Who is Gwen The Milkmaid, and why is she at the center of a TikTok conspiracy theory?
Gwen Swinarton, also known as Gwen The Milkmaid (@gwenthemilkmaid ) — a TikToker who describes herself as a “milkmaid in training” — posts aesthetic, inspirational content related to “homesteading, homemaking and holistic health.” She has over 43,000 followers on TikTok and just over 4,000 on Instagram.
While Swinarton has a long history as an influencer, lately, she has shifted into “tradwife” content. “Tradwives,” USA Today explains, stands for “traditional wives,” women who espouse “traditional” values such as submitting to your husband and excelling at domestic tasks.
Swinarton often labels her video with the #tradwife and #traditionalmarriage hashtags, although she is engaged and not technically married yet.
But despite Swinarton’s current online presence as a doting wife-to-be who spends her days gardening and baking sourdough bread, some critics say that the content creator’s past online identities (such as her Instagram account @gwengwiz) suggest that her extreme lifestyle pivot is just for views and not truly authentic.
For instance, a long-time fan and follower of Swinarton’s, TikToker Rachel (@lighticegirly), claims that Swinarton lives in the suburbs just outside of the city, may not even have a fiancé, and is not the homesteader she actually claims to be.
On the other hand, some say that Swinarton’s past is just that — her past — and her new lifestyle reflects the changes she has gone through both personally and professionally.
Gwen The Milkmaid, past and present
Swinarton’s current videos portray her wandering through meadows, cooking, feeding animals and criticizing the government for forcing kids into public schools, all while clad in a flowing, floral-print dress with her blonde hair down.
“Our husbands are to be the breadwinners and we the bread makers,” said audio in a recent TikTok that showed her tending to her flowers and wearing a pink apron.
Despite her current presentation, Rachel claims to have watched Swinarton as far back as five to six years ago when her social media presence was much different. According to Rachel, back then, Swinarton posted ASMR videos about her life as a lesbian and “fashion influencer girly” living in the city.
Eventually, Rachel claims, Swinarton transitioned into some stuff that was “overtly sexual,” so Rachel stopped following her as closely. “[It was] just not my ASMR vibe,” Rachel explained. “Yeah, totally fine if it’s yours, it’s cool. Um, so I stopped kind of watching her, would look at her stuff occasionally.”
Swinarton’s ASMR YouTube account, GwenGwiz ASMR, has videos that show her doing different types of roleplay ASMR, such as a “whispered big sister roleplay” and “ASMR kidnapped RP.”
Swinarton also still has a public Instagram account (@gwengwiz) that appears to be more suggestive in content, although the last feed post is dated August 2022.
In the account profile, she describes herself as a “future farm girl” and has posted pictures with a similar aesthetic to those she has now with flowers, picnics and feminine wear — but much more revealing.
Although Rachel alleges that Swinarton has deleted a lot of her older content, Swinarton’s second YouTube channel, Growing With Gwen, features some videos from around four years ago that show the influencer moving into a city apartment, trying on swimsuits and posing in lingerie.
She also posted a YouTube video four months ago that addressed the pivot in her beliefs and content. In the video, Swinarton said she felt “called” to encourage girls to stop doing porn and to encourage “everyone” to stop watching and supporting it.
She added that she would give her followers more details on her own personal journey but wanted to take more time “to cope” and “do it right.”
“But I do have like a pact I would say with God, that I will start talking about it before this year is over, but that I really think it would probably be towards the end of the year that I really, actually talk to you guys about my journey and the whole thing and everything that I went through,” Gwen said in the video. “There’s a lot to say and I just, I don’t want to mess it up.”
What is a tradwife?
If Swinarton is your first introduction to the concept of a tradwife, know that the exact definition of a tradwife can vary.
Women who identify with the title, CNN explains, espouse “traditional” virtues of working inside the home without paying jobs and instead focus on raising children, serving their husbands and excelling at domestic work such as cooking and gardening.
Again, tradwives’ beliefs can vary, but many also support homeschooling and tend to have Christian beliefs and lean towards right-wing political ideologies. They also frequently express doubts about the safety of public schooling, vaccinations and some aspects of modern medicine.
Tradwives may dress in traditionally feminine ways, some wearing strictly dresses for purported religious reasons, others covering their hair and still others taking great care with hair and makeup “for their husbands.”
And while the tradwife movement might be one that picks and chooses what realities women faced in history (there’s no mention of not being able to open a bank account alongside aesthetic pictures of breadmaking, for instance), those who support it claim it is their choice and, as such, deserves to be supported in the name of feminism.
Critics, on the other hand, say while any woman certainly has the right to choose any type of lifestyle they wish, glorifying one type of lifestyle as the “superior” one and not addressing deeper issues such as gender inequality, the potential for abuse and financial instability is problematic.
Why are accounts like Gwen’s so popular?
Tradwife accounts — along with related accounts that feature content about homesteading, homemaking or other home-related tasks like making bread — have risen in popularity, a trend that Vice reports may be related to people’s interests in skills that aren’t present in a lot of modern-day living. It could be entertaining, comforting or just something different than what people are used to seeing.
However, it could also be misleading, say some critics. For instance, while they don’t always go hand-in-hand, tradwives often also purport to be homesteaders, growing their own food in gardens, raising chicken and livestock and canning and preserving food for their families.
And it’s where the two meet, say some critics, that there may be a lot of smoke-and-mirrors about the tradwife life. True homesteading and raising your own food can be physically challenging, require tremendous resources like tools, tractors and manual labor and doesn’t always look like pearls and flowers.
Instead, it can look like hard work, a less-than-aesthetically pleasing yard and a lot of cans.
“The vast majority of tradwives on the internet are incels cosplaying. Real tradwives wouldn’t have the free time to occupy the internet like this,” commented Reddit user gorgossiums on a thread that pointed out how, like Swinarton, some tradwife accounts seem to have some past or present connection to more sexual material.
And as Rachel’s deep-dive TikToks into Swinarton’s life allege, Swinarton may be one of the people simply pretending to be a tradwife on the internet for clicks and views.
She pointed out that based on Swinarton’s social media content, she doesn’t appear to actually own any of her own farm animals other than “potentially chickens” and has only a “failing garden” in her backyard.
“She makes all this aspirational content about being like a farm wife but literally lives in the suburbs and is not doing anything successful,” Rachel said in the video. “We’re not convinced she actually has a husband. She lives in the suburbs in Ontario or somewhere in Canada in a city and she doesn’t own 100 acres of land. She doesn’t have children. She’s not married. It’s very uncomfortable.”
On TikTok, many appreciated what they called Rachel’s “investigative sleuthing” and wanted to find out more if Swinarton’s pivot is the real deal or not.
“Tradwives have always previously liked like several different influencer lives and I feel as though I’ve found my fellow anthropologists in this field,” commented @partofeverything.
“I am so glad someone is detailing this because I am FLOORED by this turn of events,” said @bookish_busic.
“omg my people. I have followed her for years and am addicted to this trainwreck,” added @emillylemontree.
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