who is into domesticity.

Yeah.

And I think that it is expanded to such an extent that it has lost its use because.

When I think of trad wife and where the roots really come from are women who are deep into usually a fundamentalist or deeply evangelical understanding of submission to husband.

And they think of this as biblically wrought.

And I think that sometimes people... assume that like if someone is mormon then they are a trad wife right when that is not the case right at all and it is the case with some mormons that they believe in this understanding of submission but even the idea that ballerina farm hannah nealman that she is like the ur trad wife to me She is fetishizing a old school understanding of what like frontier lifestyle looks like.

But that is different than saying like I submit entirely to my husband and that wives should not go out in public with like... that should not go to the gym without their husband, should not, like, walk down the road.

I know you have more history with the sort of evangelicalism of it, but what drew you to it initially? Why do you think, before we talk about this sort of retreat that's happening, why do you think it became so popular?

who is into domesticity.

Yeah.

And I think that it is expanded to such an extent that it has lost its use because.

When I think of trad wife and where the roots really come from are women who are deep into usually a fundamentalist or deeply evangelical understanding of submission to husband.

And they think of this as biblically wrought.

And I think that sometimes people... assume that like if someone is mormon then they are a trad wife right when that is not the case right at all and it is the case with some mormons that they believe in this understanding of submission but even the idea that ballerina farm hannah nealman that she is like the ur trad wife to me She is fetishizing a old school understanding of what like frontier lifestyle looks like.

But that is different than saying like I submit entirely to my husband and that wives should not go out in public with like... that should not go to the gym without their husband, should not, like, walk down the road.

I know you have more history with the sort of evangelicalism of it, but what drew you to it initially? Why do you think, before we talk about this sort of retreat that's happening, why do you think it became so popular?

domesticity.

Yeah.

And I think that it is expanded to such an extent that it has lost its use because When I think of trad wife and where the roots really come from are women who are deep into usually a fundamentalist or deeply evangelical understanding of submission to husband.

And they think of this as biblically wrought.

And I think that sometimes people... assume that like if someone is mormon then they are a trad wife right when that is not the case right at all and it is the case with some mormons that they believe in this understanding of submission but even the idea that ballerina farm hannah nealman that she is like the ur trad wife to me She is fetishizing a old school understanding of what like frontier lifestyle looks like.

But that is different than saying like I submit entirely to my husband and that wives should not go out in public with like... that should not go to the gym without their husband, should not, like, walk down the road.

Like, there is a real difference between the sort of trad wifism that, say, like, Bernadine Bluntley, who is also someone that we're going to talk about later.

But what drew you to it initially? Why do you think, before we talk about this sort of retreat that's happening, why do you think it became so popular?

Here I am back in episode 677 in the year 2020 talking with Anne Helen Petersen.

So I burnt out.

That's the short answer.

But I refuse to recognize it as burnout.

I had really been struggling, I think, for several months.

This is after the midterm elections in 2018.

Like a lot of other journalists, I felt like, oh, well, here's what I can do.

So can you just talk about the ways in which millennials grew up thinking about college? Was it similar to what I just described, different?

... what does that mean to you exactly, the cultish aspect of it?

[sighs] Well, I mean, there's the people who are, like, in the world, right? Like, deeply invested in the world.

And I think there-If you are not super familiar with fundamental Christianity, then this is hard to understand, but like a lot of people who espouse this ideology have never known any other way, right? And who understand choosing to live not this way as choosing damnation for themselves and their family, right? I think that that's hard for a lot of us who understand personal choice as like a cornucopia of like different ways that we can find happiness, right? When you are within this fundamentalist worldview, it's like if I try to escape or if I try to leave this, then we're all going to hell forever.

And so there are those people who've grown up into it or who have been otherwise inculcated, which is a great word 'cause it sounds like cult, into that world.

Oftentimes I see that, like a lot of cults, it happens after a trauma, after someone has had their life fall apart for some reason, and they're trying to find a way to make the world legible to them again.

And what trad wife life and Christian fundamentalism does, it allows them to like have very strict rules, a very strict understanding of their role in the home, in their marriage, as mothers, in society.

It's very comforting in that way.

[laughs]

to our community, by the way.

not only and and i also have to shout out a culture study listener named jean who um did like made a whole dossier for us like basically summarizing all of her learnings from reddit after i'm obsessed and she has also watched all of the international versions so like oh pointed out all of these differences yeah amazing But I people seem not to like season nine as much and not because of what the outcomes were necessarily.

But the thing I've seen again and again is.

This time, it seems like there are so many people who just very obviously needed therapy.

And for some reason, that threw them out of the enjoyment of the show.

It was wince-inducing.

Yeah.

You can't