2021 EDIT: Excellent on the reread. Just as addictive, perfectly paced, masterfully crafted, haunting and relevant as the last time I read it, nearly a decade ago.
Two new things I picked up on: Charmaine is coded as asexual; and really, at the end where Joanna mentions that men put men on the moon, it should have been acknowledged in-text that women, including women of colour, helped put men in space and on the moon. 'The Stepford Wives' gets a lot of other things right, however.
It's a brilliant classic; a true horror cautionary tale about regressive and retrograde politics getting their way. It can be read and absorbed in a day.
Final Score: 4/5
Original Review:
When I first heard about the existence of 'The Stepford Wives', it was not from a term used in popular culture. Indeed, nowadays a woman who is controlled by a man and seems to have no life of her own is not judged by how domesticated she is and how much she cooks and looks after kids. In the 21st century we have double standards and the virginal/Madonna whore complex to make the mainstream media - and therefore, us - hate and pity women. Those with an XX chromosome can be hated for looking and acting like Barbie dolls, but if they are in fact intelligent and strong with opinions of their own (i.e. really no different than a man), they are despised even more. I am saddened that there are still many people who think gender equality progression is unimportant and no longer matters.
The woman is judged purely by her sexuality, and by so-called "exploits" that present her as both an adult making her own choices in life, and as a slave to the patriarchal media and society who want to sell her by her looks alone. It doesn't matter whether she is happy about it or not - "Don't be such a prude!" they'd say, or "Oh, you're not one of those feminists, are you?". "Feminist" is the most offensive F-word unconsciously being taught to us.
What do passive, stay-in-the-kitchen housewives, and women/girls made to think their worth is entirely on how sexy their bodies are, have in common? They have no voice. A backward and misogynist culture has silenced them; because it sees them - or, more clearly, wants to see them - as being no better than objects; robots programmed to satisfy the pleasures of men. Done unconsciously or not, if you research feminist articles on Google search, it is clear that something has gone seriously wrong concerning women's rights and views in the 2000s compared to how they were in the 70s-90s.
Unfortunately I have not yet seen the 1975 film adaptation of Ira Levin's 'The Stepford Wives'. I was instead exposed to the absolute mess that is the 2004 remake. But I was nevertheless intrigued and horrified by the original premise (thanks to internet research): that men would willingly and happily murder their liberated, personality-enriched wives - the mother of their children - and replace them with empty robots who exist solely to clean and cook; and look pretty doing it.
It sounds completely ridiculous just writing it down and trying to describe it. I mean, no man, no matter how chauvinistic or afraid of a revolution of equal gender rights, would actually go so far. Right?
Well, after finally reading 'The Stepford Wives' and studying what the 21st century is teaching us about a woman's worth, I'd say Ira Levin wasn't too far-fetched in his horror cautionary tale.
The writing is wonderful. It's simple and easy to breeze through, but with plenty of substance and foreshadowing. Joanna Eberhart is a believable and smart heroine whom you want to see save the day and stop whatever is happening to the women of the suburban utopia of Stepford, where she and her husband Walter and their two children have just moved.
Stepford women appear to like nothing better than to cook, clean and smile non-stop, with apparently no time to hang out with friends and who only leave their houses to go to the supermarket. And one by one Joanna's own friends in Stepford start behaving in the same way, and even looking similar: with exaggerated beautiful faces, perfect figures and big breasts. Joanna suspects that something sinister is going on - and at the root of it all is the local Men's Association.
She finds out that there did exist a women's club - for women's rights activists - in Stepford years ago. Heck, its former members and president are now some of those creepy, domestic zombie wives. What has happened?
Could it be that they have become experiments in a lab set to hold back the 1970s wave of feminism? That women have become robots, and men the monsters?
The horror and science fiction elements do not become clear at any time in 'The Stepford Wives'. And that is where the horror element comes in: this novella is very grounded in reality, and the idea of plastic dolls taking permanent place of living wives is seen as ridiculous in context. But is it? For the ending does not go as the reader would like it to go...
Plus there's a whole other reason for us to think that Disneyland is evil.
'The Stepford Wives' misses a star because I would have liked it to have been a bit longer, even for a novella. Perhaps time could have been spent getting into the minds of the men behind the Men's Association; to get an idea of their thoughts and feelings about their plans. And I like the character of Ruthanne Hendry, although I was a little uncomfortable by how much of a big deal is made about her skin colour, even while keeping in mind that this was written in 1972 and racial liberation was as new as the feminist liberation back then. In thinking about Ruthanne's role by the end of the book, perhaps Mr Levin intended his message to go along the lines of that route...
Overall, a great cautionary tale and feminist's nightmare worthy of 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
Edit: I have now seen the 1975 film adaptation. It's slow - though for a feature-length movie based on a novella, that's understandable. And the African American characters are barely seen. But the third act is where it really gets going. It has a 'Frankenstein' element when analysing the men's roles in the story. I'd take the "old" cautionary science fiction thriller over the more "modern" 2004 remake any day.
Final Score: 4/5
I will now leave with excerpts from Chuck Palahniuk's 'REVISIONIST HERSTORY: EVERYWHERE IS STEPFORD' from the 2011 edition of the novella, as he writes about 'The Stepford Wives' as a feminist's horror story better than I could:
'Those glazed, pretty dolls, actually robots, would be subservient to men. That became the enduring metaphor: The Stepford Wives. A Stepford Wife.
'In 1972 American women were nothing if not alive. So much of the 1970s feminism was about the physical body, women accepting and celebrating their carnal selves.
'No one wanted to be crowned Miss America. The Playboy Bunny was an antiquated joke. A women's place was on the picket line, and it's no wonder men were scared.
'Enter Ira Levin with his cautionary tale about husbands seeking retribution... his boy-men enjoy nothing more than holing up in their hilltop clubhouse and redesigning their troublesome wives.
'...this ultimate physical proof that [Joanna's] friend is a real woman: blood. After that, nothing physical remains of Joanna.
'...it's odd how the bookshelves are filling with pretty dolls... flirting, flirting, flirting in their supreme effort to catch a rich husband. Always a rich husband... in this new generation of "chick lit" novels, men are once more the goal. It's successful women who torment our pretty, painted narrators... Women are the ultimate threat to women.
'Now everyplace is Stepford, but it's okay. It's fine. This is what the modern politically aware, fully aware, enlightened, assertive woman really, really, really wants: a manicure.
'We can't say Ira Levin didn't warn us.'
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