Olivia Dean Gets Accused Of Secretly Pushing Trad-Wife Propaganda

What is it, you may ask? It’s that her vintage aesthetic is secretly right-wing propaganda, and she’s setting women back. They believe that Dean, a beautiful girl with a honey-toned voice, has a sinister plot to undo decades of feminist progress. 

The backlash began bubbling up on social media almost the second the ceremony ended, with users accusing the twenty-six-year-old singer of pushing a conservative agenda disguised as neo-soul. Because Dean favors a vintage aesthetic—opting for satin slips, modest necklines, and ultra feminine dresses rather than the hyper-sexualized choreography of her pop contemporaries—critics have inexplicably labeled her a figurehead for the "trad wife" movement.

The discourse reached a fever pitch when users began psychoanalyzing her wardrobe choices as political statements. One user, @FENDIANASTARRR, wrote, "she didn’t make this for billboard… or sales…. she made this to perpetuate the ideals of trad wife to modern day youth trying to restore our population to a once heteronormative way of living." 

Another person received over 20,000 tweets by tweeting, “she didn’t make this for billboard, she made this for tj maxx and single mom grwm tiktoks.”

It is genuinely exhausting to watch the internet attempt to turn a woman’s personal style into a moral panic. Dean’s aesthetic is quite obviously a nod to the jazz and soul greats she emulates musically, yet we have reached a point in cultural discourse where wearing a dress that follows the body rather than revealing it is interpreted as an act of gender treason. The leap from "she likes vintage fashion and sings about love" to "she wants to restore a heteronormative population" suggests a terminal inability to distinguish between an aesthetic vibe and a political manifesto. It’s also selfish, perhaps narcissistic even, to expect a complete stranger to curate her existence solely to validate your personal definition of modern womanhood.

She's Not Even Trad

The irony of these accusations is distinct when you consider Dean’s actual background, which is far from the submissive caricature Twitter is determined to paint. She was raised in London by what she describes as "very strong, independent women," specifically her mother and aunt, and she has built her career without the safety net of nepotism that cushions so many of her peers. She even goes as far as to describe herself as "a very strong feminist," and, until 2023, only hired female directors for her music videos.  The point is, Dean is not selling the “trad” lifestyle by any means; she is selling her music, which is built on passion, love, and intention. The singer once noted about her album The Art of Loving, "You’ve got to put the time in, it’s a craft, it’s like playing an instrument or any other skill."  

This specific brand of vitriol feels strikingly similar to the way the internet treats women like Nara Smith, who are routinely villainized for appearing more feminine in a way that doesn't align with a very narrow, girl-boss definition of modern womanhood. It seems that unless a female artist is performing a specific kind of aggressive, commodified sexuality, she is liable to be accused of setting women back fifty years. The backlash exposes a nasty undercurrent in online culture where people feel entitled to bully women who don't fit the mold of what is currently deemed "socially acceptable" empowerment.

We claim to want diversity in the music industry, yet the moment a woman succeeds by being soft, soulful, and uninterested in the spectacle of pop stardom, we tear her down for being "boring" or "regressive." Alas, she is playing a long game that has nothing to do with X trends or culture wars, and perhaps that unshakeable confidence is what actually infuriates her critics the most. Dean is likely unbothered by the noise, given that she told NPR last year, "If someone was to say they didn’t like it, I would just be like, ‘Well, that’s fine, I love it and it’s real.’" 

She added, "It will never be bad for me."