Lane, you nailed this so perfectly — the way everyone in a patriarchal system is taught to be believe that patriarchy is best for everyone:
“And this is what’s tricky about patriarchy and the trad wife content that seems to represent it: patriarchy claims that it’s not only not oppressive, but that’s its requirements of extreme and bizarre female sacrifice are best for everyone. Indeed, it claims that extreme and bizarre female sacrifice is best for women.”
I didn’t know much about the Ballerina Farm until I started reading your work on it. And I can’t pretend to know what’s in her mind. But in her case it must have been simply easier to just submit to the power of patriarchy (and the money and status she’s accumulated) than pursuing, say, the incredibly challenging dream of becoming a ballerina in New York City. Unless I missed this, they aren’t taking a of poverty out there. The whole thing is this incredible aspirational fiction that excludes the reality of poverty, racism and aging. (What’s their healthcare situation anyway?) As my husband just reminded me, courtesy of Margaret Atwood: “Better” never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.
There is definitely a class argument to be made about Ballerina Farm as well, and for that I highly recommend Meg Conley's interview with AHP. And pretty much the entire body of Sara Petersen's work :)
There's a whole separate set of questions about the reality of farm work vs. this one, and how do they always dodge questions about how they actually make money, or sustain the farm, when most farms and ranches have very low like 5% profit margins and are subsidized by the government...
I grew up Mormon in Salt Lake City and can vouch to going to a bday party at the Lion House in the nineties with other little girls. We were assigned a wife’s name and had high tea with sandwiches dressed as pioneer polygamist women. Fucked me up real good.
It was worth writing this just for this comment and validation--THANK YOU!
That was absolutely WILD, right? What were the names?? I don't remember that part. I do remember pulling taffy. There were pioneer costumes? Like they dressed us up as polygamist wives IN BRIGHAM YOUNG'S POLYGAMIST MANSION?? Say more, please.
I gotta be honest the memory now feels like a Lynchian/Mormon nightmare. I know I was about 10 and I have a very odd photo of the party somewhere. I know we put on hats and bonnets that the wives would have worn and I think based on the hat we picked they gave us a name of a wife on a white sticker, that is visible in the photo. So I don’t know if we cosplayed as BY’s wives, but there was definitely mentions of their specific names. They gave us all a Polaroid afterwards of all of us in these hats and bonnets and shawls, I’ll try to find it and jog my memory more.
Unrelated thought, “Daniel gave up his career ambitions”… when? What does that mean? When he was sent to South America to run a business for Dadu JetBlue? Did Daddy JetBlue require this in order to receive continued financial support? Is “Succession” playing out quietly behind the scenes for the JetBlue kids? How much autonomy do *they* have and still receive financial support and how does that translate to how spouses (and eventually kids!) are treated? Assuming Dad helped purchase Ballerina Farm, what kind of ROI does he demand? I want someone to give Daniel the attention he craves and ask him straight questions until he no longer give straight answers 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙃🙃🙃
EXACTLY!!!! Like, was Daniel Daddy’s favorite growing up? How about now? Is the most famous Neeleman the favorite Neeleman? Was he the screwup playboy Prodigal Neeleman and we are watching his redemption arc in real time? Did Hannah marry him thinking oh he will do his thing and I will dance and then Daddy JetBlue was like OH YOU THOUGHT SO HUH? I want to know more about what preceded the move to South America as well as the return home!!! “If we move to Utah, dad will never drop by we are safe babe”.
1) I think the photo ops probably take a fair amount of time and preparation to stage.
2) Having many, many children can be injurious to one's health--see, for example, non-TRAD wife Queen Victoria.
3) It is really tough to carry that much responsibility on one's shoulders, but the objective it seems to me is not to actually do it, but to convince other women that they should emulate those actions. This is meant to benefit MEN.
4) Not every woman can afford that infrastructure, yet women of fewer means pull off far more heroic things on a daily basis with no assistance and virtually no recognition; this is right wing porn.
"It is really tough to carry that much responsibility on one's shoulders, but the objective it seems to me is not to actually do it, but to convince other women that they should emulate those actions. This is meant to benefit MEN.
4) Not every woman can afford that infrastructure, yet women of fewer means pull off far more heroic things on a daily basis with no assistance and virtually no recognition; this is right wing porn."
Thank you, ma'am. Your article was both revelatory and depressing. I'm 70. I was there for some of the big fights. Why are women still falling for this con?
As an ex-Evangelical (and Lane you state this clearly in this post) l can assure you that conditioning from childhood is very, very powerful, and difficult to escape. l believed (utterly) until l was 34 that l would be damned to hell forever if l strayed from these beliefs or connected to people "in the world," who were evil and bad and scary. I believed l was protected and safe and on God's side in evangelical world. I had been surrounded from birth by people who told me that. Women don't fall for this con - many are born into it and to leave means eternal punishment. l was a teenager in the 70s in rural Idaho and went to a private fundamentalist high school - did not listen to rock music or even know about women's lib. As noted above, very hard to escape.
I am so very sorry for this, Constance. And I am absolutely sincere when I say that. I was born into a mixed-religion family (my father converted into Catholicism to marry my mother and his Lutheran family of birth were largely unobservant). Religion never really “took” among my brothers and me, and my mother gradually relinquished any efforts to compel us to participate. I will always consider fundamentalism to be a form of tyranny and abuse.
Oh my! I promise I will read every word, Constance. The closest I have ever come to being an evangelical or fundamentalist anything is when one of my brothers married a very observant (and very preachy) member of the RLDS church. My recollection of that time (I was 15 at the time) was of trying very hard to not be in the same room when she came to visit. The marriage ended in divorce.
I can imagine. I'm very thankful for your ability to write wonderfully about these topics. I couldn't do it. I have to dip in and out of newsletters to try and stay current; the firehose of bad and ominous news coming from most mainstream sources is too much for me.
Thank you again for your perseverance and take care of yourself. :)
What I don’t understand is all this right wing push for women to be back in the home pushing out babies is crazy becuz only the richest of the rich could afford that. Most middle class (and certainly lower class) families of any size have dual income or work multiple jobs to afford ANYTHING! We can’t all move on up to rural Utah and make toast for our 8 children over sn open fire. Who can afford 8 children??
Excellent piece. I didn't know about BF, but she reminds me of an Aussie woman I used to follow and stopped because I started to get weirded out by her. Like BF, he was also kind of granola in her way, but in typical IG fashion everything looked perfect and she stayed at home with her 4 (only 4!) kids, who are beautiful blonds like her. BF also reminds me of Jenny Marrs, an interior designer whose show on HGTV I quite like ... mainly because she is funny and self-deprecating and it seems that her relationship with her spouse, Dave, is quite genuine and equal in terms of how they split domestic duties. Then I started following her on IG only to find out she is super religious (Christian, natch) -- well, what did I expect, they live in Arkansas? But for some reason it kind of turned my stomach -- I think because I felt like I'd been tricked somehow into liking a bible thumper. (They never mention god or going to church or anything to do with christianity on the show.) Nothing to conclude, just sharing random thoughts. ;)
I respect everyone's right to religious freedom, of course, but it's so clear that they make a point of not bringing up to their religious practice, beliefs, etc. on their show.
Really excellent piece. What I find interesting is that it is often said that Arizona going to Biden/Harris in 2020 was in part due to Mormon women. You are starting to see that in North Texas, where, because of so many corporations moving here due to our tax policy, we have a huge influx of population and there are several suburbs with very large Mormon populations (Flower Mound). Also the evangelical/MAGA population doesn’t like to play nice (recent fight over building a new Temple in the far north suburbs). But what we know is that the suburbs are turning more and more blue. Hmm, wonder what is going on there.
Interesting!! Mormons here can chime in, but I do think there is a contingency of Mormon/LDS people, especially younger ones, who are more progressive. Certainly anti-Trump.
There's an organization called MWEG, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, that is very much geared toward electing ethical candidates specifically as a response to Trump. I've been thinking about interviewing them, actually!
You know, this has me wondering and waking up to the fact that walking out on all those years of Mormon conditioning didn’t just end right there. I need to think on just how much of this has seeped into shaping the different but same-y female sacrifice (and oppressive) situations I’ve ended up in since.
Lane, this is incredibly insightful…and terrifying. I really appreciate how clearly you’ve connected the dots between seemingly wholesome and harmless trad wide content like Ballerina Farm and the transparently oppressive politics of Project 2025 (and the current MAGA GOP, in general). It’s another front in the culture wars, for sure, that is laying the groundwork to normalize and lionize such extreme female sacrifice, which in turn provides justifications for stripping women of (more) rights or not enshrining rights or providing support in the first place eg “why should the government mandate maternity leave if women are better off - see Ballerina Farm - as homemakers?” Your piece also helps illuminate how BH and its ilk are essential cogs in the same right wing political-entertainment machine that tries to mainstream misogynistic provocateurs like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson. Maybe BH illustrates what we should be calling “toxic femininity”? If so, extreme female sacrifice is a core tenet of toxic femininity.
This is so well said: "how clearly you’ve connected the dots between seemingly wholesome and harmless trad wide content like Ballerina Farm and the transparently oppressive politics of Project 2025 (and the current MAGA GOP, in general)."
I'm sorry to butt in, Chris, but I do not see "trad wife content like Ballerina Farm" as being wholesome and harmless. Never mind--I was not reading thoughtfully enough. You've got it right on the nose. It is exploitative propaganda and "lifestyle" porn--like Martha Stewart's Living, but without French and Danish antiques. And more kids. Many more kids.
I think why many people follow is to watch the spectacle this family has made of their lives. Like looking at a car accident along the highway. Like the Duggers. We all know how that turned out.
I’m a quilter, and cat rescuer (other animals who need help) on IG, another quilter sent this IG page because we share also the love of cooking (I’ve since realized she’s Mormon and a MAGA). She moved from CA to Idaho Falls, love ID and hated CA, you can guess why, that “liberal” state.
This ballerina turned farm wife with many kids/babies was fascinating to watch, her “my-grandmothers” cooking skills sure beat mine. The lifestyle, social and spiritual philosophy, no. It’s hard, I have a few local and IG Mormon friends, I always wonder what it’s really like for them, or do they accept it as just, our way of life?
The "my grandmother's cooking" is wild! It's more like my great-great-great-polygamist frontier grandmother's cooking. Like, the number of steps starting with raw milk and strainin gi and curdling it and etc. etc. before she even *starts cooking. And with 8 kids in the background somewhere it just strains the imagination.
My friend sent me a clip of her making toast over an open flame with what appear to be a camping device (or museum artifact) for toasting bread over a fire. And we just died bc it takes the most simple meal imaginable and somehow makes it complicated and inefficient.
I don't follow popular culture much (or really, at all), but the lifestyle you presented reminds me quite a bit of the old Martha Stewart light home porn of the early 2000s. Martha had unlimited cash and real estate, a staff of assistants, domestic servants, and a freaking personal chef. She was absolutely not embarrassed to create gauzy tableaux of impeccably-set tables with French or Dutch or authentic Early American antique table appointments, all meticulously catalogued and credited. This is exploitation of women. I thought (hoped) that the women's movement of the 70s had killed this.
My grandmother was born in 1911, her husband (3rd) born in 1908 (his father delivered coal by horse/cart in Phili when he grew up). I remember her, my father (born in 1927) and mother (born 1929) talking about growing up, as I'm sure many here have with their grandparents of that generation; ice delivered in blocks to put in the wooden refrigerator to keep food cold. Neither families lived on farms, but as many did then, cooked from scratch (how I learned to cook, and well, and still do).
I lived for 40 y in Alaska, in town, had all the normal appliances most of us do. Ten y ago we moved to where my husband grew up, Idaho, way off the grid. We generate our own electric (pelton wheel/mini hydro plant), not enough power for a toaster, coffee maker, hair dryer, crock pot, toaster oven, microwave, standard iron, all the things you might be used to. A forest fire in 2022, flood in 2023, I learned for 9 mos to use a 1 gal/8 hr 2000KW generator to run a fridge, freezer and wifi, and for 3 mos haul water from a creek to flush the toilet (outhouse was 1/4 mi away at the other end of the property) and boil to wash dishes. Actually, many rural places around the country there are ppl living without running water or electricity, I told myself the past year. Fortunately we have a neighbor we can get wonderful spring water from (6 m r/t).
This lifestyle is of course way different than hers/theirs is, that I would def not choose. It's actually brought me some understanding, patience and compassion for those who struggle for whatever reason, economic lifestyle choice or natural disaster(s) to live and survive this way. There's a documentary on Netflix, on the Amish, it's called "Sins of the Amish", I'd highly recommend anyone watch it. I will not support any Amish community, but only women and children trying to leave that "cult". There is a small community here outside the local 3K town. The men work very hard, are great craftsman, from roofing, fence building and construction building, yet I wonder how the women survive. The SA is common in either "communities", Mormon and Amish.
I would never presume to criticize someone who voluntarily relinquishes access to vast wealth, real estate holdings, modern appliances and amenities out of personal preference or desire to harmonize themselves better with an abundant earth. On the contrary, the simplification of one's life can actually provide some sort of inner peace.
The romanticization of women's toil as a legitimate way of expressing their religious and human worth is blasphemous and abusive. I have nothing but contempt for the lot of them.
If anyone doesn't follow Tia Levings, please check out her Substack, "The Anti-Fundamentalist". She has a "fundy" cheatsheet on her website for a free download. She is publishing her first book tomorrow, "A Well-Trained Wife, An Escape from Christian Patriarchy".
Yes. That in 2024, we are still experiencing this subjugation of women, and children actually, is frightening. We know, it's about power and control. Is it because they feel so much self-loathing, or hatred, fear? #wewillnotgoback #wwngbEVER
Excellent piece! So interesting to me having served as a (feminist/pagan) homebirth, homeschooling, and farming mother and homebirth midwife to many Mormon families back in the late 1980s through mid 2000s. None were rich, of course, but some followed a similar lifestyle, as did I, in a way. But this was all pre social media and none were really making money at it.
Southern California... technically, not all farming, some survivalist types, some suburban homesteader types, a few farming small holdings. Most all devoted to natural health and healing, whole foods nutrition, and attachment mothering.
Well, being a homebirth midwife those would have been the familes I was exposed to. I am sure there were others of a different bent.
San Bernardino County, in particular, has a large Mormon population. Mormon settlers from Utah came to the valley in the early 1850s and thrived there for a time, until in 1857, Brigham Young "called back the faithful". Still, quite a few remained in the area.
Lane, you nailed this so perfectly — the way everyone in a patriarchal system is taught to be believe that patriarchy is best for everyone:
“And this is what’s tricky about patriarchy and the trad wife content that seems to represent it: patriarchy claims that it’s not only not oppressive, but that’s its requirements of extreme and bizarre female sacrifice are best for everyone. Indeed, it claims that extreme and bizarre female sacrifice is best for women.”
I didn’t know much about the Ballerina Farm until I started reading your work on it. And I can’t pretend to know what’s in her mind. But in her case it must have been simply easier to just submit to the power of patriarchy (and the money and status she’s accumulated) than pursuing, say, the incredibly challenging dream of becoming a ballerina in New York City. Unless I missed this, they aren’t taking a of poverty out there. The whole thing is this incredible aspirational fiction that excludes the reality of poverty, racism and aging. (What’s their healthcare situation anyway?) As my husband just reminded me, courtesy of Margaret Atwood: “Better” never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.
I meant to say “they aren’t taking a *vow* of poverty”
Oooh, the Margaret Atwood quote! Exactly.
There is definitely a class argument to be made about Ballerina Farm as well, and for that I highly recommend Meg Conley's interview with AHP. And pretty much the entire body of Sara Petersen's work :)
There's a whole separate set of questions about the reality of farm work vs. this one, and how do they always dodge questions about how they actually make money, or sustain the farm, when most farms and ranches have very low like 5% profit margins and are subsidized by the government...
Thank you so much!
More likely worse for most.
I grew up Mormon in Salt Lake City and can vouch to going to a bday party at the Lion House in the nineties with other little girls. We were assigned a wife’s name and had high tea with sandwiches dressed as pioneer polygamist women. Fucked me up real good.
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD ... Right?!
It was worth writing this just for this comment and validation--THANK YOU!
That was absolutely WILD, right? What were the names?? I don't remember that part. I do remember pulling taffy. There were pioneer costumes? Like they dressed us up as polygamist wives IN BRIGHAM YOUNG'S POLYGAMIST MANSION?? Say more, please.
I gotta be honest the memory now feels like a Lynchian/Mormon nightmare. I know I was about 10 and I have a very odd photo of the party somewhere. I know we put on hats and bonnets that the wives would have worn and I think based on the hat we picked they gave us a name of a wife on a white sticker, that is visible in the photo. So I don’t know if we cosplayed as BY’s wives, but there was definitely mentions of their specific names. They gave us all a Polaroid afterwards of all of us in these hats and bonnets and shawls, I’ll try to find it and jog my memory more.
This is unreal!! I have no photo evidence so the details are not as clear. Yiiiiikessss
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!
Unrelated thought, “Daniel gave up his career ambitions”… when? What does that mean? When he was sent to South America to run a business for Dadu JetBlue? Did Daddy JetBlue require this in order to receive continued financial support? Is “Succession” playing out quietly behind the scenes for the JetBlue kids? How much autonomy do *they* have and still receive financial support and how does that translate to how spouses (and eventually kids!) are treated? Assuming Dad helped purchase Ballerina Farm, what kind of ROI does he demand? I want someone to give Daniel the attention he craves and ask him straight questions until he no longer give straight answers 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙃🙃🙃
Great points!! It seems he would be v eager to be in the spotlight! The "Succession" angle killed me--love it.
I mean ya gotta wonder if the farm is the business or the trad wife brand is the real business...
EXACTLY!!!! Like, was Daniel Daddy’s favorite growing up? How about now? Is the most famous Neeleman the favorite Neeleman? Was he the screwup playboy Prodigal Neeleman and we are watching his redemption arc in real time? Did Hannah marry him thinking oh he will do his thing and I will dance and then Daddy JetBlue was like OH YOU THOUGHT SO HUH? I want to know more about what preceded the move to South America as well as the return home!!! “If we move to Utah, dad will never drop by we are safe babe”.
Amen, sister.
FWIW, some thoughts[:]
1) I think the photo ops probably take a fair amount of time and preparation to stage.
2) Having many, many children can be injurious to one's health--see, for example, non-TRAD wife Queen Victoria.
3) It is really tough to carry that much responsibility on one's shoulders, but the objective it seems to me is not to actually do it, but to convince other women that they should emulate those actions. This is meant to benefit MEN.
4) Not every woman can afford that infrastructure, yet women of fewer means pull off far more heroic things on a daily basis with no assistance and virtually no recognition; this is right wing porn.
5) What in the world are you thinking, sisters?
"It is really tough to carry that much responsibility on one's shoulders, but the objective it seems to me is not to actually do it, but to convince other women that they should emulate those actions. This is meant to benefit MEN.
4) Not every woman can afford that infrastructure, yet women of fewer means pull off far more heroic things on a daily basis with no assistance and virtually no recognition; this is right wing porn."
DING DING DING! I think you've nailed it.
Thank you, ma'am. Your article was both revelatory and depressing. I'm 70. I was there for some of the big fights. Why are women still falling for this con?
I have the same questions!
As an ex-Evangelical (and Lane you state this clearly in this post) l can assure you that conditioning from childhood is very, very powerful, and difficult to escape. l believed (utterly) until l was 34 that l would be damned to hell forever if l strayed from these beliefs or connected to people "in the world," who were evil and bad and scary. I believed l was protected and safe and on God's side in evangelical world. I had been surrounded from birth by people who told me that. Women don't fall for this con - many are born into it and to leave means eternal punishment. l was a teenager in the 70s in rural Idaho and went to a private fundamentalist high school - did not listen to rock music or even know about women's lib. As noted above, very hard to escape.
I am so very sorry for this, Constance. And I am absolutely sincere when I say that. I was born into a mixed-religion family (my father converted into Catholicism to marry my mother and his Lutheran family of birth were largely unobservant). Religion never really “took” among my brothers and me, and my mother gradually relinquished any efforts to compel us to participate. I will always consider fundamentalism to be a form of tyranny and abuse.
l agree!! I write about it on Substack - "State of Wonder" - in case you want a look.
Oh my! I promise I will read every word, Constance. The closest I have ever come to being an evangelical or fundamentalist anything is when one of my brothers married a very observant (and very preachy) member of the RLDS church. My recollection of that time (I was 15 at the time) was of trying very hard to not be in the same room when she came to visit. The marriage ended in divorce.
It’s about time someone intruded on this carefully maintained pile of big sky country cow shit and ripped the lid off it.
Just wow!! And YUCK!!! Brainwashed survival.
Hahaha. Indeed!
Excellent issue of the Matriarchy Report. Thank you for this.
Thanks so much, Steph! This one took a lot out of me and it means a lot.
I can imagine. I'm very thankful for your ability to write wonderfully about these topics. I couldn't do it. I have to dip in and out of newsletters to try and stay current; the firehose of bad and ominous news coming from most mainstream sources is too much for me.
Thank you again for your perseverance and take care of yourself. :)
This is so kind, thank you
Agree about dipping in and out. Otherwise I end up obsessing and with my stomach in knots.
What I don’t understand is all this right wing push for women to be back in the home pushing out babies is crazy becuz only the richest of the rich could afford that. Most middle class (and certainly lower class) families of any size have dual income or work multiple jobs to afford ANYTHING! We can’t all move on up to rural Utah and make toast for our 8 children over sn open fire. Who can afford 8 children??
It’s insane. This country has lost its mind.
I think if you read more of my work here you’ll find that we are v much on the same page! 😅
Excellent piece. I didn't know about BF, but she reminds me of an Aussie woman I used to follow and stopped because I started to get weirded out by her. Like BF, he was also kind of granola in her way, but in typical IG fashion everything looked perfect and she stayed at home with her 4 (only 4!) kids, who are beautiful blonds like her. BF also reminds me of Jenny Marrs, an interior designer whose show on HGTV I quite like ... mainly because she is funny and self-deprecating and it seems that her relationship with her spouse, Dave, is quite genuine and equal in terms of how they split domestic duties. Then I started following her on IG only to find out she is super religious (Christian, natch) -- well, what did I expect, they live in Arkansas? But for some reason it kind of turned my stomach -- I think because I felt like I'd been tricked somehow into liking a bible thumper. (They never mention god or going to church or anything to do with christianity on the show.) Nothing to conclude, just sharing random thoughts. ;)
Thank you Leslie! I think there is something about public figures hiding parts of their identity that is unsettling. Like, why hide it and for what?
I respect everyone's right to religious freedom, of course, but it's so clear that they make a point of not bringing up to their religious practice, beliefs, etc. on their show.
Thank you so much for writing this Lane! Sending to everyone I know.
Wow, thank you so much Sara! Means the world coming from you. You really provided the inspiration for much of this by asking such good questions!
Really excellent piece. What I find interesting is that it is often said that Arizona going to Biden/Harris in 2020 was in part due to Mormon women. You are starting to see that in North Texas, where, because of so many corporations moving here due to our tax policy, we have a huge influx of population and there are several suburbs with very large Mormon populations (Flower Mound). Also the evangelical/MAGA population doesn’t like to play nice (recent fight over building a new Temple in the far north suburbs). But what we know is that the suburbs are turning more and more blue. Hmm, wonder what is going on there.
Interesting!! Mormons here can chime in, but I do think there is a contingency of Mormon/LDS people, especially younger ones, who are more progressive. Certainly anti-Trump.
There's an organization called MWEG, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, that is very much geared toward electing ethical candidates specifically as a response to Trump. I've been thinking about interviewing them, actually!
You know, this has me wondering and waking up to the fact that walking out on all those years of Mormon conditioning didn’t just end right there. I need to think on just how much of this has seeped into shaping the different but same-y female sacrifice (and oppressive) situations I’ve ended up in since.
Honey you and me both ❤️
🤍
Lane, this is incredibly insightful…and terrifying. I really appreciate how clearly you’ve connected the dots between seemingly wholesome and harmless trad wide content like Ballerina Farm and the transparently oppressive politics of Project 2025 (and the current MAGA GOP, in general). It’s another front in the culture wars, for sure, that is laying the groundwork to normalize and lionize such extreme female sacrifice, which in turn provides justifications for stripping women of (more) rights or not enshrining rights or providing support in the first place eg “why should the government mandate maternity leave if women are better off - see Ballerina Farm - as homemakers?” Your piece also helps illuminate how BH and its ilk are essential cogs in the same right wing political-entertainment machine that tries to mainstream misogynistic provocateurs like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson. Maybe BH illustrates what we should be calling “toxic femininity”? If so, extreme female sacrifice is a core tenet of toxic femininity.
Thank youuuuuu
This is so well said: "how clearly you’ve connected the dots between seemingly wholesome and harmless trad wide content like Ballerina Farm and the transparently oppressive politics of Project 2025 (and the current MAGA GOP, in general)."
Toxic femininity indeed! Move over Mean Girls.
I'm sorry to butt in, Chris, but I do not see "trad wife content like Ballerina Farm" as being wholesome and harmless. Never mind--I was not reading thoughtfully enough. You've got it right on the nose. It is exploitative propaganda and "lifestyle" porn--like Martha Stewart's Living, but without French and Danish antiques. And more kids. Many more kids.
I think why many people follow is to watch the spectacle this family has made of their lives. Like looking at a car accident along the highway. Like the Duggers. We all know how that turned out.
Definitely! It’s lovers and haters. If you look at the comments there are lotssss of rabid fans too tho
I’m a quilter, and cat rescuer (other animals who need help) on IG, another quilter sent this IG page because we share also the love of cooking (I’ve since realized she’s Mormon and a MAGA). She moved from CA to Idaho Falls, love ID and hated CA, you can guess why, that “liberal” state.
This ballerina turned farm wife with many kids/babies was fascinating to watch, her “my-grandmothers” cooking skills sure beat mine. The lifestyle, social and spiritual philosophy, no. It’s hard, I have a few local and IG Mormon friends, I always wonder what it’s really like for them, or do they accept it as just, our way of life?
The "my grandmother's cooking" is wild! It's more like my great-great-great-polygamist frontier grandmother's cooking. Like, the number of steps starting with raw milk and strainin gi and curdling it and etc. etc. before she even *starts cooking. And with 8 kids in the background somewhere it just strains the imagination.
My friend sent me a clip of her making toast over an open flame with what appear to be a camping device (or museum artifact) for toasting bread over a fire. And we just died bc it takes the most simple meal imaginable and somehow makes it complicated and inefficient.
It's like the inefficiency is a flex!
I don't follow popular culture much (or really, at all), but the lifestyle you presented reminds me quite a bit of the old Martha Stewart light home porn of the early 2000s. Martha had unlimited cash and real estate, a staff of assistants, domestic servants, and a freaking personal chef. She was absolutely not embarrassed to create gauzy tableaux of impeccably-set tables with French or Dutch or authentic Early American antique table appointments, all meticulously catalogued and credited. This is exploitation of women. I thought (hoped) that the women's movement of the 70s had killed this.
Yes! I have also thought about Martha a lot writing this!
My grandmother was born in 1911, her husband (3rd) born in 1908 (his father delivered coal by horse/cart in Phili when he grew up). I remember her, my father (born in 1927) and mother (born 1929) talking about growing up, as I'm sure many here have with their grandparents of that generation; ice delivered in blocks to put in the wooden refrigerator to keep food cold. Neither families lived on farms, but as many did then, cooked from scratch (how I learned to cook, and well, and still do).
I lived for 40 y in Alaska, in town, had all the normal appliances most of us do. Ten y ago we moved to where my husband grew up, Idaho, way off the grid. We generate our own electric (pelton wheel/mini hydro plant), not enough power for a toaster, coffee maker, hair dryer, crock pot, toaster oven, microwave, standard iron, all the things you might be used to. A forest fire in 2022, flood in 2023, I learned for 9 mos to use a 1 gal/8 hr 2000KW generator to run a fridge, freezer and wifi, and for 3 mos haul water from a creek to flush the toilet (outhouse was 1/4 mi away at the other end of the property) and boil to wash dishes. Actually, many rural places around the country there are ppl living without running water or electricity, I told myself the past year. Fortunately we have a neighbor we can get wonderful spring water from (6 m r/t).
This lifestyle is of course way different than hers/theirs is, that I would def not choose. It's actually brought me some understanding, patience and compassion for those who struggle for whatever reason, economic lifestyle choice or natural disaster(s) to live and survive this way. There's a documentary on Netflix, on the Amish, it's called "Sins of the Amish", I'd highly recommend anyone watch it. I will not support any Amish community, but only women and children trying to leave that "cult". There is a small community here outside the local 3K town. The men work very hard, are great craftsman, from roofing, fence building and construction building, yet I wonder how the women survive. The SA is common in either "communities", Mormon and Amish.
I would never presume to criticize someone who voluntarily relinquishes access to vast wealth, real estate holdings, modern appliances and amenities out of personal preference or desire to harmonize themselves better with an abundant earth. On the contrary, the simplification of one's life can actually provide some sort of inner peace.
The romanticization of women's toil as a legitimate way of expressing their religious and human worth is blasphemous and abusive. I have nothing but contempt for the lot of them.
I agree.
I could tell you did, Minnie. I think we may have a lot in common.
If anyone doesn't follow Tia Levings, please check out her Substack, "The Anti-Fundamentalist". She has a "fundy" cheatsheet on her website for a free download. She is publishing her first book tomorrow, "A Well-Trained Wife, An Escape from Christian Patriarchy".
https://tialevings.substack.com/p/why-you-should-read-the-anti-fundamentalist?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=5b20x&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Yes. That in 2024, we are still experiencing this subjugation of women, and children actually, is frightening. We know, it's about power and control. Is it because they feel so much self-loathing, or hatred, fear? #wewillnotgoback #wwngbEVER
Excellent piece! So interesting to me having served as a (feminist/pagan) homebirth, homeschooling, and farming mother and homebirth midwife to many Mormon families back in the late 1980s through mid 2000s. None were rich, of course, but some followed a similar lifestyle, as did I, in a way. But this was all pre social media and none were really making money at it.
Interesting! Where were you living meeting all these Mormon farming families?
And thank you!
Southern California... technically, not all farming, some survivalist types, some suburban homesteader types, a few farming small holdings. Most all devoted to natural health and healing, whole foods nutrition, and attachment mothering.
Interesting! Definitely different than the Mormon household in Utah I grew up in in the 90’s and 80’s.
I often think if sone of those could have been monetized they would have. They were more Martha Stewart brand instagrammable :)
Well, being a homebirth midwife those would have been the familes I was exposed to. I am sure there were others of a different bent.
San Bernardino County, in particular, has a large Mormon population. Mormon settlers from Utah came to the valley in the early 1850s and thrived there for a time, until in 1857, Brigham Young "called back the faithful". Still, quite a few remained in the area.