Essay #8: Soft Faces, Soft Voices: The Case of Tradwives vs. Nara Smith
Soft Faces, Soft Voices:
The Case of Tradwives vs. Nara Smith
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There’s a debate circulating the Internet: is Nara Smith a tradwife, or is she just an influencer?
There’s a compelling case for the tradwife label.
Smith’s TikTok and Instagram content focuses on her children, her husband, and the tasks she does for them - primarily, cooking. Most of her videos are filmed from the kitchen, relegating Smith to a seemingly traditional 1950s housewife role.
Tradwives, according to Perliger, are a subculture of “conservative, anti-feminist thought” (9). Within this culture, “white heterosexual women [...] nostalgically interpret and advocate past traditional values, norms, and practices” including “paramount devotion to the family, the observation of traditional gender roles, pro-patriarchy, pro-life, and often a strong devotion to Christianity” (8).
In an article for ABC News Australia, Kristy Campion, senior lecturer and discipline lead of terrorism studies at Charles Sturt University, argues that the tradwife movement “[provides] a soft face for saying quite extreme things, quite dangerous things; things that are quite divisive and that demonise parts of our own society.”
Using Perliger’s definition of tradwives (shorthand for traditional wives/housewives), it’s clear that Smith doesn’t wholly adhere. She may be in a heterosexual marriage, but she is also a woman of color. Her content is never overtly political - she doesn’t post about gender roles, patriarchy, abortion, or Christianity. Smith is actually Mormon (she shares this in her “Getting to Know Me” TikTok posted in March 2024; she converted when she was 18). She doesn’t talk about religion much, if at all.
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Another hallmark of tradwife culture is not working outside of the home. While Smith’s content is primarily filmed in her mansion, she does work and make money. Smith is a signed model (the same agency as Bella Hadid), making a living through brand deals, runway shows, and other campaigns. Make no bones about it: this is no 9-to-5 or working-class gig, but it’s something. Is it enough to exempt Smith from tradwife status?
In each video, it’s Smith who cooks for the family. It’s Smith who is in the kitchen. When Lucky Blue does appear, he’s bumbling in the kitchen - he doesn’t know how to cook and often takes on the air of a “himbo” character (portmanteau of “him” and “bimbo” to designate a clueless but charming man), as Smith has to “teach” him to squeeze lemons, or add herbs to lemonade.
It’s reminiscent (nostalgic, to borrow Campion’s word) of 1950s-era advertisements. (White) wife in a beautiful dress feeds and cares for her clueless husband and her charming children.
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I’d argue there’s still a message in Smith’s videos, even if it seems buried. Maybe it's not about gender roles or reinforcing whiteness - maybe it's about social class.
Smith’s recipes (spoofs of Cheez-Its, Oreos, etc.) take staple, working-class, affordable brands and boujee-ify them. She takes pride in making organic meals for her family. And while, at times, it seems she is aware of her own caricature, it’s clear she believes in what she’s doing, even if she has to “ham it up” for the cameras.
Making cookies, lasagna, and cake from scratch is labor-intensive. For working-class Americans, the thought of having so much time to devote to cooking is just that: a thought, not reality. The ability to make something from scratch is an indicator of wealth. It designates that you have the time to spend on making Crumbl knock-offs because you’re not working or commuting.
Couple this with the rhetoric around homemade vs. store-bought. Homemade food is “healthy.” You know what’s in the food, because you made it. Homemade and organic = anti-inflammatory. Store-bought = toxic, unhealthy, gross.
Nara Smith may not be a true and total tradwife, but don’t confuse her lack of overtly political content with a lack of meaning. Media is symbolic: it is always saying something, and we should be suspicious and wary if it seems neutral.
The message might be: I can afford to give my family homemade meals, which are clearly better/healthier than name-brand goods. While I may act like a relatable wife/mother, I’m still a model who doesn't have to work a 9-to-5. I have the time and the money to do this. You don’t.
A la Campion, soft faces (soft voices) are used to say extreme things.
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For Claire: word count is 700.
Scholarly Stuff:
Kelsey-Sugg, Anna and Marin, Siobhan. “For some, being a tradwife is about more time with family. For others, it’s a dangerous far-right ideology.” ABC.net.au. Published August 21st, 2021. For some, being a tradwife is about more time with family. For others, it's a dangerous far-right ideology - ABC News
Perliger, Arie, et al. “Conceptualising Extreme Misogyny.” Mapping the Ideological Landscape of Extreme Misogyny, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2023, pp. 3–11. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep47334.5. Accessed 2 May 2025.
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