Copyright Slate
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. This week, Martha Stewart is reissuing her iconic 1982 book Entertaining, which established her as a household name in the realm of lifestyle and decor. Looking back on that era in a recent episode of the podcast Lipstick on the Rim, she described herself in this way: “I was the original fucking tradwife. I was beautiful, I was very thin and shapely, I grew my own pigs and my own goats and my own chickens.” And indeed, though the fashion and decor have changed, flipping through the pages of Entertaining feels superficially similar to scrolling through the tradwife corner of Instagram. The queen of the tradwives, Hannah Neeleman, shows off her many pigs and chickens. Nara Smith cooks elaborate meals from scratch. Estee Williams dresses modestly and immaculately in the comfort of her own home. And of course, all are beautiful, thin, and shapely. But tradwives sell both a lifestyle and an ideology. Martha Stewart’s performance served as a prototype for the lifestyle: Her ability to capitalize on domesticity has been a blueprint for these internet influencers. Unlike today’s tradwives, though, Stewart did not preach about traditional gender roles, submission, or operating only within the domestic sphere. She did not pretend to adhere to the politics of feminine dependency. Before starting her catering business, Stewart worked as an institutional stockbroker. It wasn’t a desire to be a small, submissive wife that led to her decision to leave the traditional workforce; it was the size of her ambition fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit. Much has been written about the hypocrisy of contemporary tradwives, how they, too, are motivated not by meekness but by blazing ambition, how they often become the family breadwinners via their monetized platforms. But rather than owning their identities as shrewd businesswomen, they often hide behind veneers of humility and submission. That was never Stewart. She performed the role of domestic goddess not in an attempt to submit to the leadership of men, but to surpass them. She prepared a home to build an empire. Her perfectionism and competency were intimidating and out of reach for the average person, sure, but she didn’t preach to others that they, too, should give up their paid work to raise chickens. As the U.S. continues to roll back women’s rights and romanticize the domestic, it’s a slippery slope to conflate individuals who pursue excellence in homemaking and entertaining with tradwives. Stewart’s media empire insisted that the world take the domestic and the feminine seriously. Her work gave women an expanded sense of possibility. If only tradwives offered up a vision this abundant! While catering a party for her husband, Stewart was not just serving—she was networking. There, she was offered the book deal for Entertaining by a publishing executive. “Catering is very ephemeral,” she said in the 2024 documentary Martha. “You work so hard, you get a beautiful celebration, and then it’s gone. But if you write a book that is well liked, that is forever.” She wanted to make on a mark on the world, not just on her home. She got her wish. Even though Stewart says she was the “original fucking tradwife,” she doesn’t seem that enamored with them. As a young and beautiful businesswoman, she didn’t hide her true motivations—she took real chances and made hard decisions (sometimes criminal ones). Five years after the original release of Entertaining, she and her husband separated. And at the height of her media empire, she was convicted of committing insider trading and was sentenced to prison. Today, she hangs out with Snoop Dogg and makes napkin origami. She has depth, in other words. She’s not just thin and shapely, but a full, rounded character.
