Gendered Battle Over Subjecthood and Limits of the Feminist Scope Exposed in The Stepford Wives
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This paper reads Ira Levine’s 1972 novella, The Stepford Wives, as a text that exposes the backlash mentality of anti-feminists and a text that takes an introspective look at second-wave feminism to subtly suggest its limited scope through the protagonist’s failure to look beyond the boundary of white, middle-class, suburban housewives of Stepford in her fight against Stepford’s misogynistic Men’s Association. Struggling over women’s right to subjecthood, the yet-to-be-killed-and-automated wives of Stepford, including Joanna Eberhart, strive to step out of the male(centric) gaze that objectifies and domesticates them. Despite the keen eyes with which Joanna penetrates the violent workings of the Association, she fails to prevent it from depriving the Stepford wives of life and subjecthood. This is due to Joanna’s failure to see working-class women, unmarried women, aged widows, and non-white women of Stepford as her potential feminist compatriots, which leaves her struggling to protect herself from the Association’s deadly grip in isolation. By drawing attention to the perspectival limitation of Joanna’s feminism and how it ultimately precludes her from garnering enough power to liberate the Stepford wives, Stepford criticizes the classism, ageism, and racism of second-wave feminism, and emphasizes the necessity of an extended form of feminism that embraces intersectionality.
Abstract
This paper reads Ira Levine’s 1972 novella, The Stepford Wives, as a text that exposes the backlash mentality of anti-feminists and a text that takes an introspective look at second-wave feminism to subtly suggest its limited scope through the protagonist’s failure to look beyond the boundary of white, middle-class, suburban housewives of Stepford in her fight against Stepford’s misogynistic Men’s Association. Struggling over women’s right to subjecthood, the yet-to-be-killed-and-automated wives of Stepford, including Joanna Eberhart, strive to step out of the male(centric) gaze that objectifies and domesticates them. Despite the keen eyes with which Joanna penetrates the violent workings of the Association, she fails to prevent it from depriving the Stepford wives of life and subjecthood. This is due to Joanna’s failure to see working-class women, unmarried women, aged widows, and non-white women of Stepford as her potential feminist compatriots, which leaves her struggling to protect herself from the Association’s deadly grip in isolation. By drawing attention to the perspectival limitation of Joanna’s feminism and how it ultimately precludes her from garnering enough power to liberate the Stepford wives, Stepford criticizes the classism, ageism, and racism of second-wave feminism, and emphasizes the necessity of an extended form of feminism that embraces intersectionality.
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