The Stepford Wives Analysis

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Recommended: Essays on portrayals of women in media

Georgios Araujo
Dr. Andy Schopp
ENG_251
15 October 2017
Response 3 In Forbes’ The Stepford Wives, Joanna Eberhardt and her two children are uprooted from the busy bustling streets of Manhattan to the quiet streets of Stepford. Where the crime rate is zero and so is the poverty rate, her husband insists this is the best place to raise a family. Almost immediately Joanna is uncertain of the women living in Stepford, she feels as though they are living on a different planet. They are overly obsessed with keeping a clean house, and pleasing their husbands, all whom are members of the Men’s Association. All of their husbands are executives and very intelligent people, and when they aren’t at work, you can find them at the Men’s Association. There
Without them keeping everything up to par at home, then their whole life will fall apart. It’s a very sexist movie in terms of “typical” things that women do and “typical” things that men do in speaking terms that men are “supposed” to go to work and his wife is “supposed” to stay home and be a housewife. The men noticed that their wives had too much “power” and that their lives were more enjoyable with a messy household, that’s why they took over control by recreating their wife physically, in a robot form, so that they can do everything that the men want them to. It’s a very controlling aspect in the film and sets an interesting precedent for when Joanna meets her robot unwillingly. This is a clear stab at the men of the time who were revisiting the feminist movement and a women’s decision to explore life outside of their homes in the 70’s, therefore the men are viewed as “evil”
In the film, Joanna is running frantically through the mansion run by the Men’s Association towards a recording of her children saying “mommy” looking for them. Once she’s there, she’s trapped, and she knows its over. She then comes face to face with her “Stepford self” you could say and the next time we see Joanna is when she’s walking through the market in the classic Stepford woman attire. While in the ending of the book, Joanna goes home from her psychologist office to get her kids, but they’re gone already. Her husband takes her car keys, but Joanna manages to escape on foot. The Men’s Association soon finds her and she accuses them of turning all the Stepford women into robots, something they deny. Joanna makes a deal with them that if she sees one of the other women bleed, shell believe they aren’t actually robots. The men set a plan now, and they are guaranteed that she can’t get away. The plan is that Bobbie will cut herself, just a little bit so that Joanna can see that she bleeds like people do and will stop being melodramatic. She gets to Bobbie’s house, and very loud music is being played. Joanna goes inside to talk to Bobbie and she pulls out a knife. The last thing Joanna says is that Bobbie, “couldn’t be a robot, she simply couldn’t

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