A Surviving Facts Blog
The other night, when I couldn’t sleep, I fell into a black hole. This hole has a name: the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I was surfing TikTok when its algorithm- I follow professional dancers and apparently one of these housewives is known for her “dancing”- served me a video. I clicked, watched the dance and then mused about calling her a dancer. That’s how it started.
For those of you unaware, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a Hulu TV series (I’ve never watched the series) showcasing young, beautiful, sexy and witty married, Mormon (they prefer LDS) women. They are more than a baby bearing bunch, though they are that too. One has a hair extension business, a hair dressing school and salons; another originated #momtok videos and had built a significant following; another was a tennis pro; others were social influencers of various kinds. All are or were married and have or are having children. They also are “soft” swingers, a term I had never heard. It’s swinging with friends without the “benefits,” though some of the benefits must exist because a divorce or two is impending.
I am both fascinated and repulsed by these women. I’m fascinated by their confident self promotion and out-there sexuality. They certainly know how to capture and keep attention. I’m also repelled by these qualities as well as the “perfection” they’ve cultivated. Personalities aside, their physical appearance has been crafted to exemplify ideal societal standards. Their hair flows and curls in just the right places, their skin is smooth and dewy, their figures are firm and strong, even when 9 months pregnant. Are these women aware they’ve shaped their images to convey such standards? Is it a choice? Or have they absorbed the social definitions of beauty so deeply that they easily exude it?
So what’s the problem, you ask? What am I complaining about this time?
These beauty standards entrap women in a never ending cycle of dissatisfaction and frustration. Beauty can be cultivated but at what cost to self esteem and self worth? Videos commenting on these wives mostly have admired and sought to affirm rather than address the concoction of random beauty standards. I’m not encouraging criticism of these women- they are chasing attention and wealth as many do; rather, I’m questioning the beauty standards this show and others promote and how they’ve brought us to our current gender role regression.
They make the standard look so easy.
It helps that these women are so young. One of them had her first child and then got married at 16. Her boyfriend, now husband, was 21. In most states, there’s a criminal name for an adult having sex with a child.
The gimmick also, sort of, helps. The trope is that they are Mormon. Mormon and sexy. Mormon and kinky. Mormon Church of the and ambitious. We’d usually consider these oxymoronic, but not in the show. Mormon is the background enabling the shock of their antics. None are religious or adherent, though being Mormon is an identity for them. None dress modestly. None are shy about their physical assets. For these women, Mormon is a convenient story line instead of religious dogma. They refer to Mormonism and LDS as often as possible- without it, they’d simply be self-absorbed exhibitionists.
As I researched this- I told you I fell in a black hole- I saw many TikTok videos of Mormon women not on the show proclaiming its accuracy. By accuracy, they mean adherence to an unspoken set of physical and behavioral expectations. They display every misogynist stereotype of white, evangelical women: committed “full-time” wives and mothers focused on the needs of husband and children over anything else; ability to have children with barely a mark on their figure; a disconnect between religious values and day to day behaviors, while also proclaiming their commitment; complete immersion in a cultural milieu so that all of their associations also belong to that milieu; an exclusivity of beauty and affiliation that both isolates and protects them; an idealistic presentation of motherhood as sooo easy and wonderful all the time. Visit any trad wife TikTok and you’ll see these qualities displayed.
Of course, they make mistakes too. One of the women received torrents of criticism for performing a grinding dance next to her RSV-suffering infant in a NICU cradle. It is pretty disturbing to watch and she’s had to defend her intentions and action over and over again.
NICU dancing aside, this set of standards is what Project 2025 wants to take us back to. I’ll go even further. These standards enabled some men, particularly evangelical men, to cling to outdated norms for women so much so that it now has a name: gender wars. To end the war- it’s now codified in an 800-page plan for “making America great again.”
Women bought into the standard as well, and the genetically gifted make the standards look easy and natural, leading to, “Why can’t all women do this? It isn’t hard. Just takes discipline.” The reality is that it takes enormous, absorbed self interest. It also takes unquestioning adherence to male standards of female beauty and purpose. Perhaps not intentionally, every time these women grind and sulk at the camera they support the male gaze-i.e., the projected patriarchal cookie-cutter standards of women’s beauty (yes, some men don’t like all these qualities and some don’t buy into it at all).
And let’s not ignore the cost. Perfectly matched hair extensions: a few hundred to thousands. Hair styling and care: around $400-1,000s each time. Perfect skin- dermaplaning, acid peels, Botox, fillers, laser therapy, facials, products: collectively, at least $30,000 annually. Breast implants: $20k. Butt lifts: $30k. Skin and cellulite smoothing: $10,000+. This is over $100,000 per year on perfecting and maintaining the standard.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Utah- my daughter lived in Salt Lake City for a few years. (Not everyone is Mormon, by the way.) Traditional LDS families were easy to spot: a proud dad, a long-skirted mom and a passel of tow-headed kids, barely a year apart, dressed in matching homemade outfits. Like evangelicalism, Mormonism can promote traditional gender roles. These women are not emulating that. They represent something much more insidious: women who have “bought the farm”- meaning, they have accepted the standard as real and fair and believe it is a woman-determined, unique and independent portrayal of women. They believe they have chosen and own their own image.
They haven’t. They are supporting a patriarchy’s creation of women from Eve coning from a rib of Adam (a mistranslation, by the way. The word actually is partner- God created Eve as a partner to Adam.) to Project 2025’s definition of gender roles restricting women’s rights, even potentially our voting rights. IMHO, it’s not a huge jump from meeting the male-driven beauty standard to having men define every aspect of a woman’s life. Once we as women accept the standard- as unspoken and complex as it may be- we then internalize and uphold the very system that is keeping us down.
This may sound like a feminist rant. I’ll own that. I prefer to determine what makes me feel good about myself and to choose my own life path. I will dissect and question any system that proposes to take away the right of self-determination and choice.
The secret of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives isn’t that they don’t seem Mormon or that they are hyper sexual swingers or seemingly non-trad while bearing babies and being helpmeet wives. Anyone can see these points. The secret is that they themselves don’t even know they’ve bought into a system that ultimately constrains and limits them. The show’s scintillating “secrets” are nothing more than clickbait TV, getting women across America to come back and watch again and again.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of civilized debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website to peruse the full collection of articles and updates.
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