The Stepford Wives

Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of sexual activity and psychological horror.

The town of Stepford, Connecticut is a place where the women seem to be free of a conflict that was common among women in 1970s America: the opposing pulls of a woman’s responsibilities as a mother and wife and her desire to express herself and become self-reliant. Stepford exists to keep men dominant over women, and for women to be perfectly happy in such an existence. Levin’s work was heavily inspired by the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s and by Betty Friedan’s work on feminism and the pervasive dissatisfaction of homemaker women in post-war America. He sought to illustrate how women of this era were caught between a desire to care for the people they love and to become their own independent people. The main goal of the men of Stepford is to keep their wives in Stepford long enough for them to be replaced by animatronic robots that are completely unconcerned with feminism, independence, or their own personal passions. For instance, after Charmaine is replaced, she states, “Ed’s a pretty wonderful guy” (52). This comes from a woman who deeply resented her husband and disliked men in general prior to her weekend trip with her husband.