Ring by spring, honeymoon baby, woman in the kitchen – Hillsdale students often toss around these joking phrases. While generally considered more religious and conservative, many Hillsdale women would not affirm these stereotypes, saying the issue is far more nuanced than often presented by other students.

One of the most recent trends to stem from the conservative internet bog is the “tradwife movement,” a collection of internet memes and mommy vlogs highlighting — or demeaning — a traditional housewife role.

“I think it has a very negative connotation,” senior Sabrina Sherman said. “I joke around with my friends that I do my best to be a tradwife. However, that has a specific definition to me. It is really tailored and doesn’t include the bad aspects of it.”

Sherman, a young wife and mother, plans on having a career after a few children.

“In my personal life, the division of labor mostly falls under the traditional understandings of female roles,” Sherman said. “When I think of the negative aspects of the tradwife culture, it doesn’t take into account people’s unique differences, skills, talents and personal preferences.”

When she was a sophomore at college, Sherman found herself unexpectedly pregnant, which led her to redefine what it means to be a traditional wife who also works.

“When I was making my plans for college, I had such strict goals for what my future would be like, but now my timeline has kind of gotten a little tossed up,” Sherman said. “I am doing my best to strive toward goals and personal improvement, but we stumble and that’s okay.” 

Kaeleigh Otting, a junior in a long-term relationship, said she often feels a culture of campus judgment around dating and marriage.

“A lot of people here assume that if you don’t graduate with a ring on your finger, then you didn’t really do Hillsdale College correctly,” Otting said. “I see a lot of women who have this idea of what a guy wants, but less of what a wife should be in a Christian sense.”

Otting said she hopes to get married and become a mother after graduation. If she cannot stay home or work remotely, she plans to go into marketing or law. 

“I think of the meme with the blonde girl and the blue sundress with the flowers on it,” Otting said. “I think that it’s the glorification of what men get out of a subservient wife and not in the biblical sense. It comes from a place of arrogance and selfishness.”

Being a stay-at-home mom should be done for the children, not the husband, Otting said.

“I don’t care if my husband wants a home-cooked meal every time he comes home,” Otting said. “I care that my children are raised in a home where a parent is present when needed.”

Otting said by caricaturing homemaking, it loses some of its value.

“You are not going to get respect if you don’t demand some form of it,” Otting said. “I think that women on this campus don’t demand enough respect as far as what they can do, either within a career field or in the home. I think one way campus culture could change is to understand that being a subservient housewife does not mean what the internet, what guys on campus, and even what some faculty thinks that it means.”

Otting argued the true definition of a good wife can be learned from the Virgin Mary, and not young men online.

“She is subservient to God, lived her life for Christ,” Otting said. “I think what you have to model yourself after is that deep care and respect for God. That floods out into how you interact with your husband, your family members, or kids.”

Sherman said it’s all about balance.

“I always joke about the Industrial Revolution and its consequences,” Sherman said. “We have all these different labor-saving devices, so now for the first time women have the opportunity to get their traditional roles done quickly and then have other things to work on.”

She said the sexual revolution came about as a response to these opportunities, but may have taken it too far. 

“Now we can have more nuances,” Sherman said. “I think the reason why the tradwife trend is becoming so popular is because society is cyclical. Maybe there was a reason why this was the way that things were pretty much always done.”

While senior Emma De Nooy Miller got married this past summer, she said she doesn’t see herself as a tradwife. She explained the difference between being viewed as a tradwife versus identifying as one.

“I think a lot of people think I’m a tradwife merely because I got married when I was 20,” De Nooy Miller said. “A lot of my close friends, especially the married ones, would say, ‘No, she’s not really a tradwife because she’s very feminist in some of the ways she thinks. For example, she took both her and her husband’s last names.’” 

Other women, such as junior Abby Idstein, had never even heard of tradwives until they got to campus.

“I had absolutely not heard of the term until coming to Hillsdale,” Idstein said. “I think of a woman in the ’50s in an apron cooking dinner. Based on what I’ve observed at Hillsdale, the husband and wife are not on equal levels. I feel like it’s more of a derogatory term.”

Idstein is studying history with the goal of being a museum curator on the East Coast or abroad. She is in a long-term relationship of four-and-a-half years with her boyfriend and does not plan on getting married until a few years after college.

“I’m definitely not a tradwife,” Idstein said. “I’m not planning on having kids until about 30. I’m not an atheist, I’m not religious, not agnostic. I’m just removed. I kind of throw around the term ‘irreligious’ sometimes.”

While Idstein said gender roles exist for a reason, she said they can sometimes become stifling and cited the “Barbie” movie as a cultural example.

“I was really excited for the ‘Barbie’ movie because it was an example of women embracing their femininity, but I walked out of that theater just feeling so awful about women — how it feels to be one,” Idstein said. “Women have their struggles, absolutely. But, I think that by victimizing us so much in the media, it just feels out of touch.”

Idstein emphasized the importance of men and women recognizing their shared experiences in order to combat gender inequality.

“I think we’re on a path to getting better,” Idstein said. “I do like seeing women embracing their femininity again. I see a lot of that just on social media and in movies, too. But for men, I think that we’re still kind of in that phase where we’re bringing men down when we shouldn’t be.”

De Nooy Miller said she has a self-proclaimed hatred for gender roles.

“I really hate gender roles,” De Nooy Miller said. “I think though, that there’s that aspect of me that has to finally admit, gender roles exist for a reason. I’m pretty confrontational, a little bit more aggressive, which tends to be more of a male attribute.” 

Before dating her husband, De Nooy Miller said she was more worried about adhering to gender roles. 

“I stupidly thought that I had to never ask a guy to dance. Yet, my husband thought it was really attractive that I am a girl that knows what she wants, that whose not playing games,” she said. 

A large portion of roles comes down to preference and God-given talent within a marriage, according to De Nooy Miller. She said her own goal is to have an active career as a dance instructor after raising young children. 

“You should ask, ‘What are the gifts God has endowed me with?’ I think God gives us gifts in order for us to glorify him best,” she said. “I don’t think that he gives men and women gifts based solely on gender.”

Senior Shannon Golden got married last summer and plans to work in healthcare after graduation. She says she partly identifies with the term tradwife, depending on the definition. She hadn’t heard much about the term except through conservative-leaning news outlets.

“I believe Jack’s the head of our household, but he’s also supposed to love and give himself up for me,” Golden said. “I wouldn’t say we follow it when it comes to division of labor, because right now we’re both full-time students so it’s not physically possible for me to do all of the housework.”

Golden said the most important takeaway for marriage is not about gender roles but rather sacrifice, a necessity for both husband and wife.

“Love is a choice that you have to make every single day as you choose to sacrifice yourself to the other person,” Golden said. “I think if you think of love as something you solely feel, then your marriage or your relationship is going to be lacking because you’re waiting for an emotional response that is never going to be there 100% of the time.”