From Betty Crocker to the affective rise of the tradwife phenomena : a visual historical discourse of anti feminism

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McGrath, Marsaili and Tonner, Andrea and Hewer, Paul (2025) From Betty Crocker to the affective rise of the tradwife phenomena : a visual historical discourse of anti feminism. In: Academy of Marketing Conference, 2025, 2025-07-07 - 2025-07-10, University College Cork.

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Abstract

This research examines how historical legacies of maternal marketing are reimagined through platform capitalism, analysing the evolution from Betty Crocker advertisements to contemporary mumfluencers and the emergence of the trad wife phenomena. Within today’s $2.4 trillion influencer industry (Carter, 2017). Mumfluencers represent what Hund and McGuigan (2019) term the "shoppable life" – where social media platforms encode marketplace logic into everyday social interactions. This digital transformation marks a significant departure from Friedan’s (1963) conceptualization of the "sexual sell," described as "targeting housewives for profit, promising identity and fulfilment in exchange for product purchase" (p. 91). Central to this analysis is Kozinets et al.’s (2016) concept of "networks of desire," and how platform capitalism creates "complex open systems of machines, consumers, energy, and objects interacting as an interconnected desiring-machine that produces consumption interest" (p. 678). Through these networks, traditional maternal performances become consumption objects within digital spaces. Platform capitalism intensifies what Cappellini et al. (2019) term "cruel optimism" (p. 469), where mothers demonstrate "good mothering and respectability" (p. 474) through consumption practices. This aligns with Casey and Littler’s (2022) "spectacular housewifization" (p. 491), where platform capitalism transforms domestic labour into monetizable content while preserving traditional hegemonies. This enables what Cappellini et al. (2019) identify as "self-discipline" and "self-surveillance" (p. 473) through "technologies of the self" (p. 474). This digital transformation leaves "the existing patriarchal regime relatively untouched" (McRobbie, 2015, p. 17), while creating new forms of maternal identity work where authenticity becomes a carefully curated performance. These findings extend our understanding of how digital platforms reshape maternal performance through technological, economic, and socio-cultural mechanisms that challenge and reinforce traditional gender ideologies. Methodologically, this research employs Schroeder and Borgerson’s (2015) critical visual analysis framework, examining how advertising imagery constructs gender performances across traditional and digital platforms. The analysis draws from two datasets: three 1950s Betty Crocker advertisements exemplifying early authenticity marketing strategies and contemporary Instagram content from three globally influential mumfluencers focusing on cooking, cleaning, and fashion. The historical analysis examines how Betty Crocker operated as a proto-influencer, "peddling the appearance of authenticity" (Petersen, 2023, p. 50), while the contemporary dataset analyses how mumfluencers leverage self-expression, sensory language, and aspirational visual markers to convey authenticity and engage audiences (Cascio Rizzo et al., 2023; Chung et al., 2023). Which Casey and Littler (2022) call "the neoliberal refashioning of housework" (p. 491). Yet their posts remain confined to "highly gendered content and practices" (Clawson, 2023, p. 93). This research contributes to marketing and consumer culture theory by illuminating how platform capitalism transforms traditional maternal marketing hegemonies while preserving and reimagining these practices. It demonstrates how mumfluencers operate as both subjects and neoliberal agents of maternal hegemony, producing content that upholds patriarchal, racial, and economic ideals of "good white motherhood" while navigating what McRobbie (2015) terms the "post-feminist masquerade." The findings reveal that platform capitalism creates new forms of maternal identity work that commodify care, emotional, and domestic labour through authenticity, producing consumption desires while also raising vulnerabilities and anxieties for mothers at large (The Voice Group, 2010), all while sustaining existing ideologies.

ORCID iDs

McGrath, Marsaili, Tonner, Andrea ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8436-3946 and Hewer, Paul ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7661-8195;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)