Thestepfordwife.com
“Stepford Wives Organization is a website that supports the
idea of the homemaking wife who is not only the cheery domestic goddess, but a
fantastic dresser, neat as a pin, a lady with good manners, and a gracious,
well-behaved, obedient wife who always puts her man first.”
I am choosing to blog about this website as it is applicable
to my group project, and is also incredibly fascinating! Similar to shows like
“breaking amish” and “sister wives” that give us an insight into the lives of
serious minorities, this website is a peephole into the lives of the group of
inidivduals who, in a 21st century fairly equal society, work
tirelessly to regress to anti-feminist roots. This site interestingly takes
screenshots for the movie “The Stepford Wives” as visual models for how women
should act and dress. “The Stepford Wives” was so obviously a social commentary
about exactly why we should not conform
to historical ideals, so I find it genuinely
funny that the creators of this website have so obviously missed the
point. It is also very contradictory at times; it states “Stepfordwives.org recommends you to switch
between lingerie styles, always remembering to keep it tasteful and never stray
into gaudiness. Whatever you decide on, just make sure that allure always take
priority over comfort. Pleasing our men should be our first concern, and
there's no better place to do it than in the bedroom.” Written next to images
of sexy lingerie that are similar to items that could be bought at Victoria’s
Secret, I find it hugely comical that this website can actually say that they
promote classiness and modesty. If you have time I highly recommend looking at
this site, as the content (especially if you have seen “The Stepford Wives”)
gives a really insightful experience into the psyche of a group of incredibly
regressive women.
My jaw literally dropped when you brought up this website in class. How can Western women with Internet access, which by definition makes them privy to the outside world, still be stuck in a 1950’s mindset? Do women like this really exist, and if so, what corners of suburban America are they hiding in?
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I’m not sure why I was so surprised. I realize that this “domesticated woman” as an ideal is still perpetuated in many cultures around the world, particularly those with arranged marriages and forced assimilation. Nevertheless, seeing such a site in Western culture is at the same time jarring, comical, and disturbing. Yet, is it any more or less disturbing than sites that promote the men’s rights movement that, since the 1970s, has claimed an oppression of men partially due to an emerging female workforce and feminist movements? Is it any more distasteful than the lingerie sites themselves that promote bodily extremes?
I don’t mean to criticize domesticity as a whole. On the contrary, I am a lover of recipe blogs, scrapbooking idea, crafting books, and even cleaning techniques. I like the idea that DIY-ing something can bring a sense of fulfillment and hominess. But even with its wedding boards, PTA posts, and “gifts-for-him” tags, I would never consider sites like Pinterest or tumblr to be on the same level as this particular site. Not even Cosmopolitan, with its “1,365 ways to please your man” articles, has the same implied subservience and prostration (despite the insinuations to “lie down”) as this site has. Cosmo asks women to lay down with their men, but not to take anything lying down, as this blog so blatantly suggests. I would be interested to know who follows this blog, what type of every-day woman they cater to, and if this way of life is adapted post-marriage by its followers or if this mindset is something engrained at birth by a positively regressive style of parenting.