Ex-MAFs contestant Tyson Gordon walks back controversial ‘submissive woman’ claim, reveals he’s searching for ‘trad wife’
A former Married at First Sight contestant claims his controversial claim that he wanted a “submissive” woman was misunderstood as an expert warned against the growing movement he wants to be part of.
“Traditional wife,” used to describe women who want to stay at home and take care of traditional feminine roles like cooking and cleaning while their husbands focus on making money, is one of the latest trends to pop up online.
Queensland woman Amber Basanovic told 60 Minutes that she and her husband share the “blue and pink chores” and told reporter Amelia Adams that “nothing compares to the satisfaction I feel being at home” while supporting her family.
After burning out and quitting her job as corporate operations manager for a global makeup brand, she spends her days making honey for her family.
“I was always career-oriented. I had goals of what I wanted to achieve, and then I started to burn out, and having a family changed everything for me,” she told 60 Minutes on Sunday night.
“You want to be a good mother, you want to be a good wife, you want to be there for yourself. And with time being so limited… I couldn’t do that.”
He’s not the only one jumping on the trend: MAF contestant Tyson Gordon, who sparked controversy by saying he was looking for a “submissive” wife during the popular show’s 2026 season, told 60 Minutes that he’s looking for his own traditional wife.
He claims that he used the wrong word while at MAFs and meant to say that he was looking for a “traditional” woman instead of a “submissive” woman.
“So it was wrong to use the word submissive. The word I was looking for was conventional, and the word I wanted to use was conventional,” he told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
He also told the program that he wasn’t looking for someone who would “serve and obey” him.
“I’m not looking for a dog, and I’m not looking to put a leash on my wife,” he said.
He wants to be a “provider and protector” for his future wife so she can focus on bonding with her children for as long as she wants.
But Mr Gordon stressed he would support his future wife regardless of whether she wanted to return to work or stay at home.
Mr Gordon added that he would not “chain her to the kitchen” and stressed that he wanted his future wife to “make time for herself” too.
“I don’t expect you to chain him to the kitchen and say, ‘Make me a sandwich,'” he said.
“He won’t be locked in here all day. It’s nothing like that.”
“There’s really nothing wrong with wanting a traditional relationship in this day and age. I think if you can support it financially, why not?”
Professor Heejung Chung, Director of the Global Women’s Leadership Institute at Kings College London, agreed with Adams that the movement was “a step backwards for women” and said it appealed to men “trying to reclaim their masculinity”. “Men have lost their way of feeling, of being men… I can’t really be a protector because she’s a strong, empowered woman. So what do I have left?” He explained the program.
“So in a way, this is a way for men to try to reclaim their masculinity.”
One of the appeals of the movement, he added, is the “fake nostalgia” it seems to promote.
“I think one of the dangers that traditional wives present is that what they portray never existed,” he said.
“Oh, the idea that women in the 1950s had to look beautiful and comfortably be able to make bread from scratch never actually existed. There was too much housework to be done. There was too much drudgery.”
He added that being a housewife without financial independence can lead to issues with autonomy, and also spoke of troubling attitudes among young men revealed in his research, which found that a third of Gen Z men believe women should always obey their husbands.
