What do TradWives have to do with Democracy?

An excerpt from Democracy in Retrograde by Emily Amick and Sami Sage

Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives, by Sami Sage and Emily Amick

At no time in modern American history has democracy felt so imperiled. We are staring down an election in which a self-styled authoritarian has been clear about his plans to disregard democratic processes, in which a series of far-right activists have published a roadmap to help him do it, and before which the US Supreme Court opened the door to unprecedented and unpunished presidential criminality. And a big part of this anti-democratic movement, like so many others around the world, has been misogyny and the fetishization of a return to a patriarchal, male-led culture. Emily Amick, lawyer and former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York Times bestselling author and Betches Media cofounder Sami Sage, have a new book out today exploring all of this — and what average citizens can do to make a difference. I’m thrilled to share an excerpt below, and you can pick up Democracy in Retrograde wherever books are sold.

xx Jill

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If We Don’t Act Now, The TradWives and the Men Who Love Them Will Win

When Donald Trump took the debate stage dodged the question about how he would handle helping families pay for childcare in America, my women friends were righteously pissed off. I was also served a series of conservative memes on Instagram saying that the government wouldn’t need to pay for childcare if women just stayed home. Friends told me they saw the same kind of content that night, many for the first time. 

When Harrison Butker took the stage at Benedictine College and told the crowd that women are on the receiving end of “diabolical lies” about their ability to find fulfillment in the professional sphere rather than fulfilling their vocation in the home, there was a righteous uproar from nearly every woman I know.

It wasn’t just about Harrison. It wasn’t just about Trump. It was about the endless stream of tradwife content we’ve been receiving online—posts admonishing us for feeding our children food not grown by our own two hands, calls to turn over financial decision-making to our husbands, posts with millions of likes exhorting women’s only role as that of a mother.