Real life is a better teacher

In his 1997 book, Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism, Christopher Lasch observed the irony of the destruction of female agency and competency by feminism. “In allying themselves with the helping professions,” he wrote, “women improved their position in the family only to fall into a new kind of dependence, the dependence of the consumer on the market and on the providers of expert services, not only for the satisfaction of their needs but for the very definition of their needs.” The incursion of experts into the trust and imagination of women eroded intuitive wisdom and practical knowledge. With the dawning era of social media, many women have turned from the trusted expert to the popular influencer, the person who produces culturally resonant “lifestyle” content as if presenting self-evident truths.

Like early Christian heretics who simplified complicated and troubling mysteries by creating dichotomies where there were none, forcing binary choices when a little nuance would have gone a long way, the modern influencer untangles feminine troubles with logic that seems, at a glance, unassailable—until you peruse the comment section.

Millennial and Generation Z women, it seems to me, are particularly prone to fall into the trap of rearranging their lives under the influence of online accounts. Lacking an integrated and embodied community, aching for mothers and grandmothers who in past generations imparted lore and conferred status, too many succumbed to the broken promises of feminism. They are left sifting through the ash, trying to figure out how to find a man and then, if it’s not too late, to nurse a baby and get dinner on the table all at the same time.

In the absence of people who know you well enough to give good advice, the internet is ripe for the success of people like Pearl Davis, occasionally referred to as the “female Andrew Tate.” Most known for arguing passionately against women’s suffrage, she ran afoul of Christians for wishing that promiscuous women wouldn’t think of church attendance as a “get out of jail free card,” and, she declared, ironically stumbling upon a truth without even knowing it, “in some cases it is just that!” Davis’ world is so simple: Men who lie to spare the feelings of their wives are simps and a wife gaining weight should be grounds for divorce. She speaks authoritatively, as though unaware how she is dismissing centuries of wisdom hard won through affection, humility, and faith.

For those with very young children, there is Rachel Accurso, aka “Ms. Rachel,” whose videos on YouTube garner millions of views and who advises parents on TikTok. If your child has speech delays, she will show you how to speak in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice so that your baby will learn to talk. Discontented, however, with the task of teaching the alphabet, Ms. Rachel took it upon herself to exhort her audience to celebrate Pride Month. Everyone’s gender identity, no matter how young the person, must be accepted and affirmed. When she got online to defend herself for inviting notorious woman-mocker Dylan Mulvaney to be on her show for babies, she wandered into the world of Biblical exegesis and explained to her audience that Jesus says we should love our neighbors.

In a milder and more aesthetically agreeable form, there is a proliferation of “tradwife” influencers who instruct the helpless in how to make bread and keep house. These accounts are a soothing though strange phenomenon. Is it “traditional” for millions of followers to watch you celebrate Christmas on your Utah farm? Should an isolated, middle-class, overwhelmed mom really align her aesthetic inclinations to those of someone who has an entire staff to help package her sourdough merchandise?

How is it possible, I daily ask myself as I scroll, for people to be so clueless and yet so popular? Must market forces be allowed to determine wisdom, understanding, and virtue? The worst part is that no one knows her own lane and how to stay in it. Pearl Davis is not well-read or qualified to speak on the subject of marriage, women, or Christianity. Ms. Rachel might be adept at cute songs about bunnies, but she is not theologically or philosophically equipped to advise parents about the Bible or infant gender identity. And, as much as I love all my favorite tradwife accounts, watching them distracts me from the hard labor of learning to be the mistress of my real home. That only happens when I listen to the swish of my own broom across the floor, to the voices of my own children instead of other peoples’, to look into the face of my actual husband to discover how we should order our lives in the daily rituals and exasperations of real life.