A leading mental health charity has raised concerns about the online 'Trad Wife' trend, arguing that it promotes a harmful ideology for both women and men.

The viral movement, which is particularly popular on TikTok, romanticises a return to traditional gender roles, encouraging women to focus exclusively on homemaking.

Critics have condemned the trend, stating that it falsely glorifies a back-to-basics lifestyle while benefiting from online visibility.

Regressive

Fiona O'Malley, CEO of Turn2Me, described the content being promoted as regressive for everyone involved.

“It reinforces harmful gender stereotypes, it undermines gender equality, and it promotes unhealthy relationships with power imbalances,” she told Newstalk.

“It increases mental health risks which are associated with this power imbalance, and it also puts all the financial pressure of providing on men, so it's very harmful for men as well as women.”

@esteecwilliams What it means to be a Tradwife. #fyp #tradwife #homemaking #housewife #traditional #tradwifecontroversy #womenschoice ♬ Music Instrument - Gerhard Siagian

Ms O’Malley said the Trad Wife movement is extremely hypocritical.

“A lot of them either come from generational wealth or they are making quite a lot of money themselves from their online content,” she said.

“The vast majority of people would not be able to maintain or adopt this kind of lifestyle.

“The trad wife trend really romanticises a simplified and an idealised past and it totally ignores the complexities and the real inequalities that women face.”

TikTok star Estee Williams, who has almost 200,000 followers, said a Trad Wife “is a woman who chooses to live a more traditional life, with ultratraditional gender roles”.

“It doesn't mean we are trying to take away what women fought for.”

Main image: A housewife ironing clothes. Image: Svyatoslav Lypynskyy / Alamy Stock Photo