25 (non-Bravo) real life housewives who are pretty badass

Beyoncé Knowles

Obviously, Bey isn’t performing any kind of “housewife” trope that we know of, but the Queen has been very outspoken about her devotion to her home life and domestic sphere. As the mother of three and wife to a successful musician in his own right, Beyoncé knows a thing or two about balance. After all, she might be juggling the most of any of us, with new twins and a young daughter. That’s no small feat.

Aside from her role as a feminist icon and activist, Beyoncé has been extremely open about the importance of her husband, Jay-Z, to her success. Don’t shoot the messenger, but she’s been pretty open about how he’s provided some of her greatest inspiration. As we all know from the constant streaming of her album Lemonade, he’s also been the source of some of her greatest struggles. But that just seems like a modern relationship, if you ask me.

Like so many of the other woman on this list, Beyoncé is not just one thing. Of course she’s a wife and mother, but she is also a global powerhouse with more influence than any other human on the planet (besides Oprah, probably). As antithetical as it might seem, Beyoncé represents some pretty traditional ideas about being both a mother and a professional, and she’s offering a new generation of women insight into what it means to do both.