The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives is a satirical science-fiction horror novel written by American author Ira Levin and originally published in 1972. The Stepford Wives has feminist elements and focuses on the life and perspective of protagonist Joanna Eberhart when she moves to Stepford, Connecticut, and begins to suspect something is wrong with the women who live there. The Stepford Wives had a significant cultural impact upon its publication, and the term “Stepford wife” has entered American English to mean an eerily submissive 1950s-style housewife. The novel has been adapted into several TV movies and two major motion pictures, in 1975 and 2004.

This guide uses the First Perennial 2002 edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source text contains descriptions of sexual activity and psychological horror.

Plot Summary

The Stepford Wives begins a few days after Joanna Eberhart and Walter Eberhart, along with their children Pete and Kim, move into the suburban town of Stepford, Connecticut. Joanna is bombarded as she enters her home by a welcoming lady who asks her several personal questions for a local newspaper article. She notices that the women in the town seem never to leave their homes except to shop, and all seem to be happy with doing nothing but housework and tending to their children.

Joanna is a self-professed supporter of the Women’s Liberation movement, as is her husband. She decides to try to meet other people in town, but finds that they have no interest in anything but their homes. The women are also all immaculately dressed, with perfect figures, hair, and makeup. Walter announces he is going to join the local Men’s Association, a men’s club situated in a large house in town. Joanna worries that he might start to expect her to be like the other Stepford women, but Walter assures her he only wants to change Stepford’s politics from the inside. When Walter goes to his first meeting, Joanna spends the evening looking at her photographs, including one of a Black man being blatantly ignored by a cabbie. That night, she wakes up to Walter masturbating, which is strange for him, and asks if he was watching pornography at the club. Walter denies this and assures her he simply didn’t want to wake her.

Wanting to make friends in town, Joanna hopes that the article about her will lead someone to call. A woman named Bobbie Markowe does so, and when Joanna invites her over, Bobbie is relieved to see that Joanna’s house is messy. She agrees with Joanna that the women in town seem to be mindless, and they decide to form a Women’s Club together. They have almost no luck recruiting, finding that all of the women claim to be too busy cleaning—except one. Charmaine Wimperis is a wealthy woman who dislikes men but is married for the luxurious lifestyle. She is passionate about tennis and starts regularly inviting Joanna over for matches. Charmaine often complains that she wishes her husband was out of the house more.

Walter continues attending Men’s Association meetings and decides to have a few of the men over for a party. He asks Joanna to cater the event, and Joanna agrees, in the hopes of showing her intelligence and good ideas to the men. One of the men in attendance is an illustrator who draws stereotypical portraits of women, making them look like copycat images of one another. He draws a portrait of Joanna and gives it to her, and Joanna feels flattered. While Joanna is in the kitchen making coffee, the president of the men’s club, Dale Coba, watches her and professes his enjoyment of watching women do chores. He reveals that he worked for Disney before moving to Stepford and foreshadows his involvement in providing the men of Stepford with their perfect, animatronic wives.

When Joanna finds out that the town used to have a Women’s Club, she asks one of the women, Kit, about the club’s failure. Kit explains that it became boring and was never useful, and that she prefers doing housework, anyway. Joanna watches Kit fold laundry, and it strikes her that Kit acts like an actor in a commercial. Joanna goes out to take photos of the town at night and notices the Men’s Association house brimming with activity. When a policeman comes and starts asking her questions about her camera, Joanna notices that the Men’s Association house goes dark. She wonders if the policeman tipped them off about her but isn’t sure why he would have done so. Later, Joanna discovers that the Women’s Club only disbanded a few years ago, and that the Men’s Association is, itself, only a few years old.

Fall arrives, and Joanna decides to call Charmaine for a tennis match. When they meet, Charmaine complains about her husband and how he wants to have a weekend together. After Charmaine’s weekend with her husband, Joanna goes to Charmaine’s house a few days later for the match, but Charmaine has completely forgotten their date. She announces that she no longer wants to play tennis, that her priorities have shifted to making her husband Ed happy, and that she is demolishing her tennis court. Joanna is shocked to find that Charmaine has become just like the other women in Stepford. When she tells Bobbie, Bobbie explains that it might be a chemical in the air or water. They decide they need to leave Stepford, and both go home to their husbands, who each talk them into staying until spring. Meanwhile, they start looking for houses in nearby suburbs. Shortly before Christmas, a man from the Men’s Association asks Joanna to perform the strange task of recording herself saying every common word in the dictionary. She hesitates, but he says it is for a project he is working on with the police, and she eventually agrees.

Bobbie suspects there is a reason the Stepford women act like they are brainwashed. She writes a letter to the federal government regarding the possibility of toxic chemicals in Stepford’s environment, but her concerns are dismissed. Joanna finds that Walter is growing distant, and Bobbie announces that she is going to have a weekend alone with her husband, just like Charmaine did. Joanna meets a woman at the library named Ruthanne Hendry. Ruthanne is the first Black woman in Stepford and is a famous feminist children’s author. Ruthanne thinks the people in Stepford are antisocial toward her because of her skin color, but Joanna assures her they are that way with everyone.

When Bobbie comes back from her weekend with her husband, she seems to have changed her appearance and attitude: She is immaculately dressed with perfect hair and makeup and doesn’t make her usual sarcastic jokes. Joanna finds this strange but hopes it is just her imagination. When she visits Bobbie a few days later, she finds Bobbie’s house to be overly clean and Bobbie even more made-up than before. Bobbie states she is no longer thinking of moving and wants to spend her days cleaning and keeping her husband happy.

Joanna calls Walter, terrified, and demands that they move immediately. She states that the women in Stepford are robots being created by the town’s men, who all work for various technology companies. Walter tells Joanna to stay calm, and when he comes home, he immediately launches into a tirade. He tells Joanna that she is having delusions, imagining things, and should see a psychiatrist. He adds that she should pay more attention to her appearance. Joanna is surprised at Walter’s reaction but agrees to see a psychiatrist, if it is one of her choosing and a woman. She goes to visit the psychiatrist a few days later, and the woman tells her she is caught between the expectations of traditional domestication and Women’s Liberation. She gives Joanna a prescription for a tranquilizer and urges her to come back for therapy.

Joanna goes to the library and researches the history of Stepford, discovering that the Women’s Club disbanded due to declining membership. She also finds out that Dale worked in the animatronics department for Disney, which confirms her suspicions that the women in Stepford are, in fact, robotic versions of their former selves.

Joanna goes home and tells Walter she is taking the children and leaving for the city. Walter tells her the children are not home and demands she go upstairs and calm down. Joanna knows that Walter plans to kill her now and manages to escape out the patio door while he’s on the phone with one of the other men. She runs through the snow and tries to make her way to Ruthanne’s house, hoping to find safety there. She is instead met by three men, who try to convince her she is imagining everything. They take Joanna to Bobbie’s house so that Bobbie can cut herself, bleed, and prove she is real. Joanna agrees, but when she gets to Bobbie’s house, Bobbie beckons her into the kitchen holding a large knife. It occurs to Joanna that Bobbie is going to kill her, but as she stares at Bobbie, she cannot believe that Bobbie could possibly be a robot—she looks and acts too real. Joanna approaches Bobbie, and the scene ends.

In the novel’s denouement, Ruthanne goes to the grocery store and observes the way the women all fill their carts in a pristine manner. She encounters Joanna, who is immaculately dressed and seems to be more beautiful than ever. Joanna announces she has dropped her photography hobby and only wants to clean the house, take care of the kids, and please Walter. Ruthanne finds this unsettling but goes home thinking little of it. Before she sits down to write her second children’s novel, she talks to her husband about their upcoming weekend alone together, implying that Ruthanne, too, will soon experience the same fate as the other Stepford wives.