Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： Dissecting Tradwives and Feminism

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00:00:49.080 Hey all, Joe here, and you're listening to Sunday Nice Things.

00:00:55.500 A couple of weeks ago, I did an interview with the podcast Lovely that I haven't been able to

00:01:01.460 stop thinking about. It was just so smart and so great. We talked about Tradwives, what they're

00:01:07.760 selling, what they're promoting, the cracks in the Tradwife industrial complex. But we also really 0.96

00:01:13.800 dug into the realities of feminist choice and financial independence. And I just love this

00:01:19.540 chat. So I wanted to drop it here in our feed. The Lovely Show is great. And I'll put a link

00:01:25.260 in the show notes if you want to listen to more of their episodes. I really hope you enjoy this one.

00:01:35.940 Hello, hello, and welcome back to Lovely. I'm your host, Mahek, and happy Friday.

00:01:43.960 I hope everyone listening is doing better than I am today. She's a little sick,

00:01:49.400 but the show must go on. So here we are. And speaking of the show must go on,

00:01:55.880 everyone buckle up. We're going to go somewhere that is very online, very aesthetic, and very

00:02:03.000 2025. Today's episode, we have a really exciting topic. We also have a really exciting guest,

00:02:09.760 and we're going to talk about the rise of the trad wife. Trad wives, if you've somehow missed

00:02:15.760 this corner of the internet are women who are focusing on being full-time homemakers 1.00

00:02:21.440 and prioritizing and choosing family over career and taking on more of the domestic roles. 0.96

00:02:28.700 We have a whole generation of women that are hungry to learn these basic skills,

00:02:32.980 and they are looking to the internet to teach them these skills. This is what happens when 0.99

00:02:37.240 the pendulum swings so far one way. It has to come back down. Social media has made it

00:02:43.960 into an aesthetic. The dresses and the baking and the nice kitchens and the perfect lighting.

00:02:49.820 And it's controversial because some people think it's empowering. Choose your own gender role,

00:02:55.020 while others see it as outdated or restrictive. I do want to say right off the bat that I am not

00:03:01.420 anti-domesticity. I am not anti-femininity. I'm not anti-women choosing softness or choosing home.

00:03:08.860 Like, I don't think it's new. Like, homemaking has always existed.

00:03:13.180 What is new is TikTok, you know, with capitalism and the patriarchy being rebranded as domesticity, as an aesthetic.

00:03:21.540 And it almost just seems very performative.

00:03:29.760 So to dissect this with me, I have invited someone who has been talking about it loudly and smartly and hilariously.

00:03:38.180 Her name is Jo Piazza. She is a best-selling author, an award-winning journalist, and the host of a hit podcast called Under the Influence.

00:03:48.620 Instagram has flattened the work of motherhood in a lot of ways. It has flattened how we view the labor of motherhood. It makes it look like it is pretty and easy and joyous all of the time. And when things are viewed that way, we don't think that we need to value them.

00:04:07.640 Her latest book, Everyone is Lying to You, was also released in July of this year.

00:04:33.200 So, Jo, welcome to Lovely. How are you?

00:04:36.540 I'm good. I'm good. Thanks so much for having me today.

00:04:39.500 Yeah, I'm so happy. I mean, before we get into, you know, everything that I mentioned and

00:04:44.260 all about your book and your life, how prepared are we for the holidays?

00:04:49.520 You know, I'm doing okay. My mantra for this December is to do less. I've been saying no

00:04:57.120 a lot more. I have three small children. They are eight, six, and three. And my Christmas

00:05:03.800 shopping is pretty much done. We just got our tree up. We decorated the tree. And yeah, I'm saying

00:05:11.180 no to social engagements I don't want to go to. And I'm just trying to give myself as much grace

00:05:15.540 as possible. I fully support that. And I mean, it sounds like you have so much on the go and adding

00:05:21.580 three kids to the mix. I'm sure it gets even tougher. But I want to start where I start with

00:05:28.840 all my guests, right? What is your connection to immigrant identity and how does it shape the way

00:05:36.060 you see womanhood? It's a really interesting question for me and one that I have a different

00:05:42.640 answer to now than I would have maybe five years ago. So last summer, I actually released a novel

00:05:50.000 called The Sicilian Inheritance, which is loosely based on the murder of my great-great-grandmother,

00:05:57.960 Lorenza Marsala back in Sicily in 1916. And she was killed before she could immigrate with my

00:06:05.060 great-great-grandfather and her children over here to America. So all of the men came here 1.00

00:06:11.420 and she was left there for quite some time and was killed before she could come here.

00:06:16.140 And I've known this story my whole life, but I didn't know the details of it. Most of my family

00:06:22.200 members didn't even know her name. And I started looking into it for a potential novel. And I

00:06:29.340 found out that when, you know, nearly a million men left Southern Italy and Sicily to come to

00:06:36.680 America around the turn of the 20th century, the women were left behind and not just for a summer,

00:06:42.860 not just for a year, but sometimes for 10 years at a time. And these women's stories have largely

00:06:49.140 been forgotten. But when they were left behind in these villages, they took the men's jobs.

00:06:55.140 They started buying and selling land. They learned to read and to write and to do more complicated

00:07:01.120 math and accounting than ever before because they hadn't been allowed to with the men there

00:07:07.280 in a lot of areas. And so it was this incredible feminist time. And it was also a story that had 1.00

00:07:16.660 not been passed down in my own family. When I think about immigrant experiences and, you know,

00:07:25.940 that date back hundreds of years even, I try to think a lot about the stories that are not being

00:07:32.420 told. The story in my family was of the men who came here and built a new life. And it wasn't the

00:07:39.580 stories of the women who were left behind, the stories of the women who were the rocks of their

00:07:45.940 family who typically raised the money for the men to come here in the first place. And then also the

00:07:50.100 stories of the women who didn't necessarily want to come, who were very happy and content in their

00:07:55.780 communities back in the old country, but really had no choice because they weren't the primary

00:08:01.780 decision makers in their families. Hearing you say this story, a lot has changed and a lot has

00:08:08.540 evolved, but it kind of is still in some ways very similar. I think in certain communities and

00:08:14.900 certain countries, it's still like the women are being left behind or they don't have as much

00:08:20.360 choice. But I guess I wanted to ask like you learning about this story and also some of the

00:08:25.740 other stories, what impact did it have on you and the way you walk through life?

00:08:31.060 Well, I think it reminded me that there is so much strength and so much bravery in the women's

00:08:37.980 stories who came before me and to appreciate those stories, to continue to tell them I have

00:08:43.120 two daughters and to also help them create their own narrative of their own lives and speak those

00:08:48.820 stories very loudly so that those stories do continue to be remembered. And you said something

00:08:54.100 that's really interesting, you know, that in other places around the world, you know, women still 0.50

00:08:59.320 lack agency. I think they still lack agency in lots of parts of America, to be honest. And,

00:09:04.320 you know, most of my work, whether it's in my reporting on the podcast or in my fiction,

00:09:10.680 focuses on the way that women's stories are told,

00:09:15.980 the way that they're filtered through a male gaze

00:09:18.580 and who is creating these narratives

00:09:20.640 around what femininity means.

00:09:23.860 I think a lot of those narratives

00:09:25.040 have been created by men.

00:09:26.320 To benefit them, absolutely.

00:09:29.080 I think you and I have a similar view on it,

00:09:31.780 but I appreciate you sharing that story

00:09:33.880 and the connection to immigrant identity.

00:09:36.400 And I know you mentioned you have two daughters

00:09:37.920 and you have three kids and you're married.

00:09:40.680 This is a dating podcast.

00:09:42.040 We talk about relationship experiences.

00:09:44.460 How did you meet your husband?

00:09:45.500 What was that like?

00:09:46.860 I met my husband when I was 35 years old.

00:09:49.560 I was very much a grown human being

00:09:53.140 who had my own way of doing things in the world.

00:09:58.300 And we were journalists.

00:09:59.920 We were both on assignment on an eco cruise in the Galapagos.

00:10:03.900 I was running Yahoo Travel at the time.

00:10:06.520 And my husband was running his own sustainability website.

00:10:10.220 And yeah, there was this 10-day cruise.

00:10:12.400 We were trapped out at sea with no internet.

00:10:14.560 And on the last day, we made out on the top of the boat.

00:10:17.600 He was living in San Francisco at the time.

00:10:19.400 I was in New York.

00:10:20.520 We had a whirlwind dating experience and got engaged within three months and married in

00:10:26.700 nine months.

00:10:27.640 And at that point, I was like, oh my gosh, I have no idea how to be a wife.

00:10:30.280 I'm very good at being by myself.

00:10:33.740 What does this even mean?

00:10:34.920 and because I was a travel editor, we got to travel around the world a lot during that first

00:10:39.900 year of marriage and ask people, how does marriage work in dozens of cultures around the world? And

00:10:46.600 that turned into a nonfiction book actually called How to Be Married.

00:10:51.960 Wow. I mean, I was just going to say your story sounds like straight out of a rom-com

00:10:56.100 and what a power couple. So you were 35 when you met your now husband. What was your mindset

00:11:03.320 before meeting him? Were you actively looking to meet someone or it just kind of happened by

00:11:08.980 fate or chance? All of the cliches were completely true.

00:11:15.100 So you'll get it when you least expect it. Was it that?

00:11:18.800 Yes, it was, which is so insane. And if I told you that, then I would have said,

00:11:24.280 you're ridiculous. Shut your mouth. I was one of the last of my friends to get married. I had 1.00

00:11:29.560 been everyone's bridesmaid, everyone's maid of honor. I was so sick of it. I was just sick of

00:11:35.340 it. I was exhausted. I hated dating. I had dated every douchebag in New York city, literally all

00:11:41.180 of them. And I had just had a bad breakup with a guy who definitely would not have been right for 0.86

00:11:48.080 me, but I was just trying to shoehorn him in to that role basically because for me, and I think

00:11:54.560 this is messaging that women especially get. We still get it in our society. It's that you have 1.00

00:12:01.260 to get married. You have to get married by a certain age. If you don't, there's something

00:12:05.300 wrong with you. And I really internalized that. So after this bad breakup with my sad ex-boyfriend,

00:12:10.560 he was just perpetually sad. I took a break. I took a break. I gave up drinking for a while.

00:12:16.840 I did that mid-30s thing where you're like, I'm going to run a bunch of marathons.

00:12:19.900 It's a total cry for help. You are always running from something. And so I really just had kind of

00:12:26.940 sworn it all off for a bit. I took this trip to Kenya. It was a travel journalism trip. And while

00:12:35.860 I was there, I was in Kenya and Tanzania. And I bought myself this gorgeous Tanzanite ring.

00:12:41.860 At the time, it was like one of the most expensive things that I'd ever bought myself.

00:12:45.580 And I called it my engagement ring. I wrote this story for Elle magazine, which you can still find.

00:12:49.460 It still goes viral like every once in a while. I bought myself an engagement ring. I'm choosing

00:12:53.440 myself. I loved it. I still have the ring. Anyway, I write that. And then a month later,

00:13:01.300 I met Nick on a boat. And you're right. I think you said something earlier that this

00:13:04.920 messaging is still being passed down to women where, you know, choice is like you can choose

00:13:10.800 whichever lifestyle you want to live, right? If you want to not be married, and you just want to 1.00

00:13:17.260 have a cat or have a dog and like just live your life the way you want to live it. I was watching

00:13:22.160 a TikTok and someone was like, women need to lower their standards. Otherwise, they're going to 1.00

00:13:26.740 continue living in their beautiful homes with their beautiful wardrobe, with their fulfilling

00:13:31.460 relationships with their girlfriends. It's like, oh my God, don't tempt me with a good time, you

00:13:35.680 know? But I also love the duality of it, right? Like you are allowed to choose whatever you want.

00:13:41.060 If it happens for you, fantastic. But just because it's not happening for you, but it's happening for

00:13:45.240 someone else's timeline, you don't shrink or you don't lose your value. But you're married,

00:13:50.400 you have kids. As an observer of modern dating culture today, I guess, what are some observations

00:13:56.060 or critiques that you have? You know, I like and I hate the cliches because when I was single and

00:14:03.560 people said cliches to me, I was like, I will stab you in the eye with a fork. But I do worry 0.85

00:14:09.360 a little bit about just obsessing over the idea of marriage and having to be married by a certain

00:14:16.280 time. The one thing I think that women should think more about is do you want kids or not, 1.00

00:14:21.380 right? Because our bodies are just not created to have kids after a certain point. And if you 1.00

00:14:27.900 want to have kids, I'd love to see more women opting to do that on their own. It is a hard, 1.00

00:14:33.280 but a viable option or, and even freezing your eggs can be a gamble. I have a lot of friends

00:14:37.960 who are very disappointed by the results of freezing their eggs. And so if having kids is

00:14:42.240 a major priority for you, then making that part of your life plan. And again, that is a thing you

00:14:48.400 can be ambitious about and choosing how you want to do that. I think that's more important than

00:14:53.660 choosing to get married or chasing after the idea of marriage. I think choosing motherhood and

00:15:00.220 making a plan for motherhood, because sadly, our bodies do often have an expiration date on that.

00:15:04.900 And I've watched a lot of my friends go through that and be heartbroken when they couldn't

00:15:10.440 be a mom if that's something that they did want.

00:15:14.020 My other concern is that people are not spending enough time in real life with each other and

00:15:18.620 interacting in real life.

00:15:19.860 There is just too much time on our phones, like way less options for serendipity.

00:15:25.380 I joke all the time that there was no Wi-Fi on the boat where Nick and I were.

00:15:29.280 And he's like, that didn't have anything to do with it.

00:15:31.460 And I'm like, it had everything to do with it because even 10 years ago, I was constantly

00:15:36.120 working.

00:15:36.840 So if there was internet, I wouldn't have been playing cards up in the galley with people

00:15:40.740 in the evenings.

00:15:42.100 And that's how I got to know my future husband.

00:15:44.920 And, you know, when you think about opportunities for serendipity, like meeting in a coffee

00:15:49.360 shop, meeting in a bar, if we're all just staring at our screens during these moments

00:15:52.680 of downtime, we're literally never going to interact with other humans or even know

00:15:56.320 how to interact with other humans.

00:15:57.480 So I do worry about the impact that screen time is having on relationships and the opportunity

00:16:02.460 to meet people.

00:16:03.800 I agree with that wholeheartedly because it's like you can no longer even believe the fantasy

00:16:09.140 of meeting someone at a grocery store because you're on your phone, my love.

00:16:12.680 You're not even looking up for someone to have an in to talk to you.

00:16:17.240 There is no serendipity moment.

00:16:19.780 Actually, I did have one recently and I was like, oh, does this mean something?

00:16:23.580 No, it very much ended very quickly.

00:16:25.900 But it was a cute story.

00:16:26.740 It was the cutest meet cute I've had in a while.

00:16:40.100 Let's segue into the meat and potatoes of our podcast today. 0.98

00:16:44.500 I really want to talk about what is a trad wife? 0.65

00:16:48.640 What does it mean?

00:16:49.900 And how did this become a thing?

00:16:52.520 And why, you know, you're a subject matter expert on it.

00:16:55.020 So it's like, how did that all come to fruition?

00:16:57.680 Oh my gosh, I have unwittingly become

00:16:59.380 America's leading expert on child lives.

00:17:01.680 It's amazing.

00:17:02.700 I've been covering mom influencers

00:17:04.400 for about five years now, ever since,

00:17:07.760 oh my God, now six years,

00:17:08.900 ever since I had my second baby, my first daughter,

00:17:12.420 and she didn't sleep for the first six months.

00:17:16.400 And they tell you that when babies come out of your body

00:17:18.720 that they can't really see or focus on you right away.

00:17:21.320 So don't worry if they don't look at you.

00:17:22.800 No, this one looked me straight in the eye 1.00

00:17:24.680 the second she came out of my vagina 1.00

00:17:26.260 and was like, we ride it, Dawn, bitch. 1.00

00:17:29.200 Like, she's me, okay? 1.00

00:17:30.680 And so she didn't sleep.

00:17:32.820 I was awake all the time and rocking her, 0.62

00:17:35.880 putting her on the boob, off the boob,

00:17:37.680 and just constantly scrolling Instagram 0.98

00:17:39.660 because the only appendage I had free was my thumb. 0.99

00:17:42.180 I was being served all of these picture-perfect women, 1.00

00:17:45.520 these picture-perfect mothers 1.00

00:17:46.840 in their clean white houses 1.00

00:17:48.580 with their smiley, happy, chubby babies

00:17:50.780 who are just like clean.

00:17:52.980 Everything is clean.

00:17:53.720 no one's covered in pee and poop and everyone seems to breastfeed really well. And they're all

00:17:57.980 wearing $400 dough and dresses and floppy hats. And I was like, this is not my life. This is not

00:18:04.360 my reality. Who are these women? And also all of them were trying to sell me something. They were 1.00

00:18:09.200 all trying to sell me something that would soothe the angst that I was feeling. They were trying to

00:18:16.380 fix me. And a lot of the content they were posting, these perfect images was clearly designed. I mean,

00:18:23.940 I come from a media background. I made magazines for a long time, right? So like I get media

00:18:28.320 literacy. It was clearly designed to make you feel even more off kilter than you already were

00:18:33.560 so they could sell you the problem solver. And I really wanted to start reporting on this.

00:18:39.840 I started the podcast under the influence. The first two seasons are a really deep dive

00:18:44.360 into the world and business of mom influencing.

00:18:48.940 And at first, I thought I was just going to pull back the curtain on this.

00:18:51.800 And I did.

00:18:53.300 But through the reporting, I realized that there is a lot of yes and going on.

00:19:00.340 That two things can be true at the same time. 1.00

00:19:04.660 A lot of this can be very damaging for women. 1.00

00:19:07.140 It can create a lot of guilt and shame.

00:19:09.340 It is very deeply rooted in toxic capitalism.

00:19:12.940 But also, the corporate world and the working world is terrible for women, terrible for mothers. We are treated so poorly. And social media allows women to create their own jobs, their own media ecosystems to launch their own brands, to make their own money. And it can be just as powerful and helpful for women as it can be harmful.

00:19:40.520 When we look at the rise of the Trad Wife movement, influencers are the ones that you see living this aesthetic and kind of selling it to the masses.

00:19:50.640 And a name that comes to mind is Nara Smith.

00:19:52.440 I asked my husband what he wanted for lunch today. He said he wasn't too hungry. All he wanted was a small Caesar salad with some protein.

00:20:00.900 So I started by spatchcocking my chicken, making a quick garlic lemon thyme butter. 0.98

00:20:05.620 What is your take on the Nara Smits of the world and what do you think they're selling 0.99

00:20:10.280 and what do you think people are not seeing?

00:20:12.120 What I saw was an evolution about two years ago from just the standard run-of-the-mill

00:20:19.680 mom influencer to trad wifery, which was this really intense performance of domestic labor

00:20:29.300 specifically designed to sell you something that also came along with these very conservative

00:20:36.160 undercurrents that said things like a woman's highest calling or only calling is to be in the

00:20:44.720 home caring for not just her children, but caring for her husband, that a woman should be submissive

00:20:51.200 to her husband, that young women will be so much happier if they're not working outside the home 0.84

00:20:59.160 if they just let a man take care of them.

00:21:02.500 And we're starting to see the cracks in that facade.

00:21:05.600 We're starting to see these influencers truly step up

00:21:08.720 and say, oh no, I wanna be a mogul.

00:21:12.820 I wanna be the CEO of my own brand.

00:21:15.900 And there was a recent profile in the New York Times

00:21:18.220 of Nara Smith, who for a long time

00:21:20.440 was performing these domestic tasks on social media 0.95

00:21:24.860 as an influencer, as an influencer

00:21:27.040 who was monetizing her content 0.97

00:21:28.900 who knew very well that the algorithm really liked this kind of submissive seeming woman 1.00

00:21:35.880 performing labors in the home. And now she's openly saying, I am running a company. I want 1.00

00:21:45.020 to be a media mogul. I left my child with the nanny so I could take all of these meetings today.

00:21:49.900 We're finally seeing these women more for who they really are, which is women who truly do 1.00

00:21:56.600 want to build businesses out of this aesthetic. Just to add into that, I think this whole

00:22:03.400 movement of Trad Wives, I feel like they're selling a lifestyle they themselves are paid to 1.00

00:22:08.280 escape. When it becomes dangerous is like some people are doing it really well because, you know,

00:22:13.980 the Nara Smits of the world, they look a certain way, they have backing behind them and their post 0.88

00:22:17.780 goes viral. If your post doesn't go viral and you're being sold that aesthetic and you're buying

00:22:22.080 into it, which, you know, let's be honest, a lot of people are, then you risk being dependent and

00:22:27.600 dependency is where it gets dangerous, right? And again, look, I truly believe that like the

00:22:35.960 best form of feminism, and every time I talk about this now, I get shit on by a bunch of feminists 1.00

00:22:40.000 and it's exhausting and it's the problem with feminism these days. What we need to be promoting 1.00

00:22:44.320 is choice, is choice for all women, choice and options. If you want to take on all of the labor 1.00

00:22:52.000 of running a household. Amazing. You should have incredible options and a safety net to do that.

00:22:59.080 Same thing. If you want to go back to the workplace, you should have all of the protections

00:23:02.640 you should be making as much as a man. You should have paid childcare. We need choice and we need 0.96

00:23:07.160 options. And that should be the highest calling. I agree. And I think where we kind of lose the

00:23:11.380 pot is like, how do we differentiate between like true autonomy and that gives you comfort

00:23:16.680 in doing all of these things that you want to do versus conditioning, right? That's like being

00:23:21.620 sold to you as empowerment. Like, you're right, exactly. There needs to be there needs to be

00:23:26.140 choice. And you can love homemaking and love ambition, right? You can be feminine and

00:23:31.640 independent. But I think where again, it gets dangerous. It's like, here, I'm going to sell

00:23:36.340 you this fantasy that offers something really tempting, because there is choice paralysis,

00:23:40.260 right? Women today have more freedom than any generation before us. But also more pressure, 1.00

00:23:44.700 more decisions, more burnout, more chaos. So I think the Tradwive fantasy is like, hey,

00:23:49.700 we'll give you one role, one identity, one purpose, one structure. But I just hate the

00:23:55.520 fact that it still doesn't benefit them. It's still built by a system of men to please men.

00:24:12.160 Another area where my brain went, and maybe like correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like 0.84

00:24:16.700 Every time women gain a new form of freedom, some nostalgic aesthetic pulls us back, right? 0.80

00:24:25.760 Like history keeps glitching. 0.96

00:24:27.780 Like when we got the right to vote in like 1920s or by the 50s, we had some other propaganda.

00:24:34.480 Then when we entered the workforce in 60s and 70s, then the super mom myth came, right?

00:24:39.820 It's like every time we take steps forward, capitalism is like, no, no, no, you're getting

00:24:44.780 too far ahead.

00:24:45.360 you're going to be way too like dangerous. We're going to pull you back. Yeah, absolutely. The

00:24:50.240 really toxic and upsetting thing about that is that it is often being controlled by other women 0.84

00:24:57.580 as well. And that's what I found so dangerous about the Trad Wife movement, because it started 0.99

00:25:04.360 coming up around the later days of the pandemic and then really gathering steam more and more. 0.99

00:25:10.460 I mean, I think we saw it really reach an apex a couple of years ago. But the way that I define

00:25:17.320 trad wife is not someone who stays in the home. I actually hate the word staying in the home. I'm

00:25:24.340 talking to my friend Nia Roosh this week on my podcast about how can we completely eradicate

00:25:28.860 the phrase stay-at-home mom because it's ridiculous and no one is just staying. Everyone

00:25:33.560 is running around all the time because caring for a household is so much work. But I see trad

00:25:39.380 wife as someone who is explicitly performing domestic labors on social media for a profit.

00:25:48.240 And they're capitalizing on this kind of false nostalgia for a time that never really existed,

00:25:54.100 not in the 50s, certainly not in, you know, Little House in the Prairie time. Because women are so 1.00

00:26:00.460 exhausted, because the workplace and the world has burned us out, and we're looking for a soft 1.00

00:26:05.700 place to land. And they've created this very binary choice of, well, you can be miserable

00:26:13.580 working outside the home for money, or you could give all of that up and have this soft life

00:26:19.280 at home, raising your babies. My biggest problem, and I have a lot of problems with tradwifery 1.00

00:26:24.520 performed online, they erase all of the labor from the home. So you only see the bread. You 0.89

00:26:30.380 don't see the messy kitchen. Every time I bake something, my entire kitchen is coated in flour.

00:26:36.600 My children are coated in flour. I have flour in every orifice of my body. Okay. We don't see that.

00:26:42.400 You said a really good point there. It's like they erase the labeler of it and just glamorize

00:26:47.520 the output, which is not how life works. I don't like the story being sold to women 1.00

00:26:53.540 that it's easier because I don't think it is. I think working and not being the full-time 0.98

00:27:00.320 caregiver for my children all day is easier. Granted, mine are in school all day now though.

00:27:05.540 But I don't like the myth that it's easier. It's not easier. I also do not like the mythology,

00:27:12.820 and I think it's very dangerous, of being dependent on a man is easier because men can

00:27:19.500 leave you. Men can die. Men could spend all your money behind your back and you'd have no idea.

00:27:25.880 If this is something that you're choosing, you have to have a very clear strategy for financial

00:27:31.720 independence and a very clear strategy for how to support yourself and to survive and to support

00:27:37.320 your children and help them to thrive if a man is no longer in the picture. Totally. And again,

00:27:43.640 that's dependency right oh my god i was looking at content on this before hopping on recording 1.00

00:27:49.700 this episode there was this woman who was in our car and she was speaking to the camera and she's

00:27:53.820 like i do not have a career i chose to raise my kids they're five and seven and i've been a stay

00:28:01.060 at home mom for the past 10 plus years i have no income i have no money i use my husband's credit

00:28:09.320 card, and I used my husband's money, and, uh, two weeks ago, he told me that he wants

00:28:15.920 to move forward with divorce, um, and, uh, today, I, I use, I literally, like, I used

00:28:26.640 a, an American Express credit card for everything, it's got my name on it, but obviously he pays

00:28:30.580 the bill, uh, he told me he's gonna cut it off, and I gotta, like, move all the automatic

00:28:36.580 payments and stop using it and he said you need to start using your own card now what card i don't

00:28:46.740 have a card that is my card and in the comments people are like you do have half of his money

00:28:52.600 like you've been married for you know so and so time she's like i don't i signed a prenup 0.90

00:28:57.220 yep i would lose my fucking money like i would go to jail i'm sorry what i know 100 it's such 0.97

00:29:05.440 just that reality that it happens. And it happens so often. We don't hear about it. One, it's not 0.99

00:29:11.440 glossy and beautiful on social media, right? So that's not being elevated to where we see this

00:29:17.000 TradLife content. And it often feels shameful because women feel guilt and shame like they 0.93

00:29:21.980 did something wrong. So they're not sharing those stories. When my dad passed away, my parents were

00:29:26.480 married for more than 30 years. When he passed away, she found out that he hadn't paid taxes

00:29:31.740 in years and he'd taken out a second mortgage on their house. So she had no equity and no safety

00:29:35.720 net whatsoever. He just did it. She has no idea what he spent the money on. Uh, and she was left

00:29:42.280 with nothing essentially. So it is just such a common story. I do like to preface all of this

00:29:50.280 with the fact that I love men. I love good men. I'm raising a good man. I'm married to a good man.

00:29:57.260 And I also think that a big charge of feminism going forward is to nurture more good men in the world, because we also can't nor should we be doing this on our own. But there are so many toxic men out there. And I do not like the narrative of the knight in shining armor that a man is going to come in and swoop in and rescue you and solve all of your problems.

00:30:19.760 if we're being honest about the economics of the world right now, more men are getting laid off

00:30:25.460 on a regular basis. And women who are laid off from their jobs are much more likely to pivot.

00:30:32.400 They're much more likely to shift careers. They're much more likely to figure it out because that is 1.00

00:30:36.320 what we are very good at. And men are not. So many of my female friends are now the breadwinners

00:30:43.600 in their families. The economic reality is also that most people cannot support a household or 0.88

00:30:50.300 typical American household on one income. And I don't know where these young women who say, 0.99

00:30:55.740 well, I just want to be a trad wife, a soft girl and have a man support me. I don't know where 0.98

00:31:00.840 they think all these rich men are, but these things do really well on social media. And I've

00:31:05.680 talked to a lot of young women who have told me, be like, I just want to be a soft girl. I just

00:31:10.120 want a man to pay for me to go to yoga and I'll make him like a meal every day and I'll make the 1.00

00:31:14.840 bed. And I'm like, that is not what you are in for. If that is the relationship you're looking

00:31:20.840 for, because that man is typically going to be incredibly domineering, controlling, and you're

00:31:25.040 not going to have your own financial safety net. Gender roles still exist today, but they're 1.00

00:31:29.420 definitely not the same as they used to be back in the day, right? Like where the man is like the 0.99

00:31:34.200 sole financial provider and women are, you know, taking care of the household and then like take 1.00

00:31:38.900 care of the man, as women are earning more, you know, they're getting more education, they're in 1.00

00:31:44.360 careers of their own. What's your take on power and gender dynamics? And like, I guess, how does 1.00

00:31:51.100 it, if you're open to sharing, how does it work in like your marriage? Like, is it pretty traditional

00:31:55.820 or is it like kind of what works for you? Like, how does the caretaking and childcare and finances

00:32:00.780 work in your own life that your kids are seeing an example of? Yeah, I do want to say one thing

00:32:07.860 off the bat too. It's that these gender roles existed for so long because it behooved men 1.00

00:32:13.780 and because women weren't allowed to work and women weren't allowed to have credit cards. I mean,

00:32:19.100 it's not as if this is some kind of natural order to things, but in the past hundred years in this 0.99

00:32:25.560 country, it's because women weren't getting hired for jobs. Women couldn't get access to education 0.99

00:32:29.840 and women couldn't get access to money. And that's the way it's been in most of the world. 1.00

00:32:33.800 It's not as if this is just, you know, ordained by the universe. 0.76

00:32:37.780 It's because mostly men chose that their lives would be easier if women were the ones taking 0.80

00:32:44.560 care of the home and taking care of them. 0.89

00:32:46.900 In my family, I'm not even going to say it's non-traditional because I also don't love

00:32:52.280 the word traditional.

00:32:53.420 It's like, whose tradition are we talking about?

00:32:55.080 Where is this coming from?

00:32:56.800 In my family right now, we've done a lot of different iterations of how this works and

00:33:02.080 it's changed a lot.

00:33:03.800 When I got married, both of us had our own finances.

00:33:08.320 We had our own lives and our own careers.

00:33:10.840 And we've seen different fluctuations of how we work.

00:33:15.400 When I had my first baby, I was fully freelance and my husband was definitely the breadwinner.

00:33:22.300 He was working on his own company.

00:33:25.080 Over the next few years, my career as an author and a podcaster really took off.

00:33:32.380 And we were both working all the time and we had caregivers working with us.

00:33:37.220 We had au pairs for a really long time after we had our second baby for about five years.

00:33:42.080 We only recently don't have an au pair any longer because all three of our kids are in

00:33:47.000 school until three every day.

00:33:48.920 And then recently, in the past two years, my husband got laid off and we talk about this

00:33:56.280 very publicly and he's pivoted careers and switched.

00:33:59.260 And now I'm the breadwinner in the family, whereas he was before.

00:34:03.980 And we've worked really hard for him to take on more child care duties and more running

00:34:11.280 of the household.

00:34:12.840 And that's been an uphill battle because I don't think that we're culturally prepared

00:34:17.080 for that.

00:34:18.300 And we've worked really hard on it.

00:34:22.180 And now we've launched a media company together.

00:34:24.960 It's called Influential Media.

00:34:26.240 and we're running a company and a household together.

00:34:31.140 So it's a lot.

00:34:33.140 It's a lot of work.

00:34:34.240 We're both putting in a lot of work.

00:34:35.440 I don't know how one person runs a household

00:34:37.120 because I feel like we're both doing a full-time job there

00:34:39.160 just trying to manage three children.

00:34:41.540 It's a challenge,

00:34:42.560 but it's also what we're modeling for our kids.

00:34:44.640 I asked my daughter and my six-year-old,

00:34:46.200 I'm like, what do you want to be?

00:34:46.980 She's like an astronaut and a mom.

00:34:48.700 I'm like, you can be both things.

00:34:49.700 That's amazing.

00:34:50.620 I love being a mother so much more than I thought I would be.

00:34:53.920 I mean, I had three of them, right?

00:34:55.780 after the age of 35, I had my last one at 42. And I also love being a really successful

00:35:01.680 creator in the world. You can be both things. My kids really respect my job.

00:35:07.440 They come on book tour with me and they love it. That is a really good thing to model for children.

00:35:14.560 That idea of this, these gender roles where a man makes the money and a man is the like hunter and 1.00

00:35:20.740 protector. To me, it's bullshit. And I think it's really toxic and hazardous. And I think it's also 1.00

00:35:25.200 contributed a lot to male depression and the male loneliness epidemic because it's telling men that

00:35:29.880 they can only be one thing. And that sucks if they happen to not be good at that one thing.

00:35:33.820 And the truth is, most men are. We were saying earlier that we're not like talking about feminism 0.97

00:35:38.940 here and being toxic about it. Like we see both sides of it. And I think you and your husband are 0.67

00:35:44.300 actually modeling something really healthy for your kids. And I think it takes a lot of bravery

00:35:48.680 and strength to undo years and years and years of conditioning.

00:35:55.200 i want to talk about your most recent book everyone is lying to you tell me more about it

00:36:11.180 who is lying to us and what are they lying to us about oh my god i mean pretty much everyone is

00:36:14.920 lying to you we all are we all pick and choose what we're going to show of ourselves online and

00:36:21.260 we live in an age where everyone has to be a brand of some sort, which is exhausting. And I

00:36:28.220 wish that we didn't live in that age, but I can't get off social media. It's the number one way that

00:36:33.120 I sell my books and that I sell my content. There is so much that we don't see on camera and on

00:36:39.900 social media. And because these picture perfect lives aren't picture perfect. When we look at

00:36:44.500 a lot of the trad wife influencers, what we don't see are their armies of nannies. So many influencers 0.99

00:36:50.100 also rent entire houses, so we're not seeing their even actual house. They're just renting

00:36:54.300 a kitchen for the day. They can even rent a farm with chickens and goats just to perform farm labor

00:37:00.460 for the Instagram because hen fluencing is very successful. Once I realized all of those smoke

00:37:06.260 and mirrors and deception, I was like, well, this is just ripe for murder. I started to write what

00:37:10.720 I call the quintessential tradwife murder mystery, Everyone is Lying to. And it's about two best 1.00

00:37:16.600 friends who have, they had a falling out right after college. And now one of them is a massive

00:37:24.160 trad wife influencer living on her gorgeous ranch somewhere out West with her gaggle of children and

00:37:30.460 her handsome cowboy husband, but nothing is as it seems. And the other friend is a journalist who

00:37:37.300 she reaches out to and says, I have a big scoop for you. Meet me at this crazy mom influencing 1.00

00:37:42.100 conference called Mom Bomb. And she does. And then the influencer's husband winds up dead. 0.75

00:37:49.300 She goes missing. And the journalist has to try to figure out what is real and what is all smoke

00:37:55.000 and mirrors on social media in order to try to clear her friend's name. Oh my God, I'm on the

00:38:00.860 edge of my seat wanting to like know more. But how has the success of the book been since you

00:38:05.300 released it? It's been great. We came out in July. It's selling really, really well. It's a national

00:38:11.200 bestseller. I did a three-week book tour all over the country in red and blue states. And

00:38:18.140 what I can tell you is that women, especially young women, are very hungry for this kind of

00:38:23.540 content. I mean, the book is fun. It's a thriller. It's also lightly satirical and sometimes laugh

00:38:30.600 out loud funny. But at its heart, we do get to talk about these things. Like, what does women's

00:38:35.860 ambition mean? And how can we get the things that we want? And what I found is that young women were 1.00

00:38:41.920 really hungry to talk about those things. Yeah, absolutely. And especially from a different POV

00:38:47.120 where I feel like you're giving them the good, bad, and the ugly, right? And I think online,

00:38:52.640 you're just giving the good. So it's hard to kind of understand where your POV lies and what do you

00:39:00.520 want for yourself? Because let's be honest, when I was younger, my frontal lobe wasn't developed.

00:39:04.540 And I always love getting advice from people who have lived experiences that I haven't lived and then kind of making your own judgment about it.

00:39:13.900 But if you don't have that like muscle to like make that judgment, like you'll take anything at face value.

00:39:20.080 So I do like that there are different opinions on this.

00:39:24.440 Yeah, I do, too. And the book explores women wanting to have these different kinds of ambitions.

00:39:30.600 It explores women really wanting to be ambitious about motherhood and fully lean into that.

00:39:36.100 And then women really wanting to be ambitious about a career.

00:39:38.620 And then other women who just want balance, which is really all that I want. 0.68

00:39:42.820 I'm like, I want to work and I want to have kids.

00:39:45.300 And I want to love both of those things.

00:39:48.540 Yeah, you can build a home and build a career.

00:39:50.500 And like softness does not have to mean submission, you know, in the way that it's being packaged

00:39:54.600 to you.

00:39:55.020 But I guess what is the final verdict?

00:39:56.840 Like, what do we want women listening to this to actually take away?

00:40:01.320 I want us to be a little bit more savvy about what we're being served on social media.

00:40:06.060 If something is making us feel guilt or shame about our own life, then it's not serving

00:40:10.540 us.

00:40:10.960 You get to curate what you're looking at.

00:40:12.620 You get to curate how the algorithm serves you.

00:40:15.860 The truth is that the majority of people performing on social media are there in order to sell

00:40:21.620 you things.

00:40:22.160 And I think that's hard to remember because social media is supposed to be social and

00:40:25.380 it's happening on the same platform where say we see our cousin's new baby or our neighbor's cute

00:40:29.840 dog, but that is intermingled with people selling to you and wanting you to feel off kilter about

00:40:37.360 your own life so that you'll buy things from them. So I just think we all have to be a little bit

00:40:41.720 more media savvy going forward because this is only going to get more dangerous, especially as

00:40:46.220 AI is introduced into the mix. And I would love to see media literacy be more of a thing in our

00:40:51.900 society and for children, for grownups. I want to see it taught in public schools as young as

00:40:55.740 kindergarten. Oh my God. And like you said, everyone is lying to you. I know we're coming

00:41:04.800 up closer to an end and I would love to ask you a question that my last guest left. So we have this

00:41:12.420 tradition where the last guest leaves a question for you and then you will leave a question for

00:41:16.940 my next guest. DB is Danielle Bezalel. She is a sex educator. She also has her own podcast.

00:41:24.720 And she wanted to ask, what is one thing that you are doing consistently for yourself right now

00:41:30.740 to give yourself pleasure? It's such a good question. And I'm trying to prioritize

00:41:35.820 my own pleasure much more than I have maybe in the past nine years since I started breeding

00:41:43.880 so much. I, I'm making sure that I'm reading every day and reading for fun because not all

00:41:49.880 reading for me is fun because I'm a writer. A lot of it is actually work, but I'm choosing

00:41:55.700 books that are, are simply for, for pure enjoyment. I am prioritizing working out,

00:42:02.520 but that is less for pleasure. And that is more for, I want to be strong. I want to have a strong

00:42:08.600 ass, middle-aged lady body. I will say I'm really prioritizing spending time with my girlfriends 1.00

00:42:14.880 and traveling alone as well. I recently went to Paris. I was finishing up my new novel,

00:42:21.300 The Parisian Heist, which is out next summer, but I had a bunch of girlfriends come with me.

00:42:26.000 And so we had dinners every night and we made sure to go on long walks and shopping together.

00:42:30.380 And so prioritizing that kind of socializing that truly brings me joy and is especially

00:42:35.160 centered around being in a new place and discovering a new place and eating delicious

00:42:39.360 food is something that I'm really prioritizing now and I will be in the coming years.

00:42:48.080 That's lovely. And I think food is the sixth love language. And I guess,

00:42:52.900 Jo, what is your question for my next guest? So I've been thinking a lot about nostalgia,

00:42:58.800 a lot of nostalgia that people my age, and I'm 45, have for the decade, like the 90s.

00:43:05.960 And then the nostalgia that some people younger than me that never experienced that have for the

00:43:10.580 decade. And I don't think it's necessarily a longing for the 90s, although I did just get

00:43:14.780 some really nice vintage Doc Martens from the Camden market in London. I think it's more of

00:43:19.680 a longing for real life and for being in real life with people without being on screens. And so I'd

00:43:25.580 like to know how your next guest is prioritizing real life over life just living in the digital

00:43:34.420 world oh very very interesting question i love it so much i can't wait to ask that one

00:43:42.000 I would love for you to plug your socials

00:43:57.280 and any other information

00:43:58.600 that you think our listeners would find helpful.

00:44:01.240 I'm on Instagram at Joe Piazza Author.

00:44:03.680 I have a newsletter called Over the Influence.

00:44:05.560 My podcast is called Under the Influence

00:44:07.360 and you can find my books wherever books are sold.

00:44:10.360 Everyone is Lying to is the newest one.

00:44:13.020 And then next summer, we have the Parisian heist,

00:44:15.200 which is a feminist art heist in the present day

00:44:17.880 and a past timeline of the untold story of Joe Van Gogh.

00:44:21.540 Ooh, very much in time for the whole Louv incident

00:44:24.800 that we just saw.

00:44:26.380 Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:44:27.720 Yeah, okay.

00:44:28.480 Well, I will end the episode by saying,

00:44:32.420 I think my biggest takeaway and kind of messaging is

00:44:35.660 women are allowed to love softness,

00:44:37.500 But I think the problem is not when it's being sold back to you as like a performance or a brand or a pathway to anyone's approval, not just male approval. 0.94

00:44:48.340 The problem is the complex around that it romanticizes dependency as empowerment.

00:44:54.260 And that's where I think it gets dangerous.

00:44:56.720 Well, absolutely. And that it strips the labor of homemaking.

00:44:59.140 It makes it seem like that's the easier choice when anyone who has ever tried it knows that it's not.

00:45:04.300 Thank you so much, Jill, for being here today.

00:45:06.540 Thanks so much for having me.

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 21, 2025

Sunday Nice Things： Dissecting Tradwives and Feminism

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