In this episode, we start with the tradwife trend that's been blowing up on the internet — and trace it all the way to "娇妻文学" (jiaoqi literature), a kind of writing that's been going strong on the Chinese internet for almost ten years.

So what are people actually mad about when they criticize "娇妻" online? Think back to the "妙计键盘" posts from the Weibo days, Meng Qiqi's "Versailles-style" humble-bragging posts, and the "frying pan literature" that got everyone arguing on Zhihu. Why do these posts sound so romantic on the surface, but underneath, show women putting themselves down and turning themselves into objects?

And when people online judge "娇妻" — often looking down on them — what does that actually show us? It shows the gap between these stories and real life, how women's own voices get erased, and the power imbalance that's really going on in these relationships.

This episode, we're still talking about tradwife and "娇妻."

We start with choice feminism and the girlboss culture it created — from Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In to the rise of the Kardashians. So why has choice feminism become something people just can't stand anymore? And it's not just men who hate it — women do too. Why did it feel so awkward when Luyu and Wenqi said they'd pick career over marriage?

At the same time, far-right politics in North America keeps growing, and the tradwife movement is helping push it along. A new generation of tradwife influencers is actively teaming up with far-right groups. They speak their politics loudly and freely, yet they still have to keep dealing with the misogyny inside those very same far-right circles.

So how different are real tradwives from tradwife influencers, really? In America right now, is choosing to be a tradwife about embracing tradition — or is it just quietly giving in?

To this day, the tradwife movement in North America shows no sign of slowing down. What began as a cultural fascination with traditional aesthetics has evolved into something far more consequential — a key component of far-right political mobilization.

In the Chinese-language context, "tradwife" was first translated as "北美娇妻" (roughly, "North American pampered wife/darling wife"). But can the two really be equated? This mistranslation reflects a deeper confusion — two groups that look similar on the surface, but emerge from entirely different cultural contexts, keep getting conflated. So what exactly is a "tradwife"? What is a "娇妻"? How should we define and understand each — and how should we make sense of these two very different cultural phenomena?

This is the first of a three-part series on tradwife culture and its Chinese counterpart. In this episode, we dig into the rise of tradwife influencers — who they are, the key figures behind the movement, and the increasingly controversial views they've built on top of their religious beliefs.