One of the Internet’s most recent cultural phenomena is the “trad wife,” short for traditional wife, lifestyle. Running rampant on social media and today’s hot political topic of conversation, the trad wife is defined by a return to more traditional gender role dynamics.
In this model, women remain at home, caring for their many children, while the men predominantly hold and wield control over the family. It’s more often than not linked to strong Christian traditional values that propagate the lifestyle advertised by influencers like Nara Smith or, in this particular case, former ballerina turned farmer Hannah Neeleman.
The trad wife movement, both online and showcased in our political spectrum through conservative politics, is a drastic response to fourth-wave feminism and the #MeToo movement. It seems that with every wave of gender equality comes an even stronger wave of opposition to counteract it. In the case of Utah-based “ballerina farmer” influencer Hannah Neeleman, the confines of gender conformity become an array of glaring red flags in a recent profile by The Times. Reporter Megan Agnew recently visited Neeleman on the 328-acre farm she shares with her husband, Daniel Neeleman, and their eight children. With over 9 million followers on Instagram, 7.5 on TikTok, and 1.5 on YouTube, these are the stats of an online personality with an infinite reach.
But how does a substantial following translate into Hannah Neeleman’s identity, and what does her “brand” as a traditional wife mean in the context of our sociopolitical spectrum?
The answer that readers picked up from the Times profile is predictably bleak.
Throughout the interview, Agnew emphasizes how often Hannah is not alone, as her husband, Daniel, lurks in every conversation. Despite being assured Agnew would get a chance to do one-on-ones with the former ballerina, Daniel spends almost the entire interview glued to his wife’s side. Some might find this endearing; they can’t spend more than two seconds apart. Some might find it suffocating and controlling. Judging from how the rest of the interview goes, it’s fair to say Daniel has some serious control issues.
The more gritty details of what appears to be a picturesque life online overshadow all that scenery at the Utah farm. In the interview, readers find that Hannah was a former ballerina who, at just 14, went to summer school at the prestigious art school Julliard to do her undergraduate on pageant scholarships. Just as she started her career as a promising young ballerina, she met her now husband Daniel, son of billionaire JetBlue founder David Neeleman, at 19. Daniel was 23. What Hannah recounts as a chance meeting seems a lot more like stalking as she remembers “serendipitously” meeting Daniel on a flight back home to Utah after they met through mutual friends at a college basketball game. Daniel admits to having pulled some strings to get seated right next to her.
The rest of the piece reads like a horror story in which the heroine doesn’t know she’s in one until it’s too late. Hannah’s memories of how she met Daniel and proceeded to marry him seem like those of a hostage with Stockholm Syndrome who, in hindsight, might just start to realize that most of her relationships are based on coercion and manipulation. Hannah wanted to date for a year before marrying Daniel. Daniel wanted to get married right away. They got married a month after dating. Hannah wanted to keep dancing. Daniel wanted a child. Hannah was pregnant three months after they got married. By the time she blinked or had time to breathe, she had three children under the age of four and gave up more than just dancing; she gave up an entire life.
Hannah Neeleman is not precisely a victim. She’s a symbolic representation of where feminism stands in a modern world where gender has become a vast signifier in our culture. With the latest political transgressions against transgender people and the reproductive rights of women, Hannah Neeleman is that transgressive force behind the conservative moment. Or more like the Trojan horse. What she represents and sells to impressionable young women online becomes the real repercussions of her life. While she publicly finds it all unassuming and is expected to have eight children and counting and completely relinquish all forms of autonomy to her husband and religion, there are real-world consequences to shaping a world where women accept male coercion. Patriarchal structures continue to segregate not just women but those who live on the margins of society into dangerous and often violent, stifling boxes.
Unsurprisingly, Neeleman pushed back against the way she was portrayed in the interview, defending herself, her husband, and the state of their marriage, calling the article “an attack on our family and my marriage, portraying me as oppressed and my husband being the culprit.” Agnew has since responded in turn, saying the conversation around the article “confirmed what was known before: [Hannah] … has become an avatar through which people hotly debate motherhood, womanhood and freedom to choose either.”
It hasn’t ended there, with even more conversation swirling around the implications of Neeleman’s discussion of unmedicated childbirth and even fans becoming concerned with some of the details they’re noticing in Neeleman’s own videos, in light of the article.
Published: Aug 6, 2024 01:31 pm