Watching women cannibalize themselves for fun and profit

On the second season of ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’

Your support means that we have a space where we can talk about the issues that face our lives and our democracy with fun, nuance, and empathy.

Screenshot from ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ via Youtube.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returned for its second season on May 15. In the first week, the show had over 5 million views, and per Disney the show has held a top spot on the Hulu Top 15 Today list since Season 2 premiered.

The show’s formula is a familiar one: beautiful women gossiping, fighting, and navigating messy romantic relationships.

The show came to be after one of the women, Taylor Frankie Paul, blew up TikTok with her revelation that the loosely defined group of Mormon mom influencers who call themselves “MomTok,” previously known for their hair extensions and dance moves, had been engaging in “soft swinging.” Which is basically everything but intercourse.

The crack in the perfect veneer of the cultivated life of online Mormon wives made the women stars. And the first season showed the women struggling in their relationships with one another as well as with fame, faith, and their husbands.

The first season felt like comfort food with a twist. It combined the familiar script of low-stakes domestic drama set against the novelty of a life steeped in the world of the Church of Latter Day Saints — with bartenders mixing fizzy soda drinks, a scandal over a Chippendales visit, and the women fighting over who does and does not get invited to the baby blessing ceremonies.

In the second season, it’s harder to ignore the narrative tension of the women of the show coming up against the strictures of their religion. If the first season was easy to write off as the antics of silly Mormon wives, the second season feels much darker — because the reality for American women is much darker.

As the current administration rolls out plan after plan to get women to marry, have children, and stay out of the workforce, and as news stories reveal the depths and devastation of abortion bans and cuts to SNAP benefits, it’s become much more obvious that the strictures of patriarchal religion are closing in around all of our necks — whether we believe in them or not.

It’s harder to say, “Oh, that’s just the Mormons,” and write off the drama as niche religious extremism when so many of the show’s themes hit close to home.

The show’s stars, as they reveal in the first season, are the breadwinners in their families, and the power that comes with that capital threatens the balance of their relationships. One MomTokker, Jennifer Affleck,* is married to a man who is still completing his medical training. (*Ed. note: It’s confusing but we think there’s no relation.)

Affleck’s husband is financially dependent on her, but he treats her in a way designed to undermine her contributions and independence. She states in the show, “Within the Mormon Church it’s very expected for the women to be submissive to their husbands. But for me, whether this helps me become a stronger member of the church or maybe turn away from the church, I think in order for this marriage to work, we have to be equals.”

Affleck’s predicament can’t be written off as the result of an extremist religion. As more women enter the workforce and have families, mothers rarely get time to clock out. Despite research showing that fathers are doing more chores than previous generations, working mothers have less leisure time than working fathers. Additionally, even when they work more and earn more than their male partners, mothers still do more childcare and housework. Some research suggests that women who are the breadwinners in their homes are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. A working father gets to clock out; a working mother never does.

The women are also constantly slamming into the limits of who and what they can be inside the world they inhabit. Taylor Frankie Paul finds herself at odds with her parents after she learns her partner and the father of her youngest child, Dakota Mortensen, lied to her about his relationships with other women. Paul’s parents take Mortensen’s side, blaming Paul for not trying to make it work with him. It’s a brutal part of the second season that speaks volumes about the world these women live in.

Americans love a TV show that reveals the depths of patriarchy without ever naming the villain. Reality shows that deal with love, betrayal, and reunification are insanely popular because it’s easier to watch and judge an individual’s actions than to question the systems in which they occur. Why is the pursuit of matrimony a competition that pits women against women, men against men, and sells ad spots on Hulu? Why is the performance of traditional motherhood a titillating television show in a culture that refuses to do anything to materially support motherhood? Those questions are less fun than watching Botoxed babes choreograph a TikTok dance.

And it’s easier to judge women’s choices when you can believe women actually have choices. But the second season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives reveals how few choices the women have if they don’t want to surrender their faith or their families. And they face enormous pressure for wanting just a bit of the freedom their money should be able to buy them.

The women of MomTok aren’t different from previous generations of women who have been pressured by their faith, family or limited resources into staying at home with their children. Women stuck in this role have always found creative outlets. In the rural Midwest, housewives stuck at home became stars of AM radio. Frustrated and isolated in the 1960s, Betty Friedan called this pent-up frustration “the problem with no name,” and it led to a revolution. In the early 2000s, when the gender pay gap was closing and it was easier to pretend women were staying at home out of choice, stay-at-home moms became stars of the blogging world.

Same problem, different era. Faced with the isolation in the sacred space of motherhood, women turned to TikTok for a creative outlet and found viral fame. Now, the women of MomTok are even richer. But the money only highlights their lack of options. You can be the breadwinner and still never get a break.

Trapped in the lucrative performance of their lives, these women are not getting a break, nor are they having much fun. They have to juggle the performance of their friendships, the performance of motherhood, being a good wife and still bringing home that paycheck. Reality TV is rarely accused of realism, but these Mormon wives might be a little too much like us.