Beautifully considered, thank you for the piece. It would be far too easy to scoff or dismiss this movement and its followers. I wish there were more examples of lives that honor the hearth while maintaining personal integrity— or better yet, more life options for young women that don’t feel like a choice between the capitalist grind or submission to this system.
This isn’t written for me and I want to honor that—but the distinction you draw between collapse, submission, and surrender named something I’ve been stuck in for years. “Surrender is what happens when you have a centre, fully, and choose to open it.”
I’ve been trying to surrender from collapse and couldn’t understand why it went nowhere.
Thank you for this and all of your beautiful writing. It’s inspiring!
Dear Elayne: The complexity, subtlety and humility you transmit through your writing continues to impact me in many beautiful ways. I feel your gaze as clear, potent, courageous and sometimes fierce, without the 'othering' that so often accompanies our voice when it first emerges from years or generations of hiding and suppression. Thank you for softening my heart to all the women who have succumbed to the allure of the trad wife. It's lovely to be able to reclaim this aspect of myself, with tenderness and understanding.
This resonates deeply, Elayne, but it triggers a perspective from a modern man’s lens that I feel is vital to the conversation around 'surrender.'
As a writer and innovator, I have zero desire for a 'tradwife' or a relationship boxed into rigid, legacy roles. My partner and soulmate is a brilliant, fiercely independent woman—a practicing Doctor and a high-profile model. In her modeling persona, she is intensely pursued and desired by many. To a fragile or possessive male ego, that lifestyle would be intolerable. But true maturity flips the script: seeing her fully embody her power, her sensuality, and her intellect doesn't threaten me—it inspires absolute trust.
In our world, there are no prescribed 'roles.' We cook, we manage our home, and we build our lives as fluid, equal partners. I deliberately give her the absolute space to spread her wings and fly as high as her ambition demands. And the beautiful paradox of true sovereignty is that when a woman is given complete freedom to be entirely herself, her natural choice isn't to fly away—it’s to wrap those wings safely around the sanctuary you share.
If only more men realized what they are missing when they try to cage or control the women they love. True surrender isn't about submission; it’s the profound, mutual safety that allows two secure individuals to fully choose each other, day after day, without chains.
I guess it's time for all of us to read The Feminine Mystique again, since what the Right seems to intend for us is to send us back to the 1950s. Betty Friedan's groundbreaking book from 1963 is again relevant--how unfortunate! For those of us who lived through the revolution of the 1960s, it's heart breaking that we are facing such ignorance and repression once again.
I so hear you Vicki. It is heartbreaking for me and I was only born in the 1960’s. It’s why we need to continue to speak and write and have our voices be heard. More than ever. 💛
Same for me. Right now it feels like all the gains we fought for are being stripped away. As if the patriarchy has their goal of "putting us back in our place", even as we are asked to carry more than our share of work. This time is more frustrating than the sixties for me in that back then many brothers fought beside us in solidarity. Those allies are way too few now.
It feels so manufactured and too white and easy. Having loads of children is not liberating it’s exhausting especially isolated in one home. Where is the village? Where are the commons? Where are the sacred fires and the solitary vigils and the yelling and screaming and the sisters?
One more thought - many women choose not to marry or have children. Most of my friends are like that. I also see young women with dogs instead of kids. I wonder if the tradwife is an American thing, as I don’t see it in UK or Australia.
Hi Elayne. I have been aware of your Motherless writing and was not inspired to read because it seemed to have an energy of harshness. I loved this post and am grateful for the opportunity and inspiration to read this offering. I so agree with you. I am a devotee of the Divine Mother and have known this since my early 20s even though I grew up on ranches in Montana. I totally believe that each of us embodying more of the Divine Mother is key to moving through our collective challenges to resurrect each of our divine connection as a means to personal embodied resurrection that leads to healing our families, communities, states, nation and the world. Thank you.💕 Collapsing is not on the menu.😉
I appreciate the way you comb out each little nuance, because it matters. You choose your words carefully. This is very thoughtful writing.
Beautifully considered, thank you for the piece. It would be far too easy to scoff or dismiss this movement and its followers. I wish there were more examples of lives that honor the hearth while maintaining personal integrity— or better yet, more life options for young women that don’t feel like a choice between the capitalist grind or submission to this system.
This isn’t written for me and I want to honor that—but the distinction you draw between collapse, submission, and surrender named something I’ve been stuck in for years. “Surrender is what happens when you have a centre, fully, and choose to open it.”
I’ve been trying to surrender from collapse and couldn’t understand why it went nowhere.
Thank you for this and all of your beautiful writing. It’s inspiring!
This is tremendous writing. The contents the word choices the imagery the clarifications. Thank you
This post is extraordinary! I have just been reading The Goddess in Every Woman. Worth reading.
A tradwife sounds like the women in the movie The Stepford Wives.
Well said! Sounds like idealized slavery to me. We need partnership ways, not this rediculous patriarchal regression.
Dear Elayne: The complexity, subtlety and humility you transmit through your writing continues to impact me in many beautiful ways. I feel your gaze as clear, potent, courageous and sometimes fierce, without the 'othering' that so often accompanies our voice when it first emerges from years or generations of hiding and suppression. Thank you for softening my heart to all the women who have succumbed to the allure of the trad wife. It's lovely to be able to reclaim this aspect of myself, with tenderness and understanding.
This resonates deeply, Elayne, but it triggers a perspective from a modern man’s lens that I feel is vital to the conversation around 'surrender.'
As a writer and innovator, I have zero desire for a 'tradwife' or a relationship boxed into rigid, legacy roles. My partner and soulmate is a brilliant, fiercely independent woman—a practicing Doctor and a high-profile model. In her modeling persona, she is intensely pursued and desired by many. To a fragile or possessive male ego, that lifestyle would be intolerable. But true maturity flips the script: seeing her fully embody her power, her sensuality, and her intellect doesn't threaten me—it inspires absolute trust.
In our world, there are no prescribed 'roles.' We cook, we manage our home, and we build our lives as fluid, equal partners. I deliberately give her the absolute space to spread her wings and fly as high as her ambition demands. And the beautiful paradox of true sovereignty is that when a woman is given complete freedom to be entirely herself, her natural choice isn't to fly away—it’s to wrap those wings safely around the sanctuary you share.
If only more men realized what they are missing when they try to cage or control the women they love. True surrender isn't about submission; it’s the profound, mutual safety that allows two secure individuals to fully choose each other, day after day, without chains.
YES to all of this - how beautiful that you are not threatened by her brilliance and largesse. You are blessed to have found each other.
I guess it's time for all of us to read The Feminine Mystique again, since what the Right seems to intend for us is to send us back to the 1950s. Betty Friedan's groundbreaking book from 1963 is again relevant--how unfortunate! For those of us who lived through the revolution of the 1960s, it's heart breaking that we are facing such ignorance and repression once again.
I so hear you Vicki. It is heartbreaking for me and I was only born in the 1960’s. It’s why we need to continue to speak and write and have our voices be heard. More than ever. 💛
Same for me. Right now it feels like all the gains we fought for are being stripped away. As if the patriarchy has their goal of "putting us back in our place", even as we are asked to carry more than our share of work. This time is more frustrating than the sixties for me in that back then many brothers fought beside us in solidarity. Those allies are way too few now.
It feels so manufactured and too white and easy. Having loads of children is not liberating it’s exhausting especially isolated in one home. Where is the village? Where are the commons? Where are the sacred fires and the solitary vigils and the yelling and screaming and the sisters?
Yes I agree where is the village?
One more thought - many women choose not to marry or have children. Most of my friends are like that. I also see young women with dogs instead of kids. I wonder if the tradwife is an American thing, as I don’t see it in UK or Australia.
Radical Homemakers is an excellent book that is NOT this pernicious Trad Wife trend
P R E A C H, sister! PA-REACH IT!
Thank you for this.
Hi Elayne. I have been aware of your Motherless writing and was not inspired to read because it seemed to have an energy of harshness. I loved this post and am grateful for the opportunity and inspiration to read this offering. I so agree with you. I am a devotee of the Divine Mother and have known this since my early 20s even though I grew up on ranches in Montana. I totally believe that each of us embodying more of the Divine Mother is key to moving through our collective challenges to resurrect each of our divine connection as a means to personal embodied resurrection that leads to healing our families, communities, states, nation and the world. Thank you.💕 Collapsing is not on the menu.😉
Thank you for diving into what the TW world is.
Holy writing. Thank you. Restacking. This is the call!