There are people out there that have a haunting fear that there is some housewife, somewhere, and she is happy. First, it was Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times.
Now, the Department of Education is coming for the “Tradwives.”
In one of the new books for the Senior Cycle SPHE Curriculum a section is dedicated to taking on the evils of the Tradwife Trend. Never mind that no Irish mother with any sense (which is literally all of us) would take these ladies seriously as the Tradwife Trend hails from America and only exists on social media, the folks at the DoE believe they need an entire section to stop young women in Ireland even considering ‘traditional gender roles.’
Now thanks to someone at the Department of Indoctrination I can look forward to an interrogation by my daughters as to why I stopped working to look after them when they were little. Didn’t I know this was a terrible thing to do, that it would harm ‘gender equality’ and was reinforcing a ‘harmful gender narrative?’
There is a line in the book that says ‘while the choice to embrace traditional gender roles is a personal one’ they leave the young ladies in no doubt whatsoever that to make such a choice would be foolish. The section explains that ‘the tradwife movement may undermine progress towards gender equality by suggesting women should stick to the traditional gender role.’ The traditional gender role being a mother that looks after young children, the house and husband. This is frowned upon and not to be emulated.
Just who do these people think they are?
Who the heck are these folks to tell young women they shouldn’t consider looking after their children for instance? Since when did love and care become so easily dismissed? I stopped working at the criminal bar when my first daughter came along because I didn’t want to put her in nursery care from a young age. I don’t think under ones should be nurseries at all. There I said it – shoot me.
I know because of our stupid housing system here in Ireland (and the UK) most couples use childcare but for babies you should try to avoid it if you can. Babies should be with their mothers unless she is very depressed or is going to spend all day on her smartphone. You can wave all the fancy gender equality reports or social media posts around in my face as you want. That was my view 15 years ago and nothing I have seen since has changed my mind on it. If anything, my experience over the years has only reinforced this view.
Not that being a stay – at – home mother in real life resembles anything like the Tradwife fantasy. This was my original objection to it. There is nothing glamorous about being in the playground when it is windy and rainy and there is nothing comfy about not being able to drink your tea warm for at least 5 years because someone, somewhere needs their bottom wiped.
But that’s not what was the objection in the SPHE book. They object not to the ridiculous unrealistic social media trends but the very idea of ‘tradition gender roles’.
They even have a handy definition of Gender Equality which tells me “gender equality refers to the state in which people of all genders have equal rights, opportunities and access to resources.” The whole section has been handed down to them by some ghastly Wimmins Studies Department from the University of Insanity in California. Why must the Irish taxpayer fund this nonsense, actually pay for the indoctrination of their own child against their own values?
First, I cannot believe they are pushing this ridiculous notion that there are more than two genders. In fact as I have said before and I will say again we should stop using the term gender completely. There are two sexes and a tiny number of inter-sex conditions and that’s it. Gender roles rely on the stereotypes these folks so object to. Oh I identify as female because I like pink, as if pink was inherently female. It is like the feminists never existed which is why this entire gender fandango/transgender nonsense drives them so crazy. This is ‘the science’: there is biological sex, male and female, and there is the sex we want to be having. The rest is just style.
(Me turning my daughter Emma into a tradwife in training – she really is an excellent baker)
So not only are they still pushing the gender propaganda that most other countries have been moving away from, this little gem of a book also gives you a how to on Challenging Harmful Gender Narratives. Remember class, a harmful gender narrative is anything traditional such as homemaking and ‘supporting your husband by raising the children, cooking or keeping the house clean.’ You there moping your kitchen floor! How very dare you! Put that mop down now and move slowly away from the bucket. Go find yourself a real job and then hire some other woman to clean the house for pay. “Housewives of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your harmful gender narratives and the satisfaction of caring for your family!”
One of the tips given is “Advocacy through social media campaigns – supporting groups who campaign on gender issues such as BelonG to.” This is just an outrageous plug for the LGBTQ+ crowd. This is a political group that should get no more support than, say, Laura’s Substack (although you really should support that here.) After your child berates you for cleaning the house and looking after your little sister, they will be demanding the whole house be festooned with the Rainbow flag. And remember – flags mark territory.
The one territory the gender obsessives are still in control of is the classroom. They will not be letting go of that anytime soon. Another gem they will be filling your children’s noggins with is the following, “The trad wife trend has created lots of controversy because it often glorifies and romanticizes a time when women did not have equal rights, were not allowed to have careers and existed to support their husbands performing thankless challenging work to keep their homes running and children fed without any help.”
Thankless, who said it was thankless? It was the feminists who downgraded the work of raising children and running the home, so it was they who made it thankless. The husbands and children were often thankful and if they were not, then it would be a good idea to have a decent chat with both.
This obsession with happy housewives, stay – at – home mums and Tradwives is odd and unhinged. They seem to lurk in the minds of Fintan O’Toole’s and the folks at the Department of Education as the biggest bogey women of them all.
What exactly are they worried about? That there is a mother somewhere out there in a park pushing her toddler on a swing and actually enjoying it? That there is another mother reading Room on a Broom to a toddler and they are quite enjoying that too and even do the voices. Famous actors and actresses fight over each other to do the voices by the way: the always wonderful Gillian Anderson was the witch and Timothy Spall does a wonderful Dragon in the BBC Room on a Broom. Previously Gillian Anderson was in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and Great Expectations.
(Me, pushing my toddler (John) on a swing, and actually enjoying it. A bit)
It would be just awful if there was a wife lurking in a kitchen somewhere in Sligo baking a cake – just on a whim – for her family and takes satisfaction in it. Why do people have a problem with this?
If you have a problem with women enjoying creating a warm home and raising a family then I suggest you look in the mirror and ask yourself why. Failing that, seek therapy.