Is ‘Princess Treatment’ the Gateway Drug Tradwives Have Been Waiting For?

Remember that old fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, “The Princess and the Pea”? 

Whether you’re watching an animated retelling, reading the backstory of a limited edition Barbie doll, or streaming a bootleg version of the musical that once starred Sarah Jessica Parker, the story remains pretty consistent. To test if she’s truly royalty — and worthy of marriage to a prince — a princess is given a bed heaped with a pile of mattresses. Secretly, her doubters place a single pea under the mattress on the bottom. When morning arrives and she tells her hosts that she was kept awake by an uncomfortable lump, it’s taken as proof that she has the delicate senses of a true princess. While people on TikTok aren’t conducting psychological sleep experiments on each other in the name of a monarchical system, they are making it clear that their dating sensibilities are just as delicate with the latest phrase du jour on the app: princess treatment. And as the discourse around it keeps stacking up, what started as a silly turn of phrase has devolved into an incomprehensible mess that’s preventing people from noticing the much more insidious shift around them. 

Online, the term “princess treatment” means above and beyond handling in a relationship setting. But what internet users can’t seem to agree on is its application — what’s anniversary behavior for one couple might be an average Tuesday for another . Enter the “bare minimum vs princess treatment” trend, a challenge where women ask their significant other where a particular task might land for them. The scenarios range from filling up a girlfriend’s gas tank or giving her your jacket when she’s cold to carrying her when her feet hurt or never letting her touch a door handle. Calling something “princess treatment” implies that it’s an over-the-top request. If the girlfriend doesn’t agree with their boyfriend, the men in question get an instant blast of water to the face. 

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In addition to the sheer fun some women have with dousing their significant others with a garden hose, the trend has been characterized by countless disagreements in the comments section over what kind of treatment makes for a good relationship. But when housewife and content creator Courtney Palmer posted a video explaining her husband’s princess treatment, what people managed to agree upon was that her video took the idea to an entirely new level. 

“If I am at a restaurant with my husband, I do not talk to the hostess, I do not open any doors, and I do not order my food,” Palmer said in a video describing a typical date night. “I want him to order for me. I like when he orders for me. It’s not that I’m not capable of ordering for myself, it’s just a fun princess treatment sort of thing.” Palmer’s video describing how she typically avoids eye contact with service staff, relying on her husband to speak for her, drew the ire of followers and a wave of comments calling the behavior problematic. “Me when I’m a prisoner,” read one comment. “It’s giving cult or hostage situation,” said another. “They be like ‘princess treatment’ but it’s medieval times and you’re locked in a castle.” 

There were parodies aplenty, many from service workers and restaurant–themed accounts focused on how disconcerting a lack of eye contact would be during a shift. But the prevalent commentary was about the link between the seemingly controlling nature of Palmer’s husband and the growing popularity of trad wife content creators. Trad wives — women who prioritize traditional gender roles and often project old-school fantasies of staying home with the kids, returning to the land, home cooking, and serving their husband — have played an outsized role on the internet in the past few years, marking the rise of conservative presences in digital spaces. These women, like Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, or even cooking creator Nara Smith, gain millions of followers by posting content themed around household management, from-scratch cooking, and child rearing — carefully noting that it’s their personal choice while encouraging others to lean into their own divine feminine impulses. 

While everyone is decrying the death of feminism in Palmer’s comments, she’s raking in the cash. Posting about princess treatment isn’t declaring what kind of feminist you are. It’s a way to get attention — and its working. In an interview with People, she said she gained close to 24,000 followers from the success of the princess treatment video, which on its own received close to 4.5 million views. “Your softness isn’t giving anyone control over you. It’s giving a partner space to lead with that strength,” Palmer told People. “When I’m leaning into my grace, I invite him to rise as that protector, a provider, a partner, because that’s what he wants to do. It works in a perfect balance and becomes that effortless, graceful, calm, peaceful lifestyle.” 

While people are patting each other on the back in Palmer’s comments for being able to recognize red flags from a marriage influencer, what they’re not realizing is that there’s far more nebulous patterns slipping completely under the radar. Palmer’s princess treatment video is simply the final boss of a TikTok practically terraformed by girl content. There’s girl dinner, girl math, viral “we were girls together” sounds, the “looking for a man in finance” trend — all predicated on the underlying assumption that women need to be taken care of, protected, and are incapable of deep thought. 

If you look at the comments on the “bare minimum vs princess treatment” challenges, the large majority jokingly side with the girlfriends, saying that women are in need of gentle treatment and pampering. And beyond the viral jokes littering Palmer’s comments are thousands of seemingly serious comments calling her video just an example of how leaning into feminine roles can be self care. It’s not a coincidence that this is happening at the same time that the Stanford Prison Experiment redux known as Love Island USA is streaming — where the biggest crime you can accuse someone of is not being “a girl’s girl.” There’s no good way to have subtle conversations around feminism online. But that doesn’t mean princess treatment isn’t important. The rise in trad wife popularity is occurring at the same time as a serious attack on reproductive rights in the United States. Calling out misogynistic content matters. But what the reaction to Palmer’s video is showing that when posters take the fight to a singular comment section without challenging the patterns underneath it — everything stays the same.