From Beyoncé to Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman, young women today have an abundance of female role models to choose from. Alberta’s daughters are learning about womanhood through observation and osmosis. They consume images of idealized women through filtered screens, and I fear the beauty of true femininity is being trumped by shiny but shallow alternatives.
The Rise (and Risks) of TikTok Role Models
What our daughters believe matters. Young women today are fed a diet of conflicting ideas about what it means to be a woman—and whether it even matters that they were born female. I would venture to guess that not many Gen Zs are reading second-wave feminists like Betty Friedan. In recent decades, third-wave feminism—largely disseminated through social media—has eclipsed its predecessor, and it’s hard to find a more conflicted ideology than this one. On the one hand, it promotes hyper-sexualized “girl power”, and on the other, it flattens the differences between the sexes to mere “social conditioning” and “gender performativity”. As feminine icon Beyonce said, “Who rules the world? Girls.” And yet anyone can be a girl, even a man. Feminine freedom trumps all, and no one cares if it makes sense. Apologists for this gender-bending ideology have bypassed parents and sent their message directly through TikTok to smartphones everywhere.
In the 2020s, another surprising contender rose up on social media: conservative TikTokers posting photos of sourdough creations while wearing vintage, flower-printed aprons. Thus began the reign of the ‘trad wife’ aesthetic. Popular influencers and new conservative women’s magazines like Evie (often dubbed a “Conservative Cosmo”) highlight beautiful women in traditional roles.
Many Christians have celebrated the rise of the trad wife culture as making housewives cool again. Not surprisingly, women intrigued by the beauty of well-ordered domesticity consumed reels of cozy farmhouse kitchens, hand-crafted mozzarella, and barefoot babies running free through the garden. Perhaps the girlboss lifestyle was not what they wanted after all.
The trad wife aesthetic hints at something good, but without biblical meaning and purpose to explain it, it misses the point. When cloned without understanding, it encourages performative, legalistic femininity. Young women wonder if they are really “woman enough” if they don’t milk their own goat while rocking Evie magazine’s controversial milkmaid dress. (If you don’t know, don’t Google it. It’s exactly what you imagine it to be!) God’s word offers Alberta’s daughters a better alternative than radical feminist ideology or one-size-fits-all trad wife cosplay.
A Better Vision: God's Design for Women
God’s design for women actually fits with who they were born to be. The Bible describes a woman by her husband’s side—helping him fulfill the work God has given them to do and shaping society by nurturing the next generation. Feminine work is dignified, intelligent, and purposeful. It prioritizes the family and acknowledges that God has uniquely fitted her to be a life-giver and nurturer in her own setting.
Marriage, Companionship, and Purpose
When I married my husband 22 years ago, no one told me how greatly it would enrich my life. Rarely do people talk about the benefits of companionship in marriage and the joy that raising kids together brings. Older generations joke about missing their “other half,” but younger generations say very little about the value of intimate friendship in marriage. In fact, it’s not unusual for the idea of “oneness” in marriage to be intentionally resisted out of a desire to maintain individual identity.
But Genesis 2 describes Adam's ardent response to Eve’s creation: “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” This is the cry of someone longing for intimate companionship. He desires to know and be known to a degree not experienced in other relationships.
When a marriage is deprived of this companionship, a wife becomes a mere housekeeper and cook—or an interchangeable "co-worker" with her husband. But the Bible describes a third way: the husband advocates for his wife’s flourishing (Ephesians 5:25–27), and her wise living elevates his reputation and success (Proverbs 31:23). Both husband and wife strive for the other's good as they join together in a common cause.
Preparing Our Daughters to Live with Purpose
As God’s representatives on earth, our daughters need to wrestle with hard questions. They need to know who God is and what He requires of them.
The first pages of Scripture reveal that God created Adam and Eve in His image (Genesis 1:27), and tasked them with being His regents on earth. Genesis 1:28 describes their mandate:
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
I would venture to guess that many of our daughters have never seriously wrestled with how they can exercise dominion in a wise and meaningful way. It may be as simple as weeding the garden or as complex as trying to solve world hunger, but subduing the earth for the flourishing of mankind shouldn’t be a foreign concept to young women.
Social media activists have convinced many young women that they need to make a smaller footprint on the earth—that birthing too many babies and using the earth’s natural resources is unethical. And while we should never abuse God’s creation, we don’t need to tiptoe on it either. We are, in fact, to exercise dominion over it. Our daughters should not be afraid to birth babies, take up space, and use natural resources. They should be encouraged to build, create, subdue and engage with the world around them for the comfort and flourishing of their families and communities.
Male and Female: Equal in Value, Distinct in Design
How men and women engage with the world will look somewhat different from each other because the Bible tells us it matters whether we are born male or female. Men and women share in a common cause, but we are not interchangeable. In Genesis, it becomes clear that each is uniquely fitted for distinct roles in the family.
God designs the woman's womb to nurture tiny babies. Her body produces tailor-made nutrition, antibodies, and probiotics for vulnerable infants. She is given a distinguished name (Genesis 3:20), Eve, which means “life-giver,” “because she was the mother of all living.”
By contrast, Adam is made physically stronger. He works and guards the garden and its occupants. In the first pages of Genesis, it becomes clear he is the head of the family, bearing responsibility for the well-being of those under his care. His wife, Eve, is his God-given helper and ally.
Not all women will marry and bear children. Singleness is a gift (1 Corinthians 7:7) and does not diminish a woman’s God-given femininity. Single women are equally equipped to nurture the next generation and can freely fulfill the creation mandate in their singleness. But most women will marry and bear babies, and our daughters need clear teaching on how to relate to their husbands as equals, yet with different roles in the family. The culture seeks to flatten all distinctions, but Genesis shows us that God designed the man to lead the family and his wife to help, nurture, and give life to the next generation.
The Influence of Mothers and the Future of Alberta
Marriage is not an archaic, meaningless piece of paper. It is not merely a portal through which you begin a life of domestic slavery. Rather, it is the means through which you create a legacy together with your husband. Mothers and fathers wield tremendous power and influence over future generations. The culture of Alberta is shaped at the kitchen table and in the hundred little moments that take place during children’s formative years.
Let us raise daughters who are unafraid to take up space—who build homes, nurture life, and exercise dominion with wisdom and grace. Biblical femininity is more than a filtered photo or a social construct. It is a God-given privilege and responsibility. The wife’s role in the family is an honourable one. Her legacy begins in the quiet rhythms of family life, and it will speak for itself for generations to come.
