Att välja domesticitet: hemmafruidealet på TikTok mellan frihet och normativ makt

This study examines how the housewife ideal is constructed and presented as a contemporary phenomenon on the social media platform TikTok. The aim is to analyze how this ideal is represented and categorized in digital content, and to explore the notions of femininity, work, and life choices that emerge from these representations. The study further investigates how these portrayals can be understood in relation to historical ideals of femininity, classical liberalism, and theories of disciplinary power. The study is based on a qualitative idea analysis of 100 videos from ten TikTok accounts that consistently produce content related to the housewife lifestyle and similar ideals. Through thematic coding, two analytical ideal types are identified: a care-based housewife ideal and a consumption-based housewife ideal. While these ideal types differ in how women’s roles are legitimized, both marginalize wage labor and frame women’s positions in relational and dependent terms. The analysis shows that the housewife ideal is predominantly presented as a voluntary and fulfilling individual choice. At the same time, the study highlights how these representations reproduce gendered norms that shape which life choices appear legitimate, desirable, and socially acceptable. By combining a liberal concept of freedom with a Foucauldian perspective on power, the study reveals a tension between perceived individual autonomy and the normative frameworks that structure contemporary representations of domesticity on social media.