Hannah Neeleman is a mother of eight, beauty queen, former Juilliard ballet dancer, and one of the most popular “mom influencers” on social media. She lives on a ranch in Utah with her husband, JetBlue heir Daniel Neeleman, and markets rich content and pasture-raised meats under the name Ballerina Farm. Over the years, their photogenic Mormon family has been amassing followers on Instagram and TikTok, while also receiving widespread attention and scorn from some progressive, hyper-connected women. Last month, these species hosted a feast in London era profile, making it clear that Hannah was controlled and coerced by Daniel.
The profile is a little weird, and the reactions to it are even weirder. But they also symbolize something far beyond the ballet farm: the inability to imagine women with different values, different politics, different ambitions. and a refusal to accept that women can happily lead a variety of different lives.
The Tragedy of the Traditional Wife
era Writer Megan Agnew clearly has her own perspective on the dynamics of the Neeleman family, and her article is framed to maximize the chance that readers will get the same perspective. That is no It’s a journalistic crime anyway—the best profiles often inject some of the author’s own insights. To me, however, Agnew’s insights feel forced and not entirely convincing. her quotes and anecdotes Can Betrayal of the patriarchal arrangement, Hannah is not such an enthusiastic participant. However, there are many ways to read them No To support such a conclusion, not to mention all the quotes and anecdotes that Agnew necessarily left out.
Of course, the internet is awash with tragic explanations – Hannah is a Dickensian (or at least Lifetime movie) deluded wanderer, all ambitions thwarted and isolated from the world. A “sexist conquering” husband stole her dreams, “trapped” her with her eight children and now won’t even let her have a nanny or go to Greece for her birthday.
The consensus was that Hannah needed to be released.
But freedom from what? Hannah seems to have the life many people dream of. She may not have been a professional ballet dancer, but she still had a very successful career and a level of fame that she may never have gained from ballet. She had a beautiful home, a wealthy husband, and eight healthy children, whom she raised in a beautiful setting an hour away from where she grew up in a family that looked a lot like her current family (Han Na is one of nine children)).
Despite the interpretation of one reporter who spent hours with the family and the speculation of scores of strangers, there are signs that Neeleman is happily living the life she wants. She once dreamed of being a professional ballet dancer, which means she wasn’t happy with any other lifestyle, or she had no other ambitions (especially since she also talked about how she always wanted a big career), which is very Strange.
Can Will Hannah be secretly sad? certainly. But anyone can.
Poor little political wife
Reactions to Hannah Neeleman are reminiscent of a classic trope of second-wave feminism: false consciousness. Of course she explain She’s happy, content, and in control of her destiny—but online feminists know better. Apparently, her claims were either an act (perhaps coerced by a controlling husband) or the result of growing up in a Mormon household. The poor relatives can’t even see how oppressed she is!
Ballet Farm’s comments echo recent reactions to Usha Vance, the wife of Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
Usha and JD met at Yale Law School. Usha also holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from Cambridge University. Until recently, she was an attorney at one of the nation’s top law firms. At the Republican National Convention, she sounded confident and excited as she spoke about her husband’s candidacy and their life together, which includes three children. Vance has repeatedly credited Usha with helping push and shape him.
By all indications, Usha was an intelligent and accomplished woman who supported her husband’s political career. However, Vance also received the Hannah Neeleman treatment after her husband joined Donald Trump’s campaign.
People started sharing pictures of Usha not smiling or looking sad, as if this proved that she disapproved of her husband’s career, or worse.
Some have speculated that JD must be an “abusive control freak” and that Usha only stayed with her because such things were said to have been commonplace while she was growing up in India. Her “body language showed submission”. JD and/or the Trump campaign made her resign.
The comments about Usha Vance echoed an old saying from the 2016 election: “Free Melania.” Many people at the time believed, or at least thought, that Melania Trump wanted no part in her husband’s political agenda , she is a tragic figure trapped in a loveless and controlling marriage.
I won’t pretend to fully understand what happened between the former president and the first lady. But the idea that Melania can’t leave if she wants to leaves defies logic. The truly trapped Melania is a fiction invented to further demonize Trump and/or deny her responsibility for creating the lives they both live.
Voting for Harris ‘is in everyone’s best interest’
Last week, as white women called out Kamala Harris, we could find out about this weird anti-fan fiction about Usha Vance, Hannah Neeleman, and Melania Trump Same attitude.
During that call, writer Glennon Doyle noted that the reason many white women are afraid to publicly support Harris and/or other Democratic candidates is fear of being disliked, criticized, or belittled. Doyle said white women don’t want to make their neighbors “uncomfortable” and they “desperately need to be recognized and liked.”
Meanwhile, Shannon Watts, who organized the call, said the reason many white women vote Republican is because they believe “it’s in our best interest to use our privilege and the support systems of white supremacy and patriarchy to our benefit.”
Watts said voting for Harris was indeed “in everyone’s best interest.”
This kind of rhetoric was common when Hillary was running for president, and it was common after the election when a majority of white female voters voted for Trump. Is there no room to imagine that some women might just be conservative and/or dislike the Democratic candidate?
Can’t women be independent individuals?
There is a pre-political element of projection within the victim narratives constructed around Hannah Neeleman, Usha Vance, and Melania Trump. Maybe it stems from jealousy, anxiety, disgust, or anger. But for whatever reason, some people seem to think I believe these women are not happy. Maybe it helps them overcome jealousy, or feel better about their life choices, or feel like there is still justice in the world – who knows? But it is clearly not based solely on the evidence before us.
Another thread underpinning attitudes toward Melania Trump, Usha Vance, Hannah Neeleman, and any woman who won’t vote for a Democrat is the denial of the conservative women’s establishment.
Although this thread has Influence For politics, too, it seems to be born in a realm outside them. This is an incompetence displayed by those on the left but also evident across the political spectrum, the inability to imagine people actually believing something different than what you believe.
In the realm of politics, this manifests itself in the belief that support for different candidates and different policies does not depend on a million different factors, values and climate, but on stupidity, brainwashing, coercion and cowardice. Men sometimes receive this treatment, but it is more commonly given to women.
To the left, this manifests itself in a complete disbelief that women like Hannah Neeleman and Usha Vance can be happy co-pilots in their lives and those of their husbands. Or insisting that the only reason women oppose Harris is because they are trying to suck up or benefit from white supremacy and the patriarchy. On the right, we sometimes see it manifest as an assertion that female politicians, powerful career women, feminist activists, etc., only speak out against conservative policies because they are miserable about their lives.
Both parties do so at their peril in their own persuasive efforts. You don’t win people over by telling them, “You may think you’re happy, or expressing genuine beliefs, but you’re really just a cog in the cultural Marxist or white supremacist patriarchy.”
This approach by the left is especially strange because left-leaning women often do it under the guise of feminism.
But painting all women in one stroke is not actually feminism. Women are not and never will be a monolith—whether in politics, career leanings, preferred relationship styles, or otherwise. Women are happy with as many different types of arrangements as men and have the ability to make choices for themselves. Conversely, not every woman will be outraged by the things that make some feminists outraged, including having a large family of children or adjusting her career plans to make that possible.
Earlier self-proclaimed feminists could see women as personal— including sometimes deeply flawed human beings — the sooner we can see women living freer, more fulfilling lives in all their weird, messy, and dizzying forms.
