This past year tradwife movement has gained a lot of attention due to that whole ballerina farm thing and the rise of fascism (again) in the USA and, as someone who enjoys reading fanfiction from time to time, I can't help but notice this movement has reached fanfics as well. I've been seeing a lot of "traditional" role plays in the "x afab!reader" tag, the "x housewife!reader" appearing a lot more than before. Look, don't get me wrong, it's no problem wanting to be a housewife or a stay-at-home mom (this trope also shows up a lot), but the content in itself worries me.
Fanfiction in itself is a mirror for real-world anxieties, trends and shifts, when some trend goes viral or there is a cultural shift, it bleeds out onto everything we consume. It's not the same as the fluff, domestic bliss and established relationship fics, it's something entirely new: the readers insert themselves as tradwives in which the message is reinforcing the idea that the woman's worth is directly tied to submission and domestic labor. I've read a good load of fics in here that are all about that.
Yes, the world is in very bad shape, politically and economically speaking, and I understand the urge for the escapism where the reader is taken care of in an emotional and financial sense (after all, the corporate machine is a goddamn bitch!), however, it also threads a very fine line between healthy escapism and the stripping away of autonomy. For the readers, it can inadvertently normalize the idea that women are better off in the traditional roles prescribed by the patriarchy. This tied to the "x reader" format becomes extremely powerful because we, the readers, occupy that space.
When a fanfic writes a specific character, either canon or OC, as a housewife, there is a degree of separation. That doesn't happen with "x reader" fanfictions. We are the main character and we are being told how to behave, how to submit, what our ideal role is. If the subtext of the fic implies that a woman’s ultimate happiness only comes from subservience to a dominant male character (in which, a loooot of fics in here, the male character fits into this category), it hits a lot closer to home.
The problem with all this shit it's that this movement wraps itself with a cozy aesthetic: the soft dresses, the cooking and baking as the reader waits for the male character to get home from work, the male character who "rescues" the reader from the harsh reality that is the world and put her in a gilded cage, safe and only available to him.
Some fanfic writers here might strongly disagree with me, but honestly I don't give two fucks. If you like writing and/or reading this type of fic, good for you, just be aware of the message that's being diffused.
