OPINION: Nara Smith has ascended to the status of internet icon; recognised for her gentle voice, labour-intensive cooking and immaculate outfits. The 20-something German and South African influencer has built a hugely successful platform for herself over the last year – documenting her daily life married to Tumblr-era model Lucky Blue while pregnant with his third child.
With an idyllic content library, Nara captures the mundane moments of daily life in a nearly fantastical way – showcasing recipes for Oreos, PB and J sandwiches and soft-serve ice-cream that are handmade, from scratch. You won’t find the convenience of pre-made breads, cheeses or cookies in her videos – instead, she dedicates hours to meticulously “just” making it herself, armed with her white KitchenAid.
For time-poor nine to fivers – who have a bookmarked focaccia recipe just collecting dust in their browser – this lifestyle of creative cooking and seemingly infinite hours in a day has become a source of envy.
Her soothing depiction of slow living offers respite from the all-consuming pace of social media and daily life. A comment on her most recent ‘What I Eat in a Day’ from user @jojosyoks encompasses an overwhelming response to Nara’s brand. With almost 60k likes, they said, “we all want to be nara smith”.
I myself find Nara’s content aspirational as I’ve begun to crave this mirage of a simple, slow life – regardless of my progressive views, expensive university education and unmarried status. In a world that’s bombarded me with the slogan, “women can do anything!” since birth, the irony of this newfound calling isn’t lost on me.
The phrase domestic goddess was popularised by Nigella Lawson in the late-90s but the image of a woman saint with domestic omniscience, patience and peace emerged much earlier. Media like The Donna Reed Show and old-timey advertisements shrouded the domestic woman with a glamorous allure, signified in her string of pearls, pastel pumps and voluminous hair, entrenched in white femininity and bourgeois ideals. While the archetype’s dark underbelly has been widely discussed by feminist circles, the allure of the housewife – or at least a fascination with it – has yet to dim.
Recently, Nara has made headlines after denying recent rumours of her Mormonism and the accusations that her content was actually Mormon propaganda all along. Mormonism likely would have begun to taint Nara’s content, implying that maybe her elaborate cooking and homemaking is prescribed by the traditionalist religious institution, rather than a decision of her own choosing.
But despite the no-religion reveal as well as her silk-feathered robes, biracial identity and cool-girl look, Nara has still gained the title of tradwife (traditional wife) – or as The Cut more accurately coined, ‘Glam Tradwife’. Her content might lack the explicit ideological foundation that most typical tradwives have but still – the homemaker identity takes centre stage.
Her true agency in the matter aside, she provides an extremely traditional representation of womanhood. Almost exclusively in her kitchen, she cares for her kids and husband through diligent cooking, with the occasional bite of her final creation at the camera.
The curated content of her TikTok can’t be understood as an accurate portrayal of Nara’s life. However, her seemingly problem-free life seems to afford her the time for creative expression; to actually do something she claims to love (as she says, ‘cooking is my love language’).
This idea has notably struck a chord with Gen Z – much like the wave of tradwife content that emerged as an aftershock to the recent stay-at-home-girlfriend ‘trend’. This time, it unlocked an anthropological obsession for working-women in neo-liberal circles who got to view the intriguing world of conservative marriage in its natural habit. Evident in these women’s lives is a sense of passion, purpose and peace – the sincerity of which I can’t say.
This recent rise of homemaking content by women who are happily unemployed and supported by their partners inspired some “good for her” sentiment from “woke” audiences. The consensus believed that the feared unfulfillment or financial dependence that’s historically been associated with homewifedom is inconsequential to the disheartening experience of being a woman in the traditional workforce.
In Australia, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s move to make public the gender pay gap of nearly 5000 companies has painted a stark image with some of Oceania’s most recognisable employers receiving 30-40% in favour of male employees (in NZ, the gender pay gap is currently at 8.6%, and much higher for wāhine Māori, Pacific and Asian women).
The World Bank’s women, business and the law report has reiterated this experience, with its study of 190 countries reaching the conclusion that no country provides equal opportunity for working women. More importantly, studies repeatedly show that women continue to take on the majority of the domestic responsibilities anyway when working successful careers. The lingering unbalance of domestic labour remains alongside stagnant working conditions for women – which worsen for women of colour, women with disability and non-binary folks.
In the face of these successive studies looking at women’s lives at work and at home, it can’t be surprising that today’s generation is gravitating to the allure of the domestic goddess – for only one source of unhappiness rather than the two.
The push to legitimise homemaking and recognise the real labour it involves has been happening since suffrage. Feminist economists have stressed the importance of homemakers as it’s this unpaid work of cleaning, cooking and caring that facilitates the professional world.
Domestic work is crucial yet it’s rarely perceived so. The fact that it’s statistically mostly performed most by women might reveal the force behind this misconception.
Across the political factions, there have been countless calls to deshame full-time mothers and value housework as real work. And while the stigma may have decreased, the push to legitimise domestic labour as real and valuable seems to have fallen by the wayside. The world of the homemaker still gets branded as a simplistic, ‘lobotomised’ experience of daily life.
Comments on domestic content from Nara Smith and Emily Mariko like she has “no thoughts, head empty”, “lobotomy-core” and “I know she sleeps so well at night” only reinforce the trope of the simpleton homemaker. The one that patriarchal culture previously used to diagnose housewives’ political dissent as hysteria in the past. The age-old assumption that housewifedom is an unserious and illegitimate life path, now gets reconfigured rather than removed – considered a keen hack to the capitalist system. That’s where today’s housewife finds her allure.
It’s no coincidence that most tradwife creators are almost exclusively upper-class, with access to paid help, huge homes and disposable income. The current iteration of the domestic goddess is once again intrinsically entangled with the seduction of wealth reality, while in reality, the majority of people will never know the wealth of Nara Smith’s family – regardless of whether you and your partner both work full time. As creator @thechampagnerene has said: "[I don't think you want to be a tradwife] I think you just want universal basic income, bestie."
Several sources have rightfully refuted this overly romanticised understanding of the housewife identity, not only pointing to the real work involved in homemaking but also its harrowing risks: isolation, domestic abuse and total financial dependence.
These tactics that seek to inspire women to feel emboldened to work as a means to reduce the chances of abuse reveal a very depressing new era in the lives of working women. The disillusioned world order has let a disguised conservatism take root, repackaging volatile gender roles in the language of fad trends like slow living and divine femininity.
The complex gender implications aside, the rise of Nara Smith and her cohort reveal a collective yearning for stability and simplicity – regardless of how illusionary. For generations, young women have been told to kill the Angel in the House. Today, she gets resurrected in the chance that she could be a source of peace.
