In each edition of web_crawlr we have exclusive original content every day. On Tuesdays our IRL Reporter Tricia Crimmins breaks down the trends on the popular app that will make you cringe in her “Problematic on TikTok” column. If you want to read columns like this before everyone else, subscribe to web_crawlr to get your daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.
If you’ve ever wanted a peek into the marriages of male blue collar workers and their wives, just look for a Loretta Lynn audio on TikTok.
Lynn, a prolific country music singer, is going viral on the app because her song “You Ain’t Woman Enough” has become the rallying cry of women who think that someone is trying to steal their blue collar husband. So, to seemingly dissuade those husband stealers, the wives of blue collar men are airing all their dirty secrets and less-than hygienic habits via TikTok videos.
Apparently, some blue collar men aren’t washing their underwear or cleaning up after themselves, don’t take their shoes off inside or clean their “beard trimmings” out of the sink, “sit on the shitter for an hour,” make their wives cut their toenails for them, have the “communication skills of a toddler,” “blow boogers” and urinate on their wives in the shower. Paired with Lynn’s lyrics—”you ain’t woman enough to take my man”—the implication is that women who want to steal blue collar men from their wives wouldn’t be able to handle how those men act and treat their spouses.
But then the trope created by the aforementioned wives seemed to fall apart. One wife of a blue collar man shared that her husband takes care of himself and his own toenails: “Bad hygiene is not a blue collar thing.” And a blue collar woman who says she works with blue collar men said that they talk badly about their wives.
So, what’s the gain here? These blue collar wives are martyrizing themselves for putting up with bad treatment from their husbands… for what? Just to be able to gloat about it on TikTok? And why are we manufacturing a stereotype that a class of workers who do manual labor don’t wash themselves?
Why it matters
Being in a heterosexual relationship and/or marriage that functions according to traditional gender roles doesn’t make you more of a woman than other women, nor does it make you morally superior to other people.
Luckily, people beside myself seem to understand that and have been using Lynn’s song to express their opinions on the revelations from blue collar wives on TikTok.
“This trend makes me not want to get married EVER,” one TikToker says. “Why are y’all bragging about marrying a man child?”
“Nobody wanted to take your blue collar husband,” another said. “But thanks for letting us know about his poor hygiene and [incapability] of doing things for himself.”
