A British woman who rose to fame as one of the UK’s first ‘trad wives’ has revealed she moved to Australia after the 1950s-inspired movement ‘became a monster’.
The traditional women’s movement, which emerged in the UK in 2020, argues that women should not work, but instead spend their days cooking, cleaning, wearing modest and feminine clothing, and observing traditional etiquette, being submissive to their husbands and “always putting them first”.
Alena Kate Pettitt, 38, originally from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, is a self-confessed craftswoman and has been trying to bring the idea to the UK.
But she has since revealed that she has retreated from the spotlight, deleting her Instagram account and moving to Australia to live a more private life, as it has become “politicised” and she is receiving “unwanted attention from men”.
Last year she ‘distanced’ herself from her social media page despite it having nearly 40,000 followers, saying on her blog that she is ‘ashamed’ of having joined in the social media craze.
Alena Kate Pettitt, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, who calls herself a traditional woman, tried to bring the movement to Britain but soon deleted her aesthetic Instagram page and moved to Australia to live a more private life
Alena, who founded a ‘school of femininity’ called The Darling Academyalso felt that the craftswomen’s movement had lost its way and had become a superficial movement that had lost control of its core values.
Speaking to the New Yorker she said, ‘It became an aesthetic, and then it became politicized. And then it became its own monster.’
She worried that the new generations of traditional wives were becoming “younger and younger, and more sophisticated than realistic.”
Another reason she deleted her account was the “nasty messages, the hate, the passive aggressive comments and the unwanted attention from men.”
All this was the reason why Alena decided to delete her Instagram. However, on her blog she stated that she still sticks to her traditional values, but this time more privately.
She wrote in The Darling Academy: ‘I gave it a try. I thought that speaking to the media and using a platform with so many users would be a great way to promote the brilliant work of the housewife.
‘But as with all forms of positive activism, a good message or a healthy idea, at some point it will be hijacked by the opposite of what you stand for and believe in.’
It seems that Alena also decided to take a break from her blog for almost a year to set “certain boundaries,” which she said were set by her husband Carl and other family members.
The former marketing executive recently returned to the platform, saying she had asked her husband for “permission” to announce they were now living in Australia.
The 38-year-old took a “distance” from Instagram last year, closing her account with almost 40,000 followers. On her blog, she said she was “ashamed” of having participated in the social media craze in the past.
She worried that new generations of traditional wives were “getting younger and more polished than realistic”
Alena explained that they had always thought about moving across the ocean, but it happened a little sooner than expected. Her home address in England was shared online, which made her feel ‘unsafe’.
On her blog she wrote that their ‘hearts were no longer in England’, even though they had almost bought a ‘doer upper’ house in Gloucestershire.
She said the house would be “too much work” and that, given her husband worked full-time, the renovation would be “agonizingly slow.”
The mother of one added that their privacy and safety were also ‘ultimately breached’ on a gossip forum, when their previous address was shared and their new home was nearby. According to her, the distance was ‘not far enough’ to feel safe.
She described 2023 as an Annus Horribilis, a Latin phrase for a terrible year, and said she also lost friends when she quit social media.
She said it was “disappointing to feel used” but “a relief to no longer have to take pictures “for Instagram”.
Alena indicated that she will remain true to her traditional values and will continue blogging and writing as she did in the ‘early days’ before the advent of social media.
She indicated that her content will still be about housework, but this time with “healthy boundaries.”
Alena was one of the first and most famous women in the movement of women who spend their days caring for their home and family and document their activities on social media.
She wrote two books, in which she explained her Christian beliefs and principles for womanhood. Her husband helped her self-publish these books.
In 2016, she published what turned out to be something between a guide to traditional womanhood and a memoir about self-transformation through faith. Pettitt called the book Ladies Like Us. Her next book, English Etiquette, followed in 2019.
On her blog she wrote that their ‘hearts were no longer in England’, even though they had almost bought a ‘doer upper’ house in Gloucestershire
In a 2020 interview with the BBC, she said about her blog: ‘I talk about etiquette, the female lifestyle, housekeeping and life as a traditional housewife.
“I wouldn’t expect my husband to come home after a long day at work and cook for me. My job is basically being a housewife.”
Alena gets a monthly allowance for groceries, as well as a buffer so she can ‘spend something on herself’, so she doesn’t have to ‘ask him for money’ all the time.
Alena admits she didn’t enjoy growing up in the 1990s, a time when the emphasis was on breaking glass ceilings, and says she was “born to be a woman and a mother.”
Alena enjoyed 50s and 60s series and recalled how her single mother worked full-time, making the house a “huge burden.” This was the turning point for her when she realized she “didn’t want the same life.”
She revealed that her husband also believed in the same traditional values and offered to “take care of her,” and admitted that meeting him was the moment she felt complete. “It’s almost like the fairy tale has come true,” she said.
Alena says that in her 20s she was a career woman and followed messages from the popular series Sex and The City. She believes it was a sign that women should work because it was ‘liberating and that they should follow their sexual desires’.
Unable to identify with this image, she started watching shows like Real Housewives, where she discovered that the women were ‘too rich to do the cleaning themselves and that everyone was cheating’.
She then went online and discovered an underground movement of other women who felt the same way, saying they longed for a sense of “belonging, home comforts and tradition.”
Alena, who strongly believes that your man “should always come first and you should know that,” says some feminists feel her movement undermines their work for equality.
Revealing her views on feminism, she explained: ‘My view on feminism is that it’s about choice. Saying that you can go into the working world and compete with men and you can’t stay at home – to me that’s taking away a choice.’
She distanced herself from the movement’s right-wing affiliations, arguing: ‘Being a traditional wife means investing in your family and being selfless. So I would say the opposite of that is someone who is selfish and just takes.’
In addition to blogs and vlogs dedicated to the movement, which is also conquering Brazil, Germany and Japan, many books from the 1950s and 1960s have also become popular again, in which women are ‘taught’ how to be the perfect housewife.
One of the pin-up girls of the movement is Helen Andelin, the American author of the 1963 book ‘Fascinating Womanhood’. In this book she teaches women that subordination is the ‘key to a happy marriage’ and that book has become popular again.
And, a century after the first wave of feminism ended and sixty years after the women’s liberation movement, Helen Andelin’s daughter Dixie Andelin Forsyth has founded a global “womanhood class” with 100,000 followers.
Speaking to Stylist, she claimed: ‘The movement is growing because women are fed up with feminism in the UK and elsewhere. We say to feminists: thanks for the trousers, but we see life in a different way.’