Trad wives of the far-right: Young, white, fertile and ‘brainwashed’

A group of Australian women dress in flowing white gowns and flower crowns, but the hyper-innocent aesthetic is masking something quite the opposite.

A section of the trad wife movement in Australia is linked to neo-Nazis.

A group of Australian women dress in flowing white gowns and flower crowns, but the hyper-innocent aesthetic is masking a very different reality.

These women spend their days mirroring a life 70 years in the past — that of the ultra-feminine traditional housewife.

They are largely housebound, bake cakes and breads for their husbands and know never to speak back.

Their lives are centred around the idea of establishing a “village” just for them — encircled by their children and their childrens’ children and so on.

It sounds virtuous enough, but the picture-perfect domesticated bliss they are advertising is intrinsically linked to something more sinister — patriarchy and white supremacy.

These Australian “trad wives” are married to prominent far-right activists. Criteria for membership is simple enough: Be young, white, fertile and willing to raise the next generation of Australia’s neo-Nazis.

“There are women in the organisation who are hateful and Nazis, some underage, many who have been brainwashed,” said a spokesperson for the White Rose Society, a group of anti-fascist researchers who have spoken extensively to ex-wives who managed to get out.

A message shared on Telegram by a white supremacist in Australia regarding marrying teenage girls

“The goal is get a young woman when she’s really young, impress beliefs on her, get her pregnant as soon as possible. It’s very cult-like.”

The spokesperson, who spoke to news.com.au on condition of anonymity, said teenage girls are the ideal target.

“We’ve seen 15-year-old girls with men who are over the age of consent. They are having their first baby at 18. From then on, there’s no university, they often don’t leave the home, they are there to serve neo-Nazis that they are with and work in the home.”

A message from a neo-Nazi, seen by news.com.au, says “it’s not paedophilia (to want to marry a 16-year-old girl)” even if it’s abnormal”.

“It should be up to the parents when their daughter is old enough to marry but to say it’s paedophilia is (stupid) because they are child bearing age and by Catholic canon law 14 is the age when it’s permissible for women to marry”.

The neo-Nazi said he was not saying “anything about my personal preferences as an individual”.

When news.com.au approached the group of women linked to the NSN for comment, a member responded with the following message: “I’m guessing you are one of these disgusting homosexual freaks known as ‘journalists’?”

Imagery shared by a far-right mother’s group presents a happy family in front of a swastika.

‘Trad wife’ moniker co-opted by the far-right

The line between pushing traditional values and far-right ideology is blurry here.

On various social media sites, a group of white women share various snapshots of outings alongside a dreamboard of sorts.

They share pictures of picnics with their children, Valentine’s Day cakes and excerpts from their own cookbook.

But they also share their distaste at having to share their lives with people of a different ethnicity.

“Yesterday a group of us went out for lunch to celebrate the birthday of a woman in our community,” a member wrote in March.

“We went to a beautiful venue surrounded by other healthy white people and gorgeous gardens. It almost makes us forget about the repulsiveness that has become our suburbs.”

Another member of the group wrote about their disgust at Australia’s multicultural make-up.

“Our white female community around Australia is growing as more women realise how toxic and degenerate this multicultural society has become.”

The group shares imagery presenting the ultra-feminine woman and her knight in shining armour.

In February, a member shared their experience with “non-white kids” nearby.

“As our local playgroups and playgrounds fill up with non-white kids who don’t speak English, we are experiencing first hand how valuable it is to have our racist white community,” they wrote.

Others complained about a bush playgroup they attended “full of healthy white babies” where organisers “spent 10 minutes at the beginning of the session worshipping Aboriginals”.

The White Rose Society says its part of a troubling change to the organisation’s propaganda and represents a shift in the role of wives and girlfriends neo-Nazis.

“Something that used to be a weakpoint for them was their girlfriends,” they told news.com.au.

“They would get a girlfriend and the girlfriend would convince them to leave. Now their goal is to make sure she’s groomed into extremist beliefs from the start.

“By doing that they’ve created these white nationalist playgroups where they look after babies and talk about motherhood.

“So when a woman joins, she already has a support group.”

The dynamic created between husband and wife within Australia’s far-right community is grounded in steadfast rules.

The role of the wife is made crystal clear. Neo-Nazis are encouraged to ensure their wives support the far-right ideology.

Women who have left neo-Nazis speak about the cult-like conditions they live in. The White Rose Society spokesperson said leaving is the hardest part.

“We’re aware of domestic violence and coercive control within these relationships and the difficulty of leaving not just a partner but the organisation,” they said.

A tweet shared by Australian trad wives about white children being cared for at school.

“Women who have broken off and left and been threatened by other members. The most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she leave. That’s often when extreme violence happens.”

Dr Kristy Campion and Dr Kiriloi Ingram from Charles Sturt University’s Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security wrote online about the link between the trad wife trend and the far-right.

“There is a seductive simplicity to the ‘trad wife’ trend, with its filtered representations of domestic bliss – from homesteading to homeschooling, home baking to homemaking,” they wrote.

“While trad wives emerge across the political spectrum, a small subculture use their platforms to promote the dark ideas of the far-right.

“The number of tradwives aligned with the far right may be small, but their popularity on social media platforms suggests their cohort is growing. And we know from our research that far-right trad wives are active in Australia, on places such as X and Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube.”

The White Rose Society spokesperson said the women attracted to the far-right fit a particular mould.

“The women we see online are generally already slightly red-pilled,” they said in reference to the conspiracy theory popularised by the film The Matrix. In the film, taking the red pill means choosing to see the truth.

“Masculinity appeals to them. Their main thing is meeting young women on apps, in person, but she needs to be impressionable, vulnerable.

“That’s the kind of woman they want. They look like a cult because they are a cult.”