Tradlife versus Cottagecore: Similar aesthetics with very different values
I love hearing about movements, lifestyles, and aesthetics that people view and participate in.
It’s not just hippy and preppy - there’s athleisure, the Danish trend of hygge, people who like incorporating religion into their hobbies and decor, “e girls” who are into gaming and anime…the list goes on and on and will hopefully continue to grow throughout the years.
I personally think it’s awesome. I love that everyone has their own desires and lifestyles, and so long as you aren’t harming others with what you do - it’s no skin off my back.
So today I want to talk about the lifestyle of being “Trad” (aka Traditional) and the aesthetic of Cottagecore - which are both similar, but have pretty big differences.
Let’s first talk about the “Trad” aka Traditional movement. This is a lifestyle advocated for by Traditionalists (and usually, but not always Catholics) who want us to return to how things were in the olden days. When I first heard of this I thought Norman Rockwell?
And at first, this is what the Trad movement really seems to be. It focuses on the family unit a lot, with the typical scenario of a husband working, and a woman staying at home and caring for the children.
This is where we find the Tradwife Movement. If you haven’t heard of a Tradwife before, here’s the basic definition: A ‘tradwife’ is a 21st century woman who embraces traditional and conventional gender roles, which include: “submitting” to her husband, not having a full time job, and staying at home to be a homemaker and raise children.
Like I said - no skin off my back! I think raising children is one of the most esteem-able things you could do, and I’m personally trying to learn how to be a better homemaker (or…apartment-maker).
The problem we run into with the Trad Movement is that they don’t just want to be traditional! They want you to be traditional as well. And if you want something different…well that something different is bad, and going to ruin society apparently.
Tradwives don’t just want to be tradwives, they also want to make sure you know that being a “modern day feminist” is the wrong choice.
Can we talk about how weirdly racist this illustration is? Loves her race? Knowledge about EUROPEAN roots? My god.
There are memes and graphics like this all over the online Trad communities, and I find it fascinating that half of their energy is dedicated to this Trad lifestyle, and the other half is dedicated to shaming and judging people who don’t subscribe to this belief.
I’ve always said on this blog that I think it’s really dangerous when there are binaries, and people pick strong sides that come down to “us vs them”.
In many people who believe in this Tradlife movement, they seem to think in black and white terms, especially when it comes to women. Check out this illustration below:
It just strikes eerily similar to places like /MGTOW and Red Pill communities. A woman is either a virgin and then a beautiful mother or she’s a slut and then an outcast. There is no in between. That’s it.
Where does Amelia Earhart fall in this category? Joan of Arc? Cleopatra? Helen of Troy? Taylor Swift? Condoleezza Rice? Women who can’t have children? Women who are married to men who can’t have children?
It’s just baffling to me - and it shows that many of the people who follow this Tradwife community and advocate for this lifestyle are actually men. Very weird.
I really wanted to like the Trad movement when I first heard about it. A happy and healthy family spending time with their kids? Harvesting vegetables from a backyard garden for dinner? Drawing with crayons instead of watching TV? It just all sounded so darling, I was ready to sign up!
But the Trad movement - or at least, the people online who follow it - also seem to want to take away the individuality of women. Just because you’re a woman with a vagina, it doesn’t mean that your life purpose is, or should be having children. Not all women will make great mothers. Not all women want to be mothers.
But according to Tradlife, if you’re a woman, your only goal and value comes from having children - and lots of them. Which is creepy and wrong, to say the least. I’ve even seen some “Trad” men on Twitter say that women who don’t have children are being selfish…which is interesting, considering that men can’t have children lol.
The persecution complex in these photos on Tradlife community is unreal. You’re not a victim of society because you want to farm and have kids lol.
I think that I was raised in a pretty traditional household. My mother took care of me and my siblings, and my father worked.
But there were also aspects that were not traditional, and those are the aspects I love the most. We traveled a lot, and lived in Ireland and New Zealand. My dad was the one who did the cooking, and my mom handled the bills and finances. My mom has a Doctorate Degree, higher education than my dad. And my mom does not “submit” to my dad - they are both equals.
So I officially reject the Trad movement - mostly because of how strict and hence, backwards it comes across as. There are not only two roads for women (slut or mother). There are also not only two roads for men (incel/chad or great Trad man). People are multi-faceted, and when you start to believe that their personality and desires only exist based on their genitals (a la Jordan Peterson), it puts you in dangerous territory.
So let’s switch gears and talk about a substitute for Tradlife.
Cottagecore is an aesthetic with similar aspects of Tradlife, but none of the controlling direction.
Cottagecore (also known as farmcore or country core) is a lifestyle inspired by romanticized agriculture.
If Tradlife is the families in Norman Rockwell paintings, Cottagecore is the landscape and background of those paintings.
Some aspects of both Tradlife and Cottagecore are very similar:
Wanting to live in a cute cottage, no need for mansions or excess things
Gardening, cooking from scratch
Women wearing longer and loose-fitting dresses
Embroidery, knitting and sewing
All things vintage and old-fashioned
It’s also interesting to note that cottagecore was created by a LGBT+ teen, and the aspect of cottagecore is trending in the LGBT+ community because “lesbians (and women) tend to be oversexualized by the media”
This article is a great explanation of cottagecore, with this quote in it
We_could_have_danced, a 22-yeard-old Redditor, tells me it’s still easy to encounter negativity in the online world of cottagecore, though. “I enjoy traditionally female-gendered activities, like cooking, gardening, sewing,” she says. “But find a lot of spaces celebrating these activities are also very hostile to women’s rights, LGBT+ people, people of colour..." The exception, of course, is cottagecore, where instead of a fascist agenda the politics lean decidedly in the opposite direction.
It seems like both Tradlife and Cottagecore have some similar ideas, but Tradlife wants people to return to the past, where Cottagecore wants people to evolve into a new future.
When it comes to almost anything in life, I go with my gut - a woman’s intuition, if you will. And browsing the communities of Tradlife online versus browsing Cottagecore are just two incredibly different experiences. The restrictions and judgement that appear all over Tradlife mantras just aren’t anywhere in Cottagecore, and one of the main differences is that Tradlife is a lifestyle, whereas Cottagecore is just an aesthetic.
I also think it’s interesting to note that the Tradlife movement expects women to change, while men do not.
The Tradlife movement expects women to easily get pregnant, quit their job, attend to their household, become a homemaker and take care of the children. All the men have to do in this lifestyle is…the same thing they were doing before - going to work. Just food for thought.
So let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Do you subscribe to Tradlife or Cottagecore beliefs? Is this the first time you’ve heard of these communities? I’m curious to know!
Until the next one,
S