Ballerina Farm is a problem for all women

The days and energies of Hannah Neeleman are entirely devoted to her family and home, filled with sourdough, freshly milked milk, homemade cakes, children to care for, and numerous social media posts. On June 25th, Hannah celebrated her 34th birthday surrounded by her 8 children, dogs, many cows, chickens, goats, and her husband Daniel. All she dreamed of for her birthday was a trip to Greece, which is not too difficult if your husband is the son of the CEO of a well-known airline. Instead, she found herself unwrapping, under the unforgiving eye of the camera, an apron for collecting eggs in the henhouse.

The Apron of Discord and the TikTok Controversy

On social media, many interpreted that apron as the man's way of confining the woman within the farm, in the role of a traditional wife whose sole existence is to stay home with the children, care, cook, and look perfect while doing it. The video, which went viral, raised concerns and sparked the hashtag #freeballerinafarm: Is Hannah free and acting by her own choice, or is she a prisoner of her own life and dominated by her husband? The debate was further fueled by an interview that revealed the dark side behind the floral dresses, overalls, cowboy boots, and recipes.

Who is Hannah Neeleman aka Ballerina Farm?

Hannah Neeleman was born in Springville, Utah, into a Mormon family with nine children. From a young age, she dreamed of becoming a ballerina. She was talented and managed to get into the Juilliard School in New York, one of the most prestigious dance schools in the world. She seemed destined to perform on stage, but her life changed when she met Daniel Neeleman, also a Mormon and son of billionaire David, one of the richest men in America with stakes in various airlines like JetBlue and Tap Portugal. The two met through a mutual friend during a college basketball game. "I thought we should date for a year [before getting married], so I could finish school and everything. But Daniel was like, 'That won't work, we need to get married now.'" A month later, they were engaged. Two months later, they were married. Three months later, she was expecting a baby, the first Juilliard student to be pregnant "in modern history."

The next step? Leaving their New York apartment on the Upper West Side and buying a farm in Utah, nicknamed Ballerina Farm. Ballerina Farm is both Hannah's social media nickname and a business selling meat boxes from their cows and pigs, sourdough, coarse salt, copper measuring spoons, beeswax candles, and other gadgets. The operation includes three full-time farm employees, thirty in the warehouse, more than ten in the office, and a creative director managing the site's images. No babysitter (except for rare couple outings) helps Hannah manage the 8 children because her husband is opposed, as he is to contraceptives and, of course, abortion.

Why Did an Interview with Ballerina Farm Go Viral?

Ballerina Farm, with its glamorization of rural life, a sort of contemporary version of the perfect Mulino Bianco family or Little House on the Prairie, where cottagecore meets the phenomenon of the trad wife, has over 9 million followers on Instagram and more than 7 million fans on TikTok. Not everything that glitters is gold. Megan Agnew discovered this in a recent interview published in The Times of London which was supposed to be about Hannah and her life. Unfortunately, the journalist found it very difficult to speak alone with the thirty-year-old, being constantly interrupted by the children and, especially, by Daniel, who closely monitored every word his wife said. In a subsequent piece reflecting on Hannah's situation and the seemingly idyllic life, Agnew writes: "Daniel wanted to live in the great wild West, and so they did; he wanted to farm, and so they did; he liked to go out once a week, and so they do (they have a babysitter those nights); he didn't want nannies in the house, and so there are none. The only space intended to be Neeleman's, a small barn she wanted to turn into a dance studio, ended up becoming the children's classroom. They have a cleaning lady but no daycare; Neeleman does the grocery shopping—with children in tow—and cooks everything from scratch (they don't do ready meals)."

Queen of the Trad Wives, a Woman Who Made Her Choice or a Victim of Patriarchy?

In short, it seems that Hannah has bowed to her husband's wishes, voluntarily sacrificing herself to a patriarchal ideal where a woman's only possible existence is as a wife and mother. This is the same concept at the heart of the trad wife phenomenon and the same mindset that led JD Vance to describe Kamala Harris and all childless women as "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are unhappy with their lives and the choices they've made." Even Daniel admits that his wife is so overwhelmed with household work that she sometimes gets sick from exhaustion and can't get out of bed for a week. This is one of the statements that has stirred social media, with calls for Hannah to leave her husband and prioritize herself. The final straw? A detail about childbirth. The woman did not use painkillers. "Except with Martha: I was two weeks overdue, and she weighed 10 pounds, and Daniel wasn't with me..." She lowers her voice. Daniel is currently out of the room answering the phone. "So I got the epidural. And it was an amazing experience."

The Problem with Trad Wives

Despite the article describing her as such, Hannah does not consider herself a "traditional wife." And, in a way, she is right, because besides caring for the family, she and other influential trad wives like the famous Nara Aziza Smith work and earn money through their online content. On their social profiles, the line between aesthetics and ideology blurs just enough to captivate with delicious recipes and impeccable hairdos, making viewers forget that this aestheticization of caregiving involves a series of issues. Firstly, it paints a very romanticized and privileged reality that makes many women feel inadequate. Thus, it not only exacerbates the "mommy wars" but also perpetuates outdated and misogynistic values. At a time when our rights over our bodies are being eroded, the progress made by Me Too is being nullified, and the concept of the girlboss seems dead and buried, these perfect housewives can contribute to the process of extremist radicalization, implicitly or explicitly. A study published in Media and Communication delves into the ways tradwife vloggers stylistically insert alt-right anti-feminism into the broader influencer culture, showing how these polished and submissive women are "a powerful tool for spreading anti-feminist sentiment, in a dangerously palatable and aesthetically pleasing way, inside and outside online communities." It would be nice to believe that trad wives are just elegant women who freely chose to live a life devoted to their families. But it would also be very naive. And whether she realizes it or not, even Ballerina Farm harbors a insidious and patriarchal side in the most negative, exploitable, and weaponizable sense against other women.