The Times article detailing the life of Hannah Neeleman, the woman the internet fondly knows as Ballerina Farm, has stirred up a lot. A lot of feminists proven right about trad-wife content. A lot of big feelings about how she’s a pretty, white woman who got herself into this. A lot of people trying to highlight to us all the red flags in Hannah’s relationship with her husband that are scattered throughout the article. A lot of thoughts on organized religion and its role in keeping women subservient.
i feel like i need to get on the phone with my closest friends (cronically online is a given), and just throw up all my feelings about it. i feel hollow and bruised and like i’m holding the burden of every woman who came before me. i hold back tears as the hole that sits squarely in my chest gets wider and deeper, filling with everything that could be, everything that should be, everything that is not.
i watch think piece after think piece about how all the signs are there, about the glazed and unfocused stares, about how sad she looked when she was gifted an egg apron instead of the tickets to Greece that she really wanted, that her billionaire husband could definitely afford. i watch them juggle precariously with the idea of ‘trad-wife’ and mention Nara Smith in passing, Nara works, she wouldn’t be caught in this situation, Nara enjoys doing it, Nara released a video directly addressing that she loves being a wife and doing everything expected of her, that she chooses it. But i see all the same red flags, i see them dressed up prettier, i see them lurking in the words both said and unsaid. And i have to remind myself that we don’t know these people, we know nothing about them but the snippets that they show us.
i think about the snippets they do show us and how women are always on display, meant to be consumed in the five minutes it takes to swallow a cup of coffee, meant to be gawked at, meant to be pretty and glazed, and making bread from scratch. From scratch, another concept that sinks its claws into my shoulders, gripping at my bones, and forcing me to confront the unpaid, underappreciated, and all too unnecessary concept of women doing too much for men who care too little.
And no, i don’t care to hear about how “she’s choosing to”, “it’s her choice”, “you need to respect her autonomy”. i need you to understand that choice feminism is patriarchy parading. it wants women to be themselves, free from judgment, free to live as they wish, just free. What it actually perpetuates is rampant consumerism, repackaged misogyny, and most of all a faux sense of nuance that simply mocks us all.
i think about my aunty who forwards a whatsapp message that loudly proclaims that secular schools are ruining the youth as they’re surrounded by feminists, the evil women who further feminism, and how we’re all going to hell for letting feminists run rampant and for allowing them to educate our children. i think about my uncle who only allowed his daughters to study if they’d become teachers (why do they even need a tertiary education, they just need to be married), because teaching is a job that allows them to maintain a home life, a more important life, a life catered to a husband and child-rearing. i think of my cousins who have children and wonder ‘did she choose this’. i think maybe i could get them to accept choice feminism (no, you don’t have to be a feminist i’ll assure them, but at least you can fight for yourself), at least they’ll know that they can make their own choices. i circle back to how choice feminism means that we’ll probably end up “choosing” our way back to women not being allowed bank accounts.
i feel hollow, like someone stole my soul and i walk around with nothing but the weight of everything that every woman is going through at any moment.