Rachael D. Robnett In The News

Scary Mommy
When our grandmothers were young, the entire point of being a woman was to become a perfect, happy little homemaker. To take care of the kids and the house, but ultimately, to take care of a husband, who deserved to end the day in a domain exactly fluffed to his liking. It’s a very specific nostalgia for that kind of energy that has fueled the #tradwife movement. The social media “trend” has pushed women to do things like cater to their husbands’ every need, spend all of their time and energy on the home and their family, and put themselves last. And a study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly has found that the men who most want a #tradwife... are also men who seem to view women the worst.
Jezebel
“These findings indicate that men who perceive the #tradwife movement favorably believe that they rely on women for intimacy and simultaneously resent that this is the case,” Rachael Robnett, one of the report’s authors, told PsyPost. “This mentality could put tradwives in a precarious position considering the amount of control–both financial and otherwise–that they yield to their husbands.”
The Times (UK)
A growing online trend encourages women to quit their jobs, run the home and defer to their husbands. This “tradwife” movement urges a return to traditional roles and, when researchers in the US recently set out to examine what kind of men support it, they expected to find a cohort fond of old-fashioned chivalry. The reality, they say, was rather different.
Wonkette
The feminist scientific journal Psychology of Women Quarterly recently put out a whole issue centered entirely on the #tradwife phenomenon, and it is fascinating.
PsyPost
A recent study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly suggests that young men who favor the internet subculture known as the tradwife movement tend to hold hostile and patronizing sexist attitudes. The findings provide evidence that the appeal of this lifestyle for men is rooted in a desire for traditional power dynamics rather than a simple preference for a stay-at-home partner.
ScienceBlog
The image is carefully curated: sourdough cooling on a scrubbed wooden counter, a woman in a floral apron, a husband greeted at the door. The #tradwife movement has attracted millions of followers across TikTok and YouTube since it began gathering momentum during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, and it presents itself as a domestic idyll, a nostalgic retreat from the grinding complexity of modern life. You might reasonably reckon the men drawn to it are the chivalrous sort. The ones who believe women deserve protecting, cherishing, putting on a pedestal. Turns out, no.
Las Vegas Weekly
The pay gap—or the difference in earnings between men and women—persists throughout the U.S., with full-time working women earning just 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024. A recent business.com analysis of U.S. Census data shows Nevada’s full-time workforce faring better than all but Vermont, but Henderson remains a major outlier. The city had the 15th largest gap in the study, with an average female resident earning $19,645 less than her male counterpart. That’s about 2.5 times greater than Las Vegas’ $8,172 and Nevada’s $7,805, and consistent with a 2024 UNLV Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West study ranking it 21st. Let’s take a closer look at these trends in honor of Equal Pay Day on March 26.
Parents
A new survey shows why girls play sports, and here's a hint—it's not all about winning.