If Having a Boyfriend is Uncool, Why is Traditionalism Trending

A few weeks ago, a Vogue article was released, Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?, the title of which was subsequently misleading. The article itself captured the zeitgeist, looking at how women are no longer defining themselves by their male partners and want to be recognised for their own identity: posting their boyfriends less, obscuring partner’s faces and being subtler about relationship on social media. 

On the flip side, in celebrity world, so many A-listers have been getting engaged or married this year. Famous women, such as Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez have all put a ring on it in some fashion - and the list goes on. The images of celebrity relationships filling up our feeds are a stark contrast to Joseph’s argument, because in popular culture we are constantly being shown relationships as an asset, defining these women and purporting traditional values and defined gender roles: she can be so successful, but at the end of the day she is promoting her choice to be a wife and therefore allowing herself to be defined by it. 

A pessimistic view, considering celebrities are as entitled to celebrate their personal lives as much as their professional ones. But considering they are all “brands”, attaching these traditional values to their brand rather than keeping it private attributes the identification. A comparison for this is the female celebrities who quietly got engaged or married and did not attach their love lives to their career or brand: Zendaya, Saoirse Ronan, and Zoey Deutch. 

With the engagement of the biggest star in the world, who recently allowed the Trump administration to use one of her songs in an advertisement, the link between the political changes and pop cultural shift is evident. For many years, we have seen politics conform once again to traditional views regarding women’s bodies (and that’s putting it nicely). The overturning of Roe v Wade felt like the start of a watershed moment for women’s rights in the West; if one can be changed, then can’t they all? This year alone we have seen further abortion laws change in individual states in the US, had the term “sex” relating to gender defined in the UK, and recently had Nigel Farage change his stance on abortions. 

However, the pop culture shift wasn’t paved by celebrities, it was led by the tradwife. Since the pandemic, we have seen the rise of the tradwife, with Nara Smith heading up the crown. The cultural obsession with the “traditional wife” who cooks, cleans, bears children and still looks like a supermodel, feels like a window into life before first-wave feminism. As political changes have taken place, stripping women of their rights, we have only become more obsessed with, and exposed to, the tradwife, even seeing her depicted in her own show: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. In a similar vein to how celebrities are a mirror for these political changes regarding women’s bodies, the tradwife serves as the precursor. 

Women distancing themselves from their boyfriends online could be a reaction to the rise of the tradwife; as the latter’s ideals grow in visibility, women have been pushing to consider how much of their identity they want to be tied to men at all. However, the tradwife’s popularity highlights how the internet has shifted to this preferred relationship aesthetic: the boyfriend lost its culture value, but the fiancé and husband have gained it. 

It’s not surprising, then, that a fiancé is apparently the newest “flex”, the filler of the hole once occupied by boyfriend on social media. Once women receive a ring, socially they are perceived as safe from literal and political violence against women’s bodies. They are no longer on the same playing field, elevated to similar levels as the tradwife. The online response to Chanté Joseph’s article reiterates the idea of the ring as the ultimate security; a boyfriend may be embarrassing but a husband is not. 

The trend of having a boyfriend has ultimately died, which indicates traditional relationships and flexing engagements is also unsustainable – trends beget trends. The rate of births and marriages are declining globally, and social media trends seem to be having no effect. Obviously, there are other important factors affecting these rates, such as the increased cost of living, increased opportunities for women and the changing of societal norms.

Ultimately, because a celebrity is doing something doesn’t mean everyone else has to, but if more than one celebrity is doing the same thing, then there is a deeper, often political motivation behind said thing. Perhaps they aren’t aware of it, but even if they are starting a trend, a political foundation of these ideals sets it in motion. 

Livia Gill is a writer living in London. She has previously written for the Women’s History Network and Beloved. Never without her laptop, she blends personal experience with cultural topics on her Substack newsletter Livia Writes, 

https://liviathewriter.substack.com. You can find her on Instagram @liv_gill and on TikTok @liviathewriter_.