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Related: About this forum'When Power Curdles Into Violence': Escaping the Tradwife Lifestyle
When Power Curdles Into Violence: Escaping the Tradwife Lifestyle
PUBLISHED 12/23/2024 by Dr. Samra Zafar
As someone forced into a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are choosing a life without choiceputting themselves in a prison of their own making.
Activists demonstrate against child marriages in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 28, 2024, amid parliamentary discussion over a proposed amendment that would increase underage marriage in the deeply patriarchal society. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP via Getty Images)
Brides shouldnt be thinking about homework just before their wedding day. But when I entered into an arranged marriage with a 28-year-old stranger, I was still just a 17-year-old girl who loved her private British school and her books and cricket. As such, I found myself thinking about a recent creative writing assignment: Id written a story about a young woman who wore jewelry in the shapes of snakes. I wrote that they suddenly came to life and they slithered up to her throat, strangling her. That story would be a grim foreshadowing for the next 12 years of my life.
Shortly after our ceremony in the Middle East, my new husband and I moved to a suburb in Canada. I was excited about the North American education that he had promised memaybe, I thought, I could even become a doctor. But everything changed when I became unexpectedly pregnant. I couldnt go to school anymore, and over time, in nefarious and subtle ways, I lost more and more of my freedoms: I couldnt leave the house, have my own money or own a cellphone. When I voiced concerns about my marriage, I was told it was a womans destiny, the will of our god. Slowly, my dreams were poisoned, and I was consumed by the belief that if I didnt serve my husbandironing his shirts, making his lunch, doing the dishesI would be a failure as a wife and mother. It didnt take long for his browbeating to become physical beatings. He would grab my wrist and shove me; hed slap me; hed pull me by my hair and spit in my face. Once, he punched a hole in the wall next to my head and told me, Next time, its going to be you. On another occasion, he picked up a knife and vowed to kill me, then himself. At one point, I took a razor blade into the shower and thought about cutting myself, stopping only when I heard my baby cry. And through all this, I became certain that somehow, my unhappiness was my fault. So trust me when I say that I know what its like to live as if women dont have rights. In my marriagemy familyI was effectively stripped of my freedoms.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned about the social media phenomenon of tradwives: influencers in pretty dresses, cheerfully handing over their rights to serve their husbands. These women romanticize a golden era of Americas past that never even really existed: an imaginary time where the husband was the breadwinner and provider, and the wife was the obedient homemaker and childbearer as is natural, as God apparently intended. As someone who was forced into a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are effectively choosing a life without choiceputting themselves in a prison of their own making. Their supportas well as the support of men who fetishize the so-called traditions that promise to make America great againalso helped return Donald Trump to the White House. Both the president-elect and his VP JD Vance have branded themselves as champions of family valuesa catch-all justification based on the toxic premise that a womans place is in the house.
Samra Zafars memoir, A Good Wife: Escaping the Life I Never Chose, shares her journey of escaping an abusive child marriage to pursue her education. (Courtesy of Zafar)
. . . .
Ive lived in the world these people want. You dont want it. But I can also tell you that Fuentes is wrong when he says its forever. When youre trapped in that world, stripped of your rights, it can feel like youre being swallowed whole by despair. But you find a way. I studied in my room every night to complete my high school education. After I had my second daughter, I got an undergraduate degree, then a masters degree in economics, graduating at the top of my class, and worked at one of Canadas biggest banks for years. Then, inspired to help others on their own healing journeys and informed through my own experiences, I switched tracks completely to pursue my childhood dream of being a doctor at one of the worlds best medical schools.Today, through my psychiatry work, I know we dont truly move on from trauma, we move with itand that our capacity to heal is even greater and more powerful than the worst things that happen to us. Women understand this better than most, because we are always moving forward. The last thing we want is to be dragged back to the past and re-litigate the battles weve already fought and won. Ive fought hard in my own life to make sure I could make my own choices, and so my daughters could do the same. The point is choosingit is like breathing. We must not let that be choked out by those who would take us back.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/12/23/tradwife-child-marriage-women-equality-education/
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'When Power Curdles Into Violence': Escaping the Tradwife Lifestyle (Original Post)
niyad
Dec 28
OP
Demobrat
(9,966 posts)1. What a brilliant woman.
A friend of mine has a couple of young female relatives who think they want the stay at home girlfriend dream they see online. Their only goals are to look good and find a man to take care of them.
They think its an easy life. God help them.
niyad
(120,839 posts)2. That is just utterly sad, and completely deluded.
Timeflyer
(2,741 posts)3. Wow. The voice of truths learned from hard-lived experience.