BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between viral dance videos, election interference and a text from a senator's granddaughter. I know, I know. How are all these things connected? Well, we're going to find out with NPR tech correspondent Bobby Allyn and NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh. Bobby, Deirdre, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
DEIRDRE WALSH, BYLINE: Hey, Brittany. Thanks for having me.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Hey, good to be here.
LUSE: Oh, it's good to have you both. Good to have you both. All right, so to get into things. This week, President Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok in the United States if its parent company, ByteDance, doesn't sell the social media platform within a year. Now, Bobby, Deirdre, I think it could be both surprising and unsurprising that this happened this week and this fast. Did y'all see this coming?
ALLYN: OK. So I think yes and no. Yes, many inside TikTok were really caught off guard by the lightning speed that this moved through Congress and was signed by Biden. No in that - I mean, how many times are we going to read TikTok is about to be banned in headlines?
LUSE: Right.
ALLYN: As a tech reporter, I have been writing about it a lot, right? I went into our internal systems at NPR, and I typed in TikTok ban and my name and found that I've written 88 stories on TikTok bans. So I'm fatigued with it. Many people are fatigued with it. I think it just - for some, just seems like groundhog day, honestly.
LUSE: (Laughter) You know, Deirdre, one thing I can't help but think about is how all this is coming as politicians, regardless of political party, have become more and more skeptical of big tech companies. I mean, Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon are all facing lawsuits from the government as we speak, but TikTok is the first to be threatened to shut down. Now, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. And I wonder, is that what made this easier for politicians to get on board with? Is this a sign of how much of a boogeyman the Chinese government is in our political world today? I'm also thinking about how this legislation came from a bipartisan select committee on China.
WALSH: Right. I do think that the ownership of the parent company was the driving force. I talked to Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner about this, and he's like, look, I have major data privacy concerns about how all of users' data - American users' data - is being shared on other platforms. But for him, he just came back to the difference being China, and he thinks that's the difference-maker. We can have a separate conversation about what kind of evidence there is whether or not that parent company is for sure sharing users' data with the Chinese Communist Party. There is a law that if they are asked, they have to, but there's...
LUSE: Right.
WALSH: ...Never - we don't have any concrete examples that that's happening.
LUSE: Bobby, American politicians are concerned about the relationship between the Chinese government and TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. They're also concerned about any possible influence the Chinese government could have on the app's 170 million American users, which is about half of the United States' population.
ALLYN: Yeah. It's a lot of people.
LUSE: And also additionally, around one-third of Americans under 30, so one-third of young Americans, get their news from TikTok. And there's, you know, some debate over how much TikTok is manipulating the content that the app feeds up. Is TikTok emphasizing or deemphasizing content based on Chinese interest?
ALLYN: All right. This is something that I hear all the time. Is there some ByteDance employee in Beijing behind a curtain and in this sinister way tinkering with the levers of the TikTok algorithm to push pro-China content to millions of Americans? And the answer is no, right? Yes, TikTok's parent company is based in Beijing. And, yes, they have a very powerful, hyper-personalized algorithm that is optimized for engagement, meaning it's meant to keep you locked into the app for as long as possible. But it's hyper-personalized. If you're really into surfing, you're going to see a lot of surfing videos. If you're really into rugby, your feed is going to be full of rugby videos, and so on. There's no evidence to this point yet to suggest that TikTok is pushing pro-China views over anything else.
LUSE: Right.
ALLYN: But that fear is real, and that fear is animating lawmakers, and that fear, you know, really has stirred a lot of worries about whether or not TikTok is a national security threat because it is based in China. And in China, we know, because of national intelligence laws in that country, if Chinese officials wanted to put their finger on the scale and pollute the minds of a generation of young people, I guess they theoretically could.
And during the Trump years, when Trump cracked down on TikTok and tried to put it out of business, and the case went to federal courts, even federal judges have said it looks like the national security threat that TikTok supposedly poses is really theoretical more than anything else. So, yes, there's a fear. Yes, it could hypothetically happen, but we just haven't seen it yet.
LUSE: You know, to get more specific on this topic of different kinds of political views on TikTok and what the app may show more of or less of, I'm wondering about the Israel-Hamas war or, you know, the conflict between Israel and Palestine right now. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that TikTok promotes content against Israel. And it's worth noting that China has seemingly taken a more pro-Palestinian stance. At the same time, young people in the United States are more likely to be on TikTok than Americans of older age groups, and they're statistically more likely to be pro-Palestine than pro-Israel. Do you think that this could be from TikTok's influence, or is this the politics of its users?
ALLYN: Right. So this has really been a huge issue to lawmakers in Washington, and it's sparked all sorts of debate online. And yeah, there have been some analyses that have found the FreePalestine hashtag has been seen millions and millions more times than the StandWithIsrael hashtag on TikTok. But, you know, when you look at any other major social media platform, be it Twitter or Instagram or any of the other big ones, you're seeing the same patterns of more pro-Palestinian content than pro-Israel content.
And it's sort of this chicken or egg problem, right? Are young people going to social media platforms and seeing videos and seeing content that already confirms their pre-existing beliefs, or are these platforms sort of pushing them in the direction of becoming more sympathetic with the Palestinian cause? And it's really hard to get to the bottom of that. But I think TikTok is being sort of unfairly singled out here. I think TikTok has become sort of the blank canvas that so many people are projecting all of their fears about social media.
LUSE: Thinking about who uses TikTok the most, people under 30, it's hard not to see this TikTok ban as something that young people would be mad about. But this ban passed pretty unanimously in the House and the Senate, and Biden didn't seem to pause at all in signing it into law. Deirdre, are there concerns on Capitol Hill that they might lose young voters over this?
WALSH: There are definitely concerns. Lawmakers said that overwhelmingly, the calls that were coming into their offices ahead of the votes were largely sometimes 2 to 1 against the ban, but lawmakers decided they were going to support it anyway. There was some backlash to some of the calls that were coming in because TikTok to its adult users pushed out a notification that basically said Congress is going to ban TikTok. Press this button. Call your lawmaker right away. And a lot of senators said, look, we were happy to hear from young people.
Some of them got on the phone and engaged with the people who were calling. Young voters are going to be a huge factor in the 2024 election. I talked to a lot of senators around the debate on this in terms of like, who are you hearing from? And a lot of them we're hearing from members of their own family. One Senator, Mike Rounds from South Dakota, literally pulled up a text on his phone from his granddaughter after the House passed the bill and said, Grandpa, are you going to ban TikTok? What's happening? LOL.
MIKE ROUNDS: And I just came back with an LOL, exclamation point. I thought that was an appropriate response. She came back and said, well, they decide tonight. And I said, no, the House has already passed it. Now it comes to the Senate. Don't know when we will look at it. Might be a few days or even weeks. Oh, OK.
WALSH: He was persuadable, and his own granddaughter was lobbying him.
LUSE: I guess everybody's got a family to come home to when they make these decisions.
WALSH: Right.
LUSE: I can't but also think about, like, the timing of all of this. Biden signing this into law feels especially notable during a week that we're still seeing so many young people protesting against our government, its foreign policy, against institutions of higher learning - their colleges and universities. The timing feels really notable that this TikTok ban during this time when we're seeing so many young people out in the streets being politically active.
WALSH: And it's the same person who's signing the ban is the same person they're protesting against, right? And I think that's why potentially you saw former President Trump putting that message out there on social media. Hey, it's Biden doing this, not me.
LUSE: You know, it's important to note that it's looking like this law is going to go to the courts. So, it may be some time before any real impact will be felt on the app. But, Deirdre, Bobby, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much.
WALSH: Thanks for having us, Brittany.
ALLYN: Thanks.
LUSE: And as a thank you, I'd like to teach you something by playing a little game with you all. Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?
WALSH: Yeah, definitely.
ALLYN: Yeah.
LUSE: We'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Stick around.
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LUSE: All right, all right. We're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Here's how it works. I'm going to share a story that's been making the headlines this week. And as I give you some background on the story, I'll also ask you trivia related to it. But don't worry, it's all multiple choice.
WALSH: Phew.
LUSE: The first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. The person with the most points wins, and, of course, as every week, their prize is bragging rights. Are you all ready?
WALSH: (Laughter) Yes.
ALLYN: Yep.
LUSE: All right. So the category for this week's game is AI because things are getting so weird with AI (laughter). To start, the boys are fighting, and by the boys, I mean Drake and seemingly the entire world of hip-hop. Drake has been trading diss tracks with Kendrick Lamar for weeks now. And last week, Drake snapped back with another track. And on it, he used AI technology to mimic the voice of which of these rappers? Was it A, Kendrick Lamar, B, The Notorious B.I.G, or C, Tupac Shakur?
ALLYN: It was Kendrick.
WALSH: I was going to go with Tupac.
LUSE: Ding ding ding. Deirdre, you are correct. The answer is C, Tupac Shakur.
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ALLYN: Really?
LUSE: And not only did he use AI to mimic Tupac, who is famously no longer living, Drake also used AI to mimic Snoop Dogg, who is famously still alive. Snoop, of course, responded the best way possible by posting a video where he said, they did what? When? How? Are you sure? I'm going back to bed. Good night. And honestly, I would have said the same thing.
ALLYN: Maybe Tupac's estate has a lawsuit to be had now.
WALSH: Maybe. Yeah.
LUSE: You're actually right. A lawyer representing Tupac's estate sent Drake a cease-and-desist letter threatening lawsuit.
WALSH: Ah.
ALLYN: Oh, really? Oh, there you go.
LUSE: We'll see what happens.
ALLYN: All right.
LUSE: We'll see what happens.
ALLYN: Yeah, we'll see.
LUSE: We'll see what happens.
ALLYN: I don't know. That's crazy.
LUSE: And onto some more AI news, Tupac is not the only artist being resurrected via artificial intelligence.A new installation in St. Petersburg, Fla., allows patrons to talk to which one of these artists? Is it A, Georgia O'Keeffe, B, Salvador Dali, or C, Andy Warhol?
WALSH: Warhol.
LUSE: What say you, Bobby?
ALLYN: Yeah, I go with Warhol as well.
LUSE: Well, unfortunately, you were both wrong on this one.
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ALLYN: Oh, darn.
LUSE: The answer is B, Salvador Dali, in a new exhibit...
WALSH: Ah.
LUSE: ...At the Dali Museum...
WALSH: Oh.
LUSE: ...In St. Petersburg, Fla.
WALSH: Makes sense, Dali Museum.
LUSE: Patrons can pick up a replica of the artist's famed lobster phone. I personally would love a lobster phone. Every time I think of it, I would love a lobster phone.
WALSH: Anything lobster.
LUSE: Anything lobster, actually. So they pick up the phone, and they ask the artificial Dali anything they want. For example, you could say, Dali, why did you make so many clocks melt? I think I would probably ask Dali, do you want to be artificially replicated? But that's just the question that I would ask.
WALSH: Yeah. And how do they get the true answer to that with AI?
LUSE: (Laughter) I don't know. I don't know. But to recap the score, Bobby, you are at zero points. Deirdre, you're at one point.
ALLYN: All right. Well, I love an underdog, so let's go.
LUSE: I was going to say you could come back. You could come back.
WALSH: I feel like AI is not my expertise, so I feel like...
LUSE: So apparently, Tupac is your expertise, though, because you got that first one.
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LUSE: All right, here is our final question. One of the most popular movies on Netflix right now is a true crime documentary called "What Jennifer Did." And I'll be honest, I don't know what she did, but I do know that a lot of internet sleuths are outraged over what they claim to be AI-generated images used to tell the story. There was something up with Jennifer's body. Which of these distorted human body parts made the sleuths suspicious? Was it A, Jennifer's hair, B, Jennifer's kneecap, or C, Jennifer's fingers?
WALSH: Wow.
ALLYN: This is a total guess, but I'm going to say kneecap just because legs tend to be an issue with AI-generated images, but maybe I'm totally wrong. This is total guestimation.
LUSE: What's say you, Deirdre?
WALSH: I'm going to say fingers.
LUSE: The answer is C. Deirdre, you are correct.
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LUSE: Jennifer's fingers.
WALSH: Total guess.
ALLYN: Nice.
LUSE: (Laughter). So Jennifer is giving the peace sign in one of the images used in the documentary, and I'm not going to lie, I've seen the image in her fingers do look wild. Now, NPR requested comment on this matter, and Netflix has denied any use of AI, but the director did admit to doctoring some photos that were used in the documentary. And a fun side fact. Fingers and hands have proven to be one of the hardest things for AI generators to replicate.
WALSH: And legs, too, Bobby says.
LUSE: And legs, too, and legs, too.
ALLYN: Also words.
LUSE: Words, ideas?
ALLYN: If you try to get a generative AI tool to just put an English word, it always scrambles the letters. This is supposed to be the most advanced technology in the world, and it...
WALSH: Oh, wow.
ALLYN: ...Can't spell basic words.
WALSH: Maybe we'll still have jobs after this. This is good news.
LUSE: Maybe so. Things are looking up.
ALLYN: Yeah, seriously.
LUSE: Things are looking up. OK. All right, well, that is it for But Did You Know? for this week. According to our very intense and complex scoring system, Deirdre, you are the winner with two points. Congratulations on your win.
WALSH: Am I an AI expert now?
LUSE: I was going to say actually, you might be able to add that. That'll be - the next time you come on, that'll be the addition to your title - and AI expert...
WALSH: I like it.
LUSE: ...Deirdre Walsh. Yeah. Well, Bobby and Deirdre, thank you so much for joining me today. This was great.
WALSH: It was fun, Brittany. Thanks.
ALLYN: Thanks for having me.
LUSE: That was NPR's Bobby Allyn and Deirdre Walsh. We're going to take a quick break, and when we get back, we're getting into the phenomenon of tradwives, the latest trend of being a, quote, "traditional wife" and what it says about women's labor today.
WALSH: Oh, my God, I love that topic.
LUSE: We'll be right back.
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LUSE: My next big question is, why is everyone so obsessed with traditional wives, or tradwives, on social media? We're diving deep into the viral phenomenon that's had me scratching my head.
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ESTEE WILLIAMS: How to become a traditional wife. Number one - embracing ultra-traditional gender roles into your marriage. The man...
LUSE: In case tradwives haven't come across your For You page, my next guest - freelance writer Zoe Hu can explain.
ZOE HU: A tradwife is a woman who makes content about the joy and the relief of giving up a career and returning home to essentially care for her husband and children.
LUSE: Zoe went deep on tradwives in an essay for Dissent magazine.
HU: It's a woman who almost kind of cosplays at being a traditional housewife. It's social media, right? So everything that the tradwife puts out is going to be a fantasy.
LUSE: Now, while I think there's nothing wrong with women wanting to stay home, Zoe says there's something deeper going on with the lifestyle they're showcasing and how it speaks to the women watching it. I sat down with Zoe to hear more about what the tradwife says about how women feel about work, what they're afraid of and the consequences of tradwife influence in our culture.
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LUSE: Zoe, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
HU: Thanks so much for having me.
LUSE: It's our pleasure. It's our pleasure. This is a topic I've been waiting, chomping at the bit to get into. We're talking about tradwives today. So to start things off, can you name some of the accounts that you think of most when you think about tradwife content?
HU: For sure. So I think probably the most famous account by now is Ballerina Farm (laughter).
LUSE: Ballerina Farm - I knew you were going to say that.
HU: I know.
LUSE: Please tell the people what Ballerina Farm is.
HU: She's probably one of the most popular tradwives right now making content, and her whole shtick is that she lives on this farm. She used to be a dancer, actually, in New York City. And she's sort of left that life behind to care for her husband and, like, kids there, while doing sort of the daily upkeep of the farm. A lot of her videos show her kind of, like, making bread from scratch...
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HANNAH NEELEMAN: OK. So we're starting off with a very strong sourdough starter. That's the secret to a successful sourdough loaf.
HU: ...Feeding all of her kids as they're kind of clamoring in the camera.
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UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Can I put some butter on it?
NEELEMAN: No. No butter.
LUSE: I'm so glad you brought up Ballerina Farm, because she is a former ballet dancer. She's Juilliard trained, and I think they just had their eighth child. I find that more than a few of the women who become tradwives or make tradwife content are often, like, well educated or had some sort of career outside of, you know, working in the home and taking care of their children and husband. And that makes me think about sort of the difference between a tradwife of today and a traditional '50s housewife. What are the new ways that tradwives are packaged? Like, how does this look different today than that 1950s ideal?
HU: I think that's actually really crucial. Like, a lot of tradwives - the way they narrate their life stories usually involves some conversion moment. There's usually this trope or this story that's like, I used to be a working woman. I used to be like everybody else, just trying to make a career, trying to make it in the city. And then I sort of realized the error of my ways. I realized that life was never going to bring me happiness.
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NEELEMAN: I don't long for a dream job or dream about the day I can go back to work. This is my dream job. This is the greatest work I will ever do.
HU: And I think that conversion narrative is actually extremely important for the tradwife because it really shows how today being a tradwife is now a choice. It's an option among a whole set of possibilities for women, and that's also what makes it quite political, right? It's the decision to abandon what is expected of a modern woman and choose this way of life that is actually now quite difficult to lead, because now it's really, really difficult to have just one person supporting an entire family. And I think the way the tradwife often justifies this is actually by incorporating this critique of work into her content.
LUSE: Tell me more about that.
HU: Yeah. I mean, the critique of work is really compelling. Like, who doesn't feel exhausted at work? Who doesn't feel exploited by their job? You know, when you're on your daily commute and the MTA is breaking down, like, who doesn't feel tired and frustrated and sort of repelled by that?
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Because this working thing is not for me. Like, this whole girlboss CEO, I want to climb the corporate ladder - no, thank you.
HU: I think the tradwife taps into those feelings - those feelings of discontent - and really really exploits them.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Like, I understand we got to work 'cause we got to. We got to save some money because things are expensive out here. But it's like, if you could have it your way, 100% having kids and getting married and being at home with your kids and taking care of your husband is, like, the ultimate dream life for you. Like, the whole...
LUSE: As you mentioned, many people feel disrespected at their jobs. People are exhausted, tired of commuting and dealing with just all of the mess of, like, being a person who works outside the home every day. I want to talk about another type of critique that you often see in tradwife content, a critique that's, I think, a little less veiled and a little more blatant - lots of critiques of feminism. Talk to me about the critiques of feminism that are in tradwife content.
HU: I feel like tradwife content really produces these critiques of not just feminism, but, like, the figure of the feminist, who is sort of portrayed as this dour woman who is overly political, who hates men and is secretly unhappy. The tradwife is able to insist that she's not straining in the way that the modern-day feminist is because she knows her place and she's accepted it.
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NEELEMAN: How have people still not realized that feminism is a sham? It's a scam. I'm telling you, it is a robbery. It's robbery of womanhood because my thing is, like, everything they push for is opposite of what actually truly makes women happy and fulfilled.
HU: They imply, like, it's not actually the 1950s model of housewifery that's outdated. It's actually feminism that we can now leave behind.
LUSE: That's so interesting the idea that feminism is like this unfulfilled promise that left lots of women with these unfulfilling lives, when another way of looking at that is that perhaps it's not feminism, but sexism and misogyny that systemically could be producing an unfulfilling life. I could see, though, how that could be a compelling message. I'll also say that, like, something that tradwives all appear to have is an abundance of time. There's something really appealing about having a life where you have time to spend hours quietly making marshmallows or granola from scratch. So many people I know have so little time to do these little projects. It truly can feel unattainable or aspirational. Many women, tradwives or not, I think would love to have more time to spend with their families or loved ones or partners.
HU: Totally. And I think when we talk about, like, the critique of capitalism, that can sound really, really vague, but I think a way to make it more concrete is to say the tradwife points out that we don't have control over how we manage and live our daily lives, right? Going into work, you're not just being exploited, but you're actually being forced to spend your time in service to a company or a firm or a business that you don't necessarily have any kind of organic feeling of loyalty towards or connection to. The idea that you can escape from that and take back your time and use that time for the people that you actually care about - that's extremely appealing.
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NARA SMITH: I don't want to be a boss babe. I don't want to do any of that. I don't want to be the breadwinner. I do not want to do that. You know what I want to do? I want to be home. I want to be cooking in the kitchen. I want to be cleaning. I want to be shopping. I want to be making brownies. I want to be cooking dinner.
HU: And someone like Nara Smith, who I would say is maybe, like, currently the second-most popular...
LUSE: Yeah.
HU: ...Or well - yeah (laughter).
LUSE: For sure currently second most popular kind of tradwife figure. And also, like, notably a tradwife of color.
HU: Yeah, Nara Smith, she's someone who, you know, does that kind of thing of, like, making marshmallows from scratch.
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SMITH: My daughters have been asking for marshmallows ever since we ran out. So today, I decided to surprise them by making them some salted caramel marshmallows. I started by making the caramel...
HU: These painstaking meals that to other people seem insane.
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HU: I think the subtext of it is look at how much time I have, right? I can, if I want to, spend an entire morning figuring out how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from whole ingredients with nothing that's store bought. That is, like, an incredible, incredible luxury. I will say the tradwife being able to flaunt her time - that is also, in a way, a fantasy 'cause even if she's not working for another business or she's not working outside the home, she is still often working. She is a content creator. She's an influencer. And if she gets big enough and popular enough, she is monetizing the videos or the posts that she's putting out.
LUSE: Right. Like, the video will say tradwife, but the bank account is saying girlboss. And it's interesting. Like, that also makes me think about the sort of racial component that I see around a lot of tradwife content and why it does feel notable when a woman of color like Nara Smith becomes such a popular tradwife content creator. Part of why that may be appealing to some women of color, in my case, speaking specifically about Black women, is that American Black women, historically, were often domestic workers.
And a lot of the less pleasant details, the scrubbing, in some cases, the nursing and rearing of children, a lot of those things were done by Black women in white women's homes. I could see how if a part of your lineage is, like, that your mother or your grandmother, aunties, great-grandmother were domestic workers in white women's homes who didn't have the opportunity to care for their children or their homes in the same way or to have a more leisurely life. I could see how tradwifery does kind of seem like an appealing alternative.
HU: Absolutely. And if you're a woman of color, the sort of critique of the outside world as a place of exploitation and discrimination becomes even more acute. The tradwife image can feel almost, like, compensation for that. Of course, that comes with this price - right? - which is that you have to always defer to your husband.
LUSE: Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. tradwives, as you've written, very often reject both capitalism and feminism. That's, like, a lot to hold already at once. But you also say that there is a fear coming through in this tradwife fantasy, a fear of the outside world and the men in it. What are women reacting to here through trad life?
HU: I think, you know, if you watch these videos, it becomes, first of all, very apparent that they almost have a kind of lonely aspect to them. They're not videos of a woman hanging out with friends or spending time with a community.
LUSE: She's very isolated. The tradwife is very isolated.
HU: It's very, very isolated. The tradwife really only spends time with one man, which is her husband, and other men, you know, male friends, coworkers, obviously, they're not in the picture. It's just the tradwife, her husband, her children and then her very beautiful, like, physical space that she gets to enjoy with them. And, of course, her husband is away at work the majority of the day. So she's actually managed to limit her contact with men in a really drastic fashion.
This is all speculation, but I wonder how much of that is a reaction to #MeToo - right? - when all of these women began sharing these stories of being abused, not just by men in general, but by coworkers or people that these women knew personally, right?
LUSE: Colleagues, bosses. Like, #MeToo was about the workplace, that work could make you vulnerable.
HU: Absolutely, and I think a lot of women came out of that experience feeling almost like it was impossible to trust individual men. I think there was this sense that all of these stories of violence were unearthed and then never really resolved, and we never figured out how we could address that in a structural or systematic way. And I can see how a tradwife reacting to that would say, OK, what if I can just leave that all behind, choose one man who I actually don't really have to spend that much time with because he's always at work, and feel safer? But family life can be actually extremely dangerous for women, right? A woman is more likely to be killed by her husband, by her romantic partner, than she is by a stranger on the street.
LUSE: It almost is like, the way you're describing it - like, perhaps the devil you know is better than the one you don't.
HU: Yeah. I mean, I think the whole sort of movement of Lean In feminism did actually acknowledge, like, the workplace is unfair for women.
LUSE: Right, Sheryl Sandberg's book of tips and strategies for women on how to be more assertive in the workplace in the face of sexism.
HU: And the way that you resolve that is by individually asserting yourself, quote, unquote, "leaning in," negotiating these power dynamics and trying to come out on top, and that sort of solution being prescribed by Lean In feminism also required women to kind of, like, move through this world and constantly be on guard. It can produce a lot of frustration, and so instead of having to always be negotiating power dynamics in the outside world, why not just settle for one power dynamic, that even if you're on the sort of inferior side of it, you at least know where you stand?
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: If you don't want kids but you want to be a stay-at-home-mom, hear me out. Be a stay-at-home wife instead, but only if you have a Golden Retriever husband. Ivy, what the heck is a Golden Retriever husband? Here are the qualities. Number one, they are not controlling. They don't tell you what to do. They don't tell you where to go, and they certainly do not...
HU: Right? And you're at least also being given this sense of love and care in return.
LUSE: What are the consequences of the tradwife influence on our greater culture?
HU: I think, for me, what feels like the most alarming consequence is that tradwife content encourages people, and specifically women, to withdraw from the public sphere. I feel like by idealizing the home, the tradwife induces us to think that the outside world is just not worth participating in, and I think that's actually a horrible consequence for both political reasons, but also for individual people, right? We are sustained by our connections to the outside world. We're sustained by our chance encounters with strangers or people we don't know. I think that's something we should really push against, this kind of privatization of life.
LUSE: OK, so what if a woman just wants to stay at home and isn't thinking about all this. What's wrong with that?
HU: I always want to stay at home...
(LAUGHTER)
HU: ...These days, so I relate. And I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with it, but I think it's really hard in our day and age to make that a neutral political choice. Given how politicized gender relations have become, given how politicized, sort of, individual lifestyles that women choose between all of that has become a subject for political debate, I think it's very hard in our time to live a politically neutral life.
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LUSE: Zoe, thank you so much for coming on. This was really, really interesting.
HU: Thank you so much.
LUSE: Thanks again to Zoe Hu. You can find her essay about tradwives in Dissent magazine.
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LUSE: This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.
LIAM MCBAIN: Liam McBain.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.
LUSE: Engineering support came from...
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LUSE: Our executive producer is...
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE, from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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