Tate McRae just wants to make a lot of money – and be her own housewife. At least, that’s what she sings on the catchy chorus of her shiny new pop hit. But in a world of TikTok trends and traditional wives, the meaning of her powerful song gets lost.
“Housewife” has quickly become a hit since its first release on October 18 and is even McRae’s highest-charting song as a lead artist on the Hot 100 after landing the number two spot. The song is also trending on TikTok, thanks in part to the platform’s many creators using it to soundtrack their videos, idealizing more traditional gender roles when it comes to marriage and family. Some users even changed the lyrics to “Be that of my man housewife”, so that they reflect their own realities of married life.
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A video shows a woman dancing in the mirror to the song which used the song’s original lyrics as the text at the top, but added a pointed parenthesis. It reads: “I just want to be a stay-at-home mom, raise godly children, and serve my husband.”
Another video from a woman named Sadie, a self-described “lifestyle and content creator,” racked up nearly 300,000,000 views using the song over a clip of her hugging her husband with text that reshaped McRae’s lyrics to read: “I just want to spend all his money to be his pretty housewife.”
In a comment on the video, the creator addressed the “haters” and defended her song choice as a “joke,” writing, “To all the haters coming after me because of this song choice, please understand that I’m making a little joke and a funny version of a good song! I have so much respect for women who work and for women who provide for themselves. the classic housewife life, having a husband who provides for our family and staying at home to raise my future babies, if that’s not your dream it’s totally okay, every woman deserves to choose her own path, but God forbid I break it with a song!!”
Another video shows a creator posting about her “housewife life” doing chores to McRae’s song, while the text at the top says, “I just wanna stay home, be my man’s housewife” with a caption that says, “The housewife life is the life for me.” A commenter on the video pointed out that the video “completely lost the plot of the song,” to which the creator responded, “That was the whole problem, sis.”
Since its release, many other women have also leaned into the song’s message in TikTok clips. Olivia Dunne posted her own video using “Housewife” above a photo of her accomplishments as a gymnast and model. “I love this song and I’m in business,” Dunne wrote in the caption of his post. Another user posted a clip of herself dancing to the track while the text above the clip read: “Tate made this for the ladies of the trade,” referring to her work in the trades. Another user decided to continue focusing on her wedding, but in a cheeky way when she posted a video of herself in her wedding dress with a message that read: “How does it feel to get married to this song and not post anything with my husband from our wedding.”
As the “traditional wife” version of the trend has grown on TikTok, some creators have voiced their opinions against it, noting the irony of co-opting the feminist message of “Housewife” in this way. One woman posted a video in which she looks sideways off-camera with text above the clip that reads: “So who’s going to tell mainstream women that this song lip-syncing (sic) to Tate McRae’s means the exact opposite of what they think. Girls, it’s okay not to listen to that one.”
A compilation video played “In a world of this” over various clips of women reimagining “Housewife” and juxtaposed it with other videos of women embracing the lyrics and text of the original song that said “BE THIS!!”
“She’s about not depending on a man,” one designer said in a video that has garnered more than a million views. “She doesn’t center her life around a man. To top it all off, the album cover is literally a picture of her pushing a stroller full of money. And that’s a traditional woman screaming?”
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