The Stepford Wives

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In a chilling scene, Joanna becomes adamant about moving away from Stepford and Walter uses all the tactics of the manipulative emotional abuser: He pretends to consider her point of view, but at the same time he calls her “ irrational” and “ a little hysterical” (87) He tries to arouse guilt by explaining how hard it would be on the kids. Then he suggests she visit a psychiatrist to see if she’s delusional. In other words, he tries to make her doubt reality. He tries to gaslight her. This made me think of Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist feminism. The problem, as defined by existentialist feminism, is that man casts himself in the role of subject and woman in the role of object; himself as observer and woman as observed; himself as Self and woman as Other. These two scenes effectively convey that creepy feeling women get when subjected to the ‘male gaze,’ that feeling of being naked, of being watched, of being reduced to an object.

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Between the publishing of Levin’s novel and the release of its 1975 film adaptation, Roe v. Wade had made abortion legal nationwide. The panic over that decision, and over women’s bodily autonomy in general, is marrow-deep within The Stepford Wives, in which the eponymous spouses are killed and turned into fembots who speak in commercial advertisements for cleaning products and shriek with pleasure at their husbands’ undoubtedly mediocre love-making. The term "Stepford wife" entered common use in the English language after the publication of Levin's book. It is generally used as a derogatory term for a submissive and docile wife who seems to conform blindly to the stereotype of an old-fashioned subservient role in relationship to her husband. [6] [7] See also [ edit ] Now I have to say that I can think of some men who might go along with scheme like this if it were possible. Can you? a b Arrow, Michelle. " 'Suburban living did turn women into robots': why feminist horror novel The Stepford Wives is still relevant, 50 years on" . Retrieved July 28, 2022.Another way of reading The Stepford Wives is as a commentary on consumerism, and how non-conformity is a threat to that way of life and doing business. A 1996 version called The Stepford Husbands was made as a third television movie with the gender roles reversed and the men in the town being brainwashed by a female clinic director into being perfect husbands.

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Joanna Eberhart is the main character and protagonist of the Stepford Wives. She is a professional photographer and politically active. She moves with her two children and husband Walter Eberhart from New York City to Stepford. When they arrive, Joanna realizes something surprising: All the wives in Stepford are perfectly groomed, loves cleaning and taking care of their children. I have heard many different theories about what Levin was trying to achieve with this book. Far be it for me to know but he created a terrifying tale that was so powerful that the term Stepford wife made it into the human consciousness and still exists so powerfully today. Well, note that she’s not Levin’s only heroine who falls at the final hurdle. In Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary Woodhouse similarly accepts her fate. THE STEPFORD WIVES is a creepy little satirical novella that proves (some) men are pretty shallow or really were afraid of the Women's Liberation Movement! The underlying irony of Levin’s story, of course, is that the only emotion that the Stepford men seem capable of feeling right down to their very bones is fear. They express no desire, willingness or capacity to feel any other emotion and it is the fact that this state as human beings is only replicated by their wives once they have undergone the process of being transformed into the robots that is the real message here. The secret process of turning the women of Stepford into unthinking, unfeeling mindless automatons takes four months. No such timeline is presented for how long it took to do the same thing to the men of Stepford. Update this section!

For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same. What connects Stepford with Shaw’s play – aside from the modification of women – is the idea that women can only learn what men teach them. They’re empty vessels, waiting to be filled with [a lesser version of] male knowledge – and male standards of perfection. Resistance is futile One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn’t at all easy to write clear, declarative prose—transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work—while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse.”

The Stepford Wives movie review (2004) | Roger Ebert The Stepford Wives movie review (2004) | Roger Ebert

Joanna Eberhart is an accomplished photographer. A woman comfortable with herself, in love with her husband, and raising two charming/rambunctious children. They decide to move to Stepford, Connecticut an idyllic community full of successful people and beautiful scenery. In an attempt to get to know her neighbors she soon discovers that the women are too busy waxing floors and ironing clothes to really spend time with her. They are friendly and will offer her a cup of coffee, but they are driven to keep working as they chat.

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The town of Stepford, move there if you want some cult vibes. I saw the newer movie adaptation before reading the book, and definitely found the book more entertaining. It’s obviously not supposed to seem plausible and there’s no real mystery, and the horror element is really focused around the gaslighting of the wives primarily. Of course, the meat of it is the eerily domestic women in the insulated little community, who mysteriously abandoned their political group around the time the men of the community started theirs…and no women allowed of course. We all know *something* happened to the women, we just don’t know what it is. This book is considered a thriller satire. It certainly makes fun of the idealized female portrait of the 1950s when women supposedly did housework in poodle skirts and kept their hair, nails, and figure in immaculate condition. I’m sure there are still men who would like their women to meet that criteria. They might even pine for a woman to fetch them a beer when they hear him crushing an empty can from his recliner, but most of us enjoy the equality of women with jobs, with careers, with interests, with hobbies, and able to discuss with us more than just what’s for dinner. This book made such an impact that now “Stepford” is a part of our popular culture language used to describe a submissive housewife. I impulsively decided to read this book when I discovered that my local library did not have a copy of Ira Levin’s even more famous book Rosemary’s Baby. Sometimes detours are as fun or more fun than the originally intended destination. We know they’re incapable of free speech because Claude Axhelm gets each wife to record herself speaking. This is presumably to programme the creature that will replace her after death. There are other changes, but they are inconsequential and as I said, didn’t change the integrity of the book. 2004 version