Colette Sheridan: The worrying trend of 'Trad Wives'...

IN ADVERTENTLY, while defending the right of teenage girls to go out dressed as hookers, I got into a bit of bother with two friends recently.

They were basically saying that girls in seriously short shorts and barely-there tops, not to mention faces more made up than that of Joan Collins at an Oscars party, were making themselves the target of badly intentioned male attention.

I don’t buy the ‘asking for it’ argument, but it’s a shame that girls can’t realistically please the modesty police when they wear revealing clothes.

I suppose my friends are right. One of them has reared a girl so I guess she knows what she’s on about.

The hooker look is not a good look. And besides, it’s freezing at night time when the scantily-clad gals go out on the town, all sculpted eyebrows and caked on fake-tan.

Who’d be a young female these days? Are they even interested in feminism?

I don’t mean baggy dungarees and general grimness, but rather equality, ambition and a total disregard for misogynistic men.

There is a worrying internet movement known as ‘Trad Wives’ which harks back to 1950s tea dresses and prettily coiffed hair, where women are more concerned about their SMV status than climbing the corporate ladder.

SMV stands for ‘sexual market value’, which is a measure of desirability for sex in the eyes of a person of the opposite sex. Of course, this only applies to women. We’re supposed to think that we can’t ‘pull’ unless we’re slim and sexy.

Trad (as in ‘traditional’) wives see gender roles as the result of ‘sexual economics’. They believe that the heterosexual community should be regarded as a market place where women are sellers of sex, purchased by men.

Some would say that it has always been thus, pointing to online dating and hook-up sites such as Tinder, not to mention the cattle marts that night clubs have always been, where some males think they can have their pick of the dolled up women that frequent them.

We like to think that stuff is behind us but it aint. And sometimes, women can be just as bad as men with their distinct lack of solidarity with the sisterhood.

Instead of supporting each other, they’re in competition to snag the most eligible man and don’t mind objectifying themselves.

In the U.S, the Trad Wives movement is very much part of the ‘alt-right’ movement. It’s a facet of white supremacists who believe women should obey their husbands and mind their white babies, have the slippers ready for them when they return from the work jungle — and generally be Jane to their Tarzan.

Now, even the most traditional Irish wife won’t allow the word ‘obey’ to be articulated at her marriage ceremony. But will this small but important erasure of an obnoxious concept be rowed back on?

It’s all very well to be smug about the progress women have made, but there is a growing hostility towards feminism and contemporary gender roles. And it’s not just the preserve of men.

The Trad Wives movement is the female equivalent of The Red Pill (TRP).

TRP is a Reddit community that promised “discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men”.

It was banned by Reddit for its toxic and threatening content. But that hasn’t stopped a growing misogynist online community, known as the ‘Manosphere’.

This is made up of all kinds of dodgy subcultures, such as the secret seduction community of the pick-up artists (PUAs), who seek to learn how to manipulate women’s minds in order to have sex with them.

Then there is the embittered involuntary celibacy (incel) movement of men who punish the women they believe are responsible for their being ignored, sexually. It’s a minefield out there.

Teenagers and young women are foolish for thinking that, in order to be noticed (and often preyed upon by males), they need to be ‘hot’ (The only thing ‘hot’ in my life is my electric blanket!)

Seriously, though, don’t fall into the trap of pleasing men in ways that are debasing. That is, unless you crave a return to the old ways that your mothers may remember. You know, the marriage bar whereby married women weren’t allowed to work in many jobs, the absence of contraception and abortion, not being allowed to serve on juries... I could go on.

Heck, relatively speaking, it’s not all that long ago when women weren’t allowed to vote or apply for a bank loan in their name.

The Trad Wives movement is a throwback to the stultifying and suffocating days when women were chattels, owned by their husbands.

Today, girls fall prey to the baser instincts of boys when they dress like tarts. I hate saying it, but the best advice is to cover up.