Publish at September 10 2025Updated September 10 2025
Traditional women as marketing tools
This resurgent trend is the brainchild of marketing specialists
They are present on social networks, the "trad wives", antifeminist women who propose a lifestyle like that promoted during the interwar period or after the Second World War. For them, a woman's role is to look after the house, cook for her husband and be a mother. They'll often be dressed in classic 1950s or '60s garb, looking like contented wives in a kitchen.
What if the whole image of the happy housewife wasn't just marketing manipulation? This France Culture capsule reminds us, for example, that one of America's best-known names, Betty Crocker, is a fictional character - though many people will mistake her for a real person - who promotes baking, cooking and the like. All this, initially, for a brand of flour.
Switzerland and France also had their perfect housewife role models, but in the end, they were just one of the tools used to promote the housewife: Betty Bossi and Françoise Bernard. Each of them entered the households of millions of people, anchoring the almost ideal image of the good wife.
Simulation-based learning also brings a practical element to training. This is becoming easier with the democratization of virtual reality, for example. In recent years, another technology has been making inroads: artificial intelligence. Could it transform educational simulations?
In a context where the human ecological footprint and the collapse of physical activity among children are issues, walking or cycling to school would already be a good solution. However, many parents refuse to let their children use active means of transport for fear of the risks involved. The solution to these fears could be the velobus.
Public funding for education is dwindling. Faced with little in the way of massive re-injections of cash, some teachers have decided to seek funding from crowdfunding platforms. But this approach creates just as much, if not more, inequality between schools, as the English example shows.