with its perfectly rounded sourdough loaves and numerous children roaming around, it has been deemed the “hammer blow to feminism.”

Last week, the unofficial leader of the "trad wives," Hannah Neeleman, was thrust into the spotlight after a profile written about her went viral. Neeleman, who is known on social media as "Ballerina Farm," gained millions of followers when she won the title of Mrs. America in 2023, and when she competed for Mrs. World just two weeks after delivering her eighth child at home. Her social media features her daily life as a farmer, mother, and business owner, all while wearing long dresses and with a baby on her hip.

But the profile of Neeleman suggests the former Juilliard dancer’s embrace of the traditional lifestyle is not genuine. According to the media, Neeleman is just another victim of the patriarchy and she is suffering.

“I can’t, it seems, get an answer out of Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child. … I am up against an army of toddlers who all want their mum and a husband who thinks he knows better,” Megan Agnew of the Times wrote in the profile.

The article, which was published last week, has sparked controversy over other “trad wives'' and their lifestyles. It’s fair to say Agnew manipulated Neeleman’s story to fit a narrative — that Neeleman is a victim of her patriarchal husband. It’s also fair to say this narrative is just another excuse for the feminist Left to ridicule traditional gender roles.

But Neeleman’s outspokenness about her love for motherhood stands on its own. On the Mrs. America stage in 2023 after winning the title, Neeleman was asked about the most empowering moment of her life.

Her response: “I have felt this feeling seven times now, as I bring these sacred souls to the Earth. After I hold that newborn baby in my arms, the feeling of motherhood and bringing them into the Earth is the most empowering feeling I have ever felt,” she said.

Leftist feminists refuse to accept that the Neeleman lifestyle is empowering in its own right. They’d rather claim this role was forced upon her, even though Neeleman has never once suggested such a thing. This shows just how selective women’s empowerment is. At its core, the leftist agenda is anti-family — and anti-woman. Our culture has told young women that they must choose between careerism or motherhood and that the former is more empowering than the latter.

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Feminism has belittled motherhood as a product of “the patriarchy,” and family building as oppressive, especially in Neeleman’s case. These are lies intended to undermine femininity, whether in motherhood or any job.

And as the culture and media attempt to lie to generations of women about what being an empowered woman looks like, the reality is that embracing gender roles for the sake of femininity is the most empowering thing a woman can do.