By Maria-Nefeli Andredaki,
For anyone who is not familiar with the concept of “trad wives”, Ballerina Farm is basically the Queen of their Queendom (or should we say Kingdom…?). Hannah Neeleman, originally Hannah Wright, was born in a Mormon household, with florist parents and a bunch of other siblings. To cut a long story short, Hannah was a phenomenal dancer, the kind that is accepted to Julliard School in New York, which is basically the equivalent of Harvard for dancers. Hannah’s dream was to become a ballerina and she competed in pageants throughout her Julliard years, in order to finance her studies.
Her dreams apparently changed when Daniel Neeleman approached her. You see, Daniel Neelaman, son of the owner of JetBlue, made sure to be sitting next to Hannah on one of her flights, during which he “convinced” her to date him. The ballerina did not want to get married before finishing her studies, however, Daniel “convinced” her again and, two months into dating, the couple got married. Hannah was the first ever ballerina to be pregnant as an undergraduate student, in all of Julliard’s history!
After reading the last paragraph, you would expect Hannah to be a powerhouse of a career woman, a person who chases her dreams without letting motherhood and her domestic life hold her back. Well, it seems that that would be incorrect. Ballerina Farm is an Instagram account with millions of followers, where Hannah Neeleman showcases her life as a devoted wife and mother, taking care of her eight children, while making every kind of food they consume from scratch! As shocking as this supposed change of heart and lifestyle is, Hannah is pretty passionate about what she does and is happy to showcase her everyday life and, let’s be honest here, wealth, to her followers.
All of this has blown up in the last few months due to an infamous article on The Times that painted Daniel as the bad guy; the patriarchal force that enslaved poor Hannah and confined her to a life of luxurious farming. Before analyzing this narrative further, we first need to talk about tradwives. Tradwives, as you may have heard, are a new kind of movement that abides by the traditional gender roles within marriage, meaning that women are homemakers and mothers, and men are providers. In an economy that cannot support a two-income household, let alone a single-income one, tradwives are not only pushing forward an unrealistic narrative, but a false one as well. The tradwife movement would be nothing without the power of social media and the carefully curated, aesthetic images and videos of Instagram and TikTok. And what do these platforms allow you to do? Monetize your content, accept sponsorships, create digital brands and sell products. Aha! So women are actually allowed to work, just in a different way. To be honest, this is quite disturbing, since millions of women in the world are truly bound by patriarchal rules, with their lives in danger if they so much as say something that does not “fit” their womanly identity. It must be recognized that tradwives reap the fruit of those they condemn; the feminists who fought and died for them to have the ability to work and be independent.
Now, going back to the idea that Daniel Neeleman is the devil himself, I think we should first consider how the Neelemans felt about this article. It is definitely one thing to make the conscious choice of exposing curated parts of your life and your children’s life to the Internet and expecting hate comments. It is another thing to welcome a journalist in your private home, allow them to control your narrative and have it, in your own opinion, completely distorted, in order to fit the journalist’s preconceived notions. On the other hand, if Daniel was the driving force that steered Hannah away from her dreams and aspirations, hindering her success, I would like for the story to be highlighted and used as an example of what to avoid, which the journalist did.
Somewhere in the middle might be Hannah completely changing her mind of her own accord. And this multifaceted truth is why journalism should be used as a tool and not as an authority. Journalism is a way for multiple voices to be heard, for topics to be explored from every possible angle and for people to have the power of deciding for themselves. It is also utterly necessary for democracy to function properly, by expressing marginalized voices and condemning anyone or anything that would suppress it.
We will never know for certain if Hannah Neeleman is a victim, especially when she insists on the opposite herself. Maybe the important thing is to think about the societal norms and underlying factors that may lead a person to change their whole life, without vilifying those who had a genuine change of heart.
References
- You’ll Never Really Know Ballerina Farm. The Cut. Available here
- Trad Wives: Πόσο επικίνδυνη είναι η τάση που θέλει τις γυναίκες να γυρνούν πίσω στους παραδοσιακούς τους ρόλους; Estella. Available here
