On Tradwife & Girlboss Trends: Are Our Desires Truly Our Own?

by Wardah Malik for The 44 North, Contributing Writer - Politics

Artwork by Logan Brewer

As part of a college women’s studies seminar, a quote from The Robber Bride was frequently discussed. In it, Margaret Atwood addresses the concept of the male gaze, writing: “You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” For many of us in the class, the idea of constantly surveilling ourselves to meet men’s expectations was unsettling. It forced us to reflect on whether our desires were truly our own, or rather, an extension of what was expected from us by not only men, but culture and society more broadly. 

At that time, this desire was largely centred on the “girlboss” figure: A woman who doesn’t rely on men to achieve success, yet still seeks validation within their systems and rules—an obviously hollow symbol of empowerment built within a fundamentally unequal environment. 

Now, nearly a decade later and perhaps in recognition of its hollowness, the “girlboss” has disappeared. In its place, the “tradwife” has emerged as the new ideal for young women. 

The overwhelming message of the tradwife subculture is that “submissive wives live happy lives.” Free from the stress of corporate careers and the pressure to carve out spaces for themselves in conventional workplaces, these women showcase seemingly idyllic lifestyles on social media. On TikTok alone, videos promoting traditional values—featuring perfectly styled women tending to babies and making food from scratch—have accumulated over 300 million views. Their popularity has become a key debate point in the current culture war; many conservative commentators insist that women naturally want to be homemakers and that men pursue and choose women who embody traditional values such as motherhood and domestic housework. Unsurprisingly, most of these commentators are men claiming to speak for women, arguing that feminism has failed modern women. 

Via Europeana

While the “girlboss” and “tradwife” archetypes appear to be opposites, the rapid cultural shifting between these two lifestyles highlights larger societal forces that push women toward certain narratives and choices beyond their direct control. For instance, most millennial women accepted the “girlboss” figure and strove for financial independence as a strategic escape from the trauma of the financial crisis they witnessed in their youth. Similarly, the rise of the tradwife movement can be viewed as a response to escape the engine of late-stage capitalism, exploitative corporate jobs, and contemporary economic instability, marked by high inflation and widespread unemployment. Ultimately, it is no coincidence that these lifestyle ideals, as promoted through cultural conversations and media, align with larger economic shifts, quietly dictating how women navigate labor, autonomy, and security. 

To understand why young women are drawn to the tradwife movement, we have to look back at its predecessor: The suburban housewife. Today’s trend conveniently ignores the realities of that role—the social isolation, complete financial dependence, and systemic domestic abuse and vulnerability—to focus entirely on what it symbolizes: The pure luxury of not working. Online, this fantasy manifests as total scheduling freedom, flawless homes, and nourishing meals. But this domestic bliss is actually a business, and top influencers earn millions selling it. By aggressively commercializing motherhood, they spark envy, shame, and sense of failure in everyday viewers who cannot match an unattainable, algorithms-driven ideal. 

“How do they have time to do all of that?” my friend asked me one day, expressing her own shame about not making homemade meals every night.

“You’re only seeing a portion of her day,” I responded. “The part she uses to make money—this is her job.”

Via the New York Public Library

That is the crucial distinction. Despite praising the traditional housewife, the modern, online tradwife is financially independent. She enjoys the privilege of writing a new narrative that affords her personal wealth, all while upholding traditional, conservative gender norms and causing others to feel insufficient. This contradiction is exactly what keeps the content engaging and profitable.

 “Domesticity here becomes a consumable product, which is circulated and repackaged in ways that ultimately feed the same conditions of neoliberal capital accumulation the [tradwife] movement claims in many ways to reject,” Imogen Richards, a criminologist at Deakin University, writes. In order to sell that product, the online tradwife relies on a curated, aesthetic performance of domesticity that appeals to a wide range of young women. However, while the content is popular, it’s not relatable, and not everyone has the privilege to perform this version of romanticized domestic labour. In fact, in a recent article for The Atlantic, writer Faith Hill outlines a “precarity-to-tradwife pipeline” that proves many stay-at-home moms have become so out of financial necessity, limited social support services, and the soaring cost of childcare in America. 

Beyond the online career tradwives and low-income mothers, a 2025 poll found that young women are drawn to tradwife content not for the male-breadwinner female-caregiver model, but for the aesthetic of simplicity, leisure, and an escape from increasingly demanding yet unstable work. In other words, the tradwife figure is desirable or enviable because of her autonomy and relationship to labour: She has the freedom to choose her own work-life balance and has escaped the “ideal worker” mould. This also means that enjoying tradwife content or wanting a balanced family life does not necessarily translate to the adoption of conservative values or anti-feminist worldviews. Instead, it signals widespread frustration with the current job market and the conditions that have forced so many women to tolerate intense burnout and economic stress. 

Although some version of the tradwife figure is ever-present in cultural discourse, the current online trend would arguably not exist if economic conditions were better. Because her popularity is a reflection of the current fractured cultural and political space, her mainstream staying power is weak. Maybe that’s for the best. As an aspirational figure, the movement’s attempt to frame “submission as an empowering personal choice,” alongside other conservative points, presents a dangerous path for young women. More than anything, the rise of the tradwife is a warning sign, revealing the desperation of a generation struggling to find stability in an increasingly tense economic climate.

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Wardah Malik is a Toronto-based researcher, editor, and historian. She is the founder of Historyless Magazine, an independent publication covering global affairs and underreported political narratives. Her work spans media, human rights, and community-based research, including projects on press freedom, public health, and gender-based violence. Her research interests include governance, decolonizing language, and the preservation of underrepresented histories. Wardah holds an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge.

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Dinner Isn’t Debt: What paying the bill reveals about romance, power, and control (Part 1)

by Gillian Smith-Clark, ​for The 44 North, Editor-in-Chief

Artwork by Logan Brewer

The Cheque, please..."This is a story about romance. But it is also a story about power."

I’ve felt it before—that subtle tightening in my body when the bill arrives. A kind gesture should feel warm and generous, but sometimes it leaves lingering doubts: What does this cost me?

I’ve always bristled at the word beholden: Obliged, indebted, bound by someone else’s favour. Raised to value independence, I learned to resist becoming indebted to others. Yet I also absorbed the unspoken social rules around me: The expectations about who pays, who owes, and what it all means.

Nowhere does that tension surface more than at the dinner table.

So when an old, gendered trope resurfaced recently as a social media trend—the idea that if a man is serious, generous, masculine, or worth your time, he should always pay on a first date—I found it unsettling. Not because there is anything wrong with generosity. There isn’t. But because the question of who pays for dinner is rarely just about the money.

It’s about expectations, performance, and what we’ve been taught romance should look like—and what we fear if we don’t play along.

The trend took me back, reluctantly, through time to countless restaurant tables and the small, loaded pause that comes when the bill arrives. As a university student, that moment often brought a knot in my stomach and a quiet flicker of anxiety about the balance of my bank account. Whether on a date or simply out with friends, I quickly learned that “splitting the bill 50/50” could mean paying for someone else’s steak when I had ordered soup.

I also remember the enticing pull of letting someone else pick up the tab when my bank account was low, then wondering whether accepting would leave me feeling subtly indebted. Would I seem cheap if I insisted on paying my share? Ungrateful if I hesitated? Difficult? Rude? A “radical feminist”? Or, worse, would accepting the meal create some unspoken expectation I had not agreed to?

This is a story about romance. But it is also a story about power.

When the bill arrives, it often brings with it a surprisingly loaded question: Who pays? Sometimes the terms have been negotiated ahead of time. Often they have not. Sometimes the server places the bill in front of one person, usually the man at the table if the date is heterosexual, and the old script quietly reasserts itself.

On the surface, this looks like a transactional question about money. But underneath it are layers of manners, class, gender, dating etiquette, sexuality, income, pride, fear, and control. Buying dinner and “picking up the cheque” plays into what many of us have been taught to believe romance should look like, and what it can cost us to accept that script without questioning it.

Over time, the hidden cost of letting someone else pay can feel like compounding interest on a credit card we never really wanted in the first place.

This norm didn’t emerge in a vacuum. As historian Moira Weigel explains in Labour of Love, the shift from 19th-century “calling” (a man visiting a woman at home) to “dating” (couples going out in public) moved courtship into spaces where men were treated as hosts—and thus expected to pay. The expectation took root in a world where men held most of the money, mobility, and social power. 

That history matters because the expectation that men should pay was never simply about kindness. It developed in a world where men generally had more money, more mobility, more public freedom, and more social power. By the mid-20th century, the expectation was firmly entrenched, reflecting rigid gender roles: Men as breadwinners and women as dependents. What gets remembered nostalgically as “chivalry” was also part of a broader structure of inequality.

Literature has long understood the darker side of this dynamic. If history explains the origin of this norm, literature exposes its dangers.

In Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Victor Komarovsky offers a chilling portrait of exploitation disguised as romance. Wealthy, polished, and connected, he grooms and manipulates the young Lara, taking her to expensive restaurants and presenting his attention as protection. His fine clothes, grand gestures, and apparent generosity are not evidence of love. They are tools of control.

His gifts are not acts of love; they are investments in her compliance.

Of course, not every polished and wealthy person is a Komarovsky. Most people who offer to pay for dinner are not predators in disguise. But every society has its modern equivalents: People who understand the performance of generosity but not the ethics of it. The lesson is not that we should treat every kind gesture with suspicion. It is that a flawless performance of romance does not tell us what someone will do when the script stops serving them.

Still, there is an unmistakable appeal to traditional dating rules. Clear rules can feel emotionally safe, and human connection thrives on safety. Dating is exhausting. Dating is expensive. Letting someone else pay can feel simple, flattering, and reassuring.

It can also feel fair. In a culture where women are still often underpaid, undervalued, and expected to invest significant time, money, and effort before they even arrive—clothing, grooming, transportation, emotional labour, safety planning—the idea that a man should pay can feel less like entitlement and more like acknowledgment.

And sometimes, paying is simply kind.

A person can pay because they invited someone out. Because they chose the restaurant. Because they can afford it. Because they want to offer something generous without expecting anything in return. There is nothing inherently wrong with treating someone to dinner. It can be a beautiful and thoughtful gesture.

The problem begins when a gesture hardens into a rule: When “I’d love to pay” becomes “men should always pay,” when generosity sours into performance, and romance turns transactional. When the person who pays, consciously or not, begins to feel that they have purchased more than a meal.

A meal should never come with an unspoken price tag. 

Dinner is not debt.

There is another illusion hidden inside the nice dinner too: The illusion of safety. A person who chooses a good restaurant, dresses well, orders confidently, treats the server politely, pays the bill, and tips generously can appear stable, respectful, and trustworthy. Sometimes they are. But presentation is not character. The ability to perform respectability is not the same as being respectable.

Jane Austen built an entire novel around this problem in Pride and Prejudice. Wickham is charming; Darcy is difficult. Wickham performs goodness; Darcy eventually proves his character. The first impression is not the truth, and appearances are not reality.

As Austen puts it, “One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” That distinction—between performance and character—is worth remembering when we romanticize grand gestures.

That is the distinction worth paying attention to. In the context of who pays for dinner, the issue is not simply whether someone pays. It is what that payment does.

Does it create warmth, or pressure? Does it make the other person feel cared for, or managed? Does it leave them feeling free, or subtly indebted?

This is why the old fantasy of being “swept off your feet” also deserves closer scrutiny. In its sweetest, most whimsical form, it simply means surprise, delight, or being deeply moved. But cultural scripts matter. When we romanticize relentless pursuit, grand gestures, and persistence after hesitation or rejection, we risk teaching people to mistake pressure for passion.

Love that refuses to respect hesitation is not romance: It is a red flag.

A healthier version of romance does not require anyone to be overwhelmed, persuaded, purchased, or won. Romance does not have to mean being swept off your feet. Sometimes it means being met on solid ground.

Romance should not require one person to perform power while the other receives it. It should not require a man to prove his worth through dominance, spending, pursuit, or control. It should not require anyone to prove their desirability by being chosen, treated, or won. And it should not require anyone, regardless of gender, sexuality, or relationship structure, to perform a role that does not fit them.

These norms do not only affect men and women in traditional heterosexual relationships. The idea that one person should always pay—whether because of gender, income, masculinity, femininity, status, or some other expectation—creates a cultural script that can make anyone feel like they are failing if they do not conform. Queer couples, non-binary people, and people in non-traditional relationships can all feel the pressure to perform roles they did not choose.

When we internalize these scripts too deeply, we lose the chance to define romance on our own terms.

None of this means every first date must involve a perfectly calculated split; there are many fair ways to handle a bill. The person who invites can pay. Two people can split it. They can take turns. They can choose something inexpensive, like coffee, ice cream, or a walk, especially for a first meeting. One person can offer, and the other can accept, as long as both understand that a gift is not a contract.

The healthiest approach may not be a single rule, but a shared ethic: No one should feel bought, tested, trapped, or owed.

That ethic matters, because so much dating and relationship advice teaches people to perform roles instead of asking better questions. Is he masculine enough to pay? Is she feminine enough to accept? Did he invest enough? Did she show enough gratitude? These questions reduce people to parts in a very old play.

Better questions might be: Do I feel comfortable? Do I feel respected? Can I say what I want? Can they hear “no”? Does this person’s generosity make me feel freer, or smaller?

Who pays the bill at the end of dinner will never answer all those questions. But sometimes, the way someone handles it tells us more than we expect.

So perhaps the best rule is this: Pay attention not only to who reaches for the bill, but to what happens next.

Many years later, I am no longer that student pinching pennies and silently calculating what I can afford to pay, literally or metaphorically. Now, when I have the opportunity to take someone to dinner and pay for the meal, I try to do it with the quiet understanding that the best kind of generosity does not leave the other person feeling small.

I remember what it was like to be on the other side of that equation: The way a free meal could feel like a gift or a trap, depending on the context. I also understand now that sometimes letting someone pay for dinner, and allowing them to care for me, can be a gift of another kind.

True generosity is not only about what you give. It is about how you allow the other person to receive it: Without strings, without debt, without the unspoken weight of obligation.

And romance, in my opinion, should never begin with debt. Love, in all its forms, should never require anyone to give up even a whisper of their integrity.

So who should pay on a first date? Be prepared to pay for your own meal. Not because generosity is suspect, but because freedom—from obligation, from silent contracts, from the weight of expectations—is priceless. 

Writers Room | On the OSAP Cuts: Could We Have Stratified the Cold?

by Mikaela Brewer ​for The 44 North, Senior Editor

Two Black women in jean overalls strolling through a community garden

Dorrie sat down on the small stone bench by her plot in the community garden, running her palms over her expanded stomach. The garden was nestled into a small valley next to her old high school and city soccer field, and at 6:00 p.m., the sun set through the cool April mist that hovered above it. Dorrie closed her eyes to a cool gust of wind that swayed her long black braids across her back and shoulders. 

Andy, Dorrie’s four-year-old son, kicked a well-loved red soccer ball around the garden plots as if they were pylons to run drills with. He laughed loudly, curls flying across his freckled nose, which made Dorrie smile.

“Mommy Dorrie, when will the baby come out?” Andy called, breathlessly, having noticed the intensity of his mother’s fatigue growing each day. 

“When the spring peas and radishes come up, love.”

“When we see green! That’s what Mommy Tisa said. Why is everything still dead?”

“No, it’s just sleeping,” Nick replied with a grunt. Nick was Dorrie’s younger brother, presently churning the soil on his hands and knees. The small town had finally welcomed a warm day in March to check on the soil health and plan out the spring garden. The air, though, still smelled like winter—decaying leaves and exhaust, hovering cold and gray in the air. 

“Like you’ve been all through your senior year of high school?” Dorrie quipped with a playful smirk.

“I’m just tired,” he responded, with a tinge of frustration. 

“Oh Nick, I didn’t mean anything by—”

“I know you didn’t. It’s not you.”

Dorrie bit her lip and shifted her weight on the bench. She could feel the cold, flat stone bench through her jeans. 

“Do we have room in the fridge to stratify everything?” Nick asked curtly, straining to soften his voice.

Dorrie nodded, but didn’t speak, clasping her hands together over her stomach.

Nick looked up, saw his sister’s confused face, and swivelled around to face Dorrie, cross-legged in the soil.

“I’m sorry, Dorrie,” Nick said, “I’m just thinking about this whole OSAP thing today. I’m so angry about it.”

Dorried nodded. “I figured, actually. I heard many students were walking out and protesting.” 

Catching a slight tone of disapproval in his sister’s remark, Nick replied, “Yeah, I was one of them.” 

Dorrie narrowed her eyes with curiosity rather than judgment. “Why? I mean, economically, it seems to make sense—there are billions of dollars in deficit and more expected without change. I paid back all my student loans. Taxpayers, like Tisa and me, pay for students to have a grants-heavy funding program.”

“You did, but the cost of living right now is devastating. The youth unemployment rate is skyrocketing. Everyone thinks we’re only ‘complaining’ about having to rely on and/or pay back loans. But removing the domestic tuition freeze, which now allows institutions to raise tuition by two percent per year for three years, will be really hard for students applying to programs, before the three years are up and fees are adjusted for inflation. Imagine what it would be like for you and Tisa if one of you were in school or trying to go back to school.”

Dorrie pursed her lips, thinking. “You’re right. We’d never be able to afford it alongside child care and all the other rising costs of living.”

Nick nodded, looking down to separate a handful of soil in his palm.

“But I still don’t understand why everyone’s upset about modifying a mostly-grants program to a loans program? It’s necessary for sustainability, from what I know. It aligns with other provincial models. And the OSAP cuts only impact the forty percent that come from the province, not the sixty that comes from the federal government, right?”

“Well, first, it was a pretty drastic change—grants are now capped at 25 percent and loans at a minimum of 75 percent. But whether it’s necessary or not isn’t the point.”

Dorrie raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “Tell me more.” 

“What feels so inconsiderate is the information gatekeeping and lack of transparency. It depends on your application whether you’re eligible for federal versus provincial assistance. So it’s hard to predict financial aid to begin with. The calculator on OSAP’s website doesn’t offer a clear approximation—there’s a disclaimer that you could be eligible for more or less money depending on your application. The federal estimator only tells you federal numbers. And the calculators don’t factor in the cuts yet. They won’t until a bit later in the spring. I’ve already accepted my offer of admission, so how do I plan for funding?”

“Okay, yeah, I hear you. Changing grants to loans also radically shifts your financial plans—and our parents’—if you’re already in school or have accepted offers. And I think about people in their late twenties or thirties, like me, who might be returning to school.” 

“Exactly. And, it was known for a long time—almost ten years, since 2017—that the system needed reimagining. I’m not disputing that the structure could or even should be different. But, there were other, more considerate, phased approaches possible if so. But it’s been left to the last minute, and now, the only way to course correct is to make a huge change all at once, and for the students to take on the costs associated. 

“I hear you, Nick. It’s like climate change, and what costs fall on consumers when policy should have been shifted a long time ago.” 

Nick was still looking down at his hands, picking the cold soil out of his fingernails. “Yes,” he said, with a sigh.

Dorrie tilted her head and smiled. “Nick, I’m not sure what to tell you, truthfully. But what I can say is this: if we put the milkweed seeds in the fridge, they’ll invite butterflies here in the summer. Keep protesting and keep believing, especially when you feel trapped inside a refrigerated box with no way out unless someone else opens the doors. And when you feel powerless, seed hope—germination can be encouraged by the cold, damp innards of a fridge of all places. If the seeds continue to break out of dormancy, shedding hard coats to bloom each year, then we can keep going, too.”

Nick smiled and stood to wipe the soil from his jeans. “Thanks, Dorrie.”

“Always.” Dorrie smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “We’ve got little ones to fight for, too. It’s not just us.” She motioned to Andy and the baby she was carrying. 

Nick straightened his shoulders, rolling them back with a renewed energy. “Andy! Come on!”

“Are you going to stay for dinner after we put the seeds in the fridge?”

“Can I?” Nick asked as Andy ran up to him, slipping a little hand inside his. Nick looked down into little hazel eyes that seemed to say I trust you. 

“Absolutely,” Dorrie said.