Inez Stepman

Human risk assessment is not a dispassionate numbers-crunching game. Those who fear flying have to know we’re four times more likely to die in a car crash than in a fiery plunge from the skies, even if we’re boarding a Boeing. The fear of flying may be common, but only a select few will rule out the jet engine entirely. When it comes to emotional risk evaluation, there is one area where phobia prevails over reason: our increasingly sterile view of what constitutes a good bet when it comes to marriage and family life. Since the second half of the twentieth century, American society has been on a mission to eliminate risk. Seatbelt and helmet laws reduced deaths in automobile and bike accidents at the expense of comfort and self-respect.

The tradwife smiles as she feeds her sourdough starter, wearing a long dress and a baby and wrangling the occasional toddler underfoot. She beams at her husband as he comes in from a long day on the ranch, or from the hedge-fund trenches. She makes salt-dough modeling clay for the little ones, whether her stove is from Lowe’s or La Cornue. The Cut describes her Instagram account as both “dangerous” and “stupid.” CNN experts lament that too many girls are turning to her as a “Band-Aid with ideological cover,” and fret about the sourdough-starter-to-White-Supremacy pipeline. Tradwives, both self-identified and smacked with admiring or hostile labels, are the latest cultural phenomenon in media crosshairs.