Joanna has just moved out to the suburbs and is looking to meet new friends. She notices that while the men in town have a club of their own (that does not allow women to be members), the women do not – and worse, are not even bothered by this. As she digs deeper into the history of the town, she sees that at one point, there was a women’s club and the women in town actually were once interested in things beyond caring for their homes and their families. Something was up and she and her one friend, Bobbie, would get to the bottom of it. But hopefully they’d do it in time…
Yes, I was probably one of the only women who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s who never either read this book or saw the movie before – so I was curious. Little did I know how utterly creepy this book would be! The idea that men would turn women into automatons that would only do housework and child rearing was both disturbing and outrageous, and quite a statement for its time. The theme of squelching those who stood up for the rights of women was probably fairly radical for the very early 70’s, when this first came out.
Funny, though, because it seems that while this futuristic/farcical novel was written so long ago, and much has changed, much is still the same. In so many countries around the world, women are still treated as Stepford wives. In fact, right here in the good ol’ USA, our likely Republican nominee for president is married to one. (Her hobbies are “pilates and reading magazines,” according to the New Yorker.)
As to the writing of the book, it is suspenseful and eerie, but I did feel like there was a gaping hole at the end, where there should have been more explanation about what happened to the women and how the transformation was accomplished. I felt there was almost too much left to the imagination.
But if you haven’t read it, it’s a quick read that does get you thinking… which is what books are supposed to do!
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