The beginning of the twentieth century saw women raging, fighting, starving, and even dying for equality and autonomy. The suffragette movement paved the way for women today to choose their own lives. The 21st century has seen a rather baffling shift, with women today choosing exactly what they had fought to escape not a century ago: the traditional housewife lifestyle, more popularly known as the “tradwife” lifestyle.
Companion and the Tradwife 2.0 Fantasy
The 2025 film Companion imagines a near future where the idea of the “perfect woman” is no longer social, but technological. It centers on Iris, an AI-created partner designed to be everything a traditional homemaker is expected to be: obedient, emotionally supportive, and completely devoted. She’s not choosing this role, rather, she was built for it.
What’s unsettling is how closely Iris’s design echoes the values celebrated in tradwife culture today. In real life, those traits are often framed as empowering choices. But in Companion, they’re lines of code. Iris can’t say no. She can’t opt out. Her devotion is automatic, not earned — and that’s the point.
The film holds up a mirror to the tradwife fantasy, asking what happens when the performance of submission becomes indistinguishable from its reality. At what point does “choosing” to be the perfect woman start to resemble being programmed to be one?
While Companion imagines a world where the ideal woman is manufactured without will or agency, the tradwife movement presents a more complex picture.
A Win for Feminism?
Despite the tradwife lifestyle seeming like everything modern feminism stands against, women having the autonomy to choose their path in life is the very essence of feminism. It’s a strange twist when feminism turns on women for making choices, especially when those choices look too traditional for modern taste.
While the argument could be made that tradwives enjoy a freedom of expression and financial security that would have been denied them if not for the efforts of women fighting to overcome patriarchal traditions, the fact remains that tradwife influencers often insist their lifestyle is a personal choice, which is central to feminism.
But is this movement truly the result of women’s empowerment?
Freedom of Will or the Illusion of Choice?
The similarities in idealized gender roles between the tradwife lifestyle and Margaret Atwood’s critically acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale have not gone unnoticed by many. Viewing tradwife culture through the lens of The Handmaid’s Tale creates a harrowing picture, with the only difference between the virtuous and elevated tradwife and Atwood’s Handmaid being the freedom of choice.
That’s especially troubling when you think about how religion and old-school patriarchy still pull the strings in a lot of these settings. The tradwife narrative sells a comforting illusion: that going back to old-school roles brings peace, purpose, and social order. However, The Handmaid’s Tale shows how these same ideals can become weapons of oppression when used to justify hierarchy and surveillance.
Roots in Economic Crisis
We live in uncertain economic times, with AI and automation threatening job displacement and increasing unemployment. When jobs dry up, guess who’s first to be shoved out of the workforce? It’s women. History proves it. Between chasing careers and managing homes, today’s women are tired. Ultimately, the tradwife lifestyle sells them a comforting escape wrapped in vintage aesthetics and financial stability. At the same time, it reflects a shift toward authoritarian politics and eroding efforts for women’s equality.
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