Joanna’s passion for photography—and the fact that she gives it up at the end of the novel—symbolizes the challenges that sexist, male-dominated societies pose for women with their own ambitions and aspirations. Before moving to Stepford, Joanna has worked as a semi-professional photographer, and though she isn’t wildly successful, she has sold several pictures to an agency. In Stepford, though, she has a hard time keeping up with her craft, largely because it’s clear that everyone else in the community expects women to set aside their own interests in order to devote themselves to housework. The idea here is that women should prioritize their husbands’ lives over their own, and though Joanna tries to fight this at first, she’s unable to succeed. When Walter and the other members of the Men’s Association eventually turn her into a robot, she gives up photography completely, which illustrates how patriarchal societies exert pressure on independent, hardworking women to lead domestic lives void of ambition.
Joanna’s Photography Quotes in The Stepford Wives
He had radioed a message about her, and then he had stalled her with his questions while the message was acted on, the shades pulled down.
Oh, come on, girl, you’re getting nutty! She looked at the house again. They wouldn’t have a radio up there. And what would he have been afraid she’d photograph? An orgy in progress? Call girls from the city?
When had it begun, her distrust of him, the feeling of nothingness between them? Whose fault was it?
His face had grown fuller; why hadn’t she noticed it before today? Had she been too busy taking pictures, working in the darkroom?
“Oh no,” Joanna said. “I don’t do much photography any more.”
“You don’t?” Ruthanne said.
“No, Joanna said. “I wasn’t especially talented, and I was wasting a lot of time I really have better uses for.”
Joanna’s Photography Symbol Timeline in The Stepford Wives
