In many ways, The Stepford Wives is about a community unwilling to embrace change. The novel takes place in the 1960s or the early 1970s—a period that was important in the struggle for gender equality, as organizations like the Women’s Liberation Movement challenged sexist cultural norms. When she first moves to Stepford, Joanna proudly talks about her involvement in the Women’s Liberation Movement, clearly already sensing that her interest in feminism will stand out in a town that still clings tightly to traditional gender roles. In other words, Joanna is aware early in the novel that her progressive worldview is at odds with the outdated and sexist traditions at play in Stepford. To that end, her one likeminded friend, Bobbie, calls Stepford “the Town That Time Forgot,” since she and Joanna are the only women even remotely interested in forming a female equivalent of the town’s prominent Men’s Association.
What’s interesting, though, is that both Joanna and Bobbie fail to see that their own husbands are just as sexist and traditional as the other men in town. Joanna speaks proudly in the beginning of the novel about how Walter is a big supporter of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Throughout the book, then, Joanna—and, in turn, readers—see Walter as a refreshingly enlightened man. He even gives Joanna the impression that he’s going to help change the Men’s Association “from the inside” by joining and then convincing the others to make it co-ed. In the end, though, Walter turns Joanna into a subservient robot designed to do whatever she’s told (though it’s never made clear if this was Walter’s original intention or if the other men convinced him to turn against Joanna). By highlighting Walter’s betrayal of Joanna, the novel shows how difficult it is to change sexist power structures when even supposedly open-minded, progressive men appear unwilling to work toward equality.
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Equality and Societal Change Quotes in The Stepford Wives
“And I’m interested in politics and in the Women’s Liberation movement. Very much so in that. And so is my husband.”
“I’ve changed my mind; I’m joining that Men’s Association.”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Too many important things are centered there to just opt out of it,” he said. “Local politicking, the charity drives and so on…”
She said, “How can you join an outdated, old-fashioned—”
“I spoke to some of the men on the train,” he said. “[…] They agree that the no-women-allowed business is archaic.” He took her arm and they walked on. “But the only way to change it is from inside,” he said.
They spent a morning calling on women together, on the theory (Bobbie’s) that the two of them, speaking in planned ambiguities, might create the encouraging suggestion of a phalanx of women with room for one more. It didn’t work.
“Jee-zus!” Bobbie said, ramming her car viciously up Short Ridge Hill. “Something fishy is going on here! We’re in the Town that Time Forgot!”
“These things came out nice and white, didn’t they?” She put the folded T-shirt into the laundry basket, smiling.
Like an actress in a commercial.
That’s what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleaners, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing suburban housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real.
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?
“I’m not joking,” Charmaine said. “[My husband’s] a pretty wonderful guy, and I’ve been lazy and selfish. I’m through playing tennis, and I’m through reading those astrology books. From now on I’m going to do right by [my husband], and by [my son] too. I’m lucky to have such a wonderful husband and son.”
Walter wasn’t particularly surprised to hear about the change in Charmaine. “[Her husband] must have laid the law down to her,” he said, turning a fork of spaghetti against his spoon. “I don’t think he makes enough money for that kind of a setup. A maid must be at least a hundred a week these days.”
“Joanna,” Bobbie said, “I think there’s something here. In Stepford. It’s possible, isn’t it? All those fancy plants on Route Nine—electronics, computers, aerospace junk, with Stepford Creek running right behind them—who knows what kind of crap they’re dumping into the environment.”
“What do you mean?” Joanna said.
“Just think for a minute,” Bobbie said. She fisted her free hand and stuck out its pinky. “Charmaine’s changed and become a hausfrau,” she said. She stuck out her ring finger. “The woman you spoke to, the one who was president of the club; she changed, didn’t she, from what she must have been before?”
“Even if I’m wrong,” Bobbie said with her mouth full, “even if there’s no chemical doing anything”—she swallowed—“is this where you really want to live? We’ve each got one friend now, you after two months, me after three. Is that your idea of the ideal community? I went into Norwood to get my hair done for your party; I saw a dozen women who were rushed and sloppy and irritated and alive; I wanted to hug every one of them!”
“I’ve begun to suspect—” Joanna said. “Oh Jesus, ‘suspect’; that sounds so—” She worked her hands together, looking at them.
Dr. Fancher said, “Begun to suspect what?”
She drew her hands apart and wiped them on her skirt. “I’ve begun to suspect that the men are behind it,” she said.
“It sounds,” Dr. Fancher said, “like the idea of a woman who like many women today, and with good reason, feels a deep resentment and suspicion of men. One who’s pulled two ways by conflicting demands, perhaps more strongly than she’s aware; the old conventions on the one hand, and the new conventions of the liberated woman on the other.”
“You must think we’re a hell of a lot smarter than we really are,” the man in the middle said. “Robots that can drive cars? And cook meals? And trim kids’ hair?”
“And so real-looking that the kids wouldn’t notice?” the third man said. He was short and wide.
“You must think we’re a townful of geniuses,” the man in the middle said. “Believe me, we’re not.”
“You’re the men who put us on the moon,” she said.
“Who is?” he said. “Not me. […]”
She was wrong, she knew it. She was wrong and frozen and wet and tired and hungry, and pulled eighteen ways by conflicting demands. Including to pee.
If they were killers, they’d have killed her then. The branch wouldn’t’ have stopped them, three men facing one woman.
[…]
Bobbie would bleed. It was coincidence that Dale Coba had worked on robots at Disneyland, that Claude Axhelm thought he was Henry Higgins, that Ike Mazzard drew his flattering sketches. Coincidence, that she had spun into—into madness. Yes, madness.
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.”
