Bryan Forbes’s The Stepford Wives (1975) is a postmodern film which tells a story of a small suburban town where patriarchy dominates. The woman of Stepford transition from normal, free-willed people to mindless, obedient drones of their husbands creation. Throughout the entire film, Joanna Eberhart attempts to help the Stepford wives become less of a stereotypical housewife and more of a free-spirited independent woman. The patriarchy in Stepford routes from the Men’s Association that all the men in town belong to. These men are unhappy with the actions of their wives so they have discovered a way to get them to do whatever the husbands desire whether it be cooking, cleaning, dressing a certain way, sexual acts, or happily caring for the chidren. 

Joanna and Bobby try to expose the issue of the women of town being infatuated with nothing but housework and chores. They attempt to go against patriarchal town by bringing a feminie club into the mix in order to distinguish the patriarchal control of the women. As they are recruiting for their club, they find all but a few women are nothing but stereotypical housewives with nothing on her mind but housework. Each woman gives the excuse that they “have too much housework to do” to come to a meeting, meaning baking, cleaning, laundry, gardening, etc. In “The Problem That Has No Name” by Freidan, the characteristics of a typical housewife are discussed as women were to be nothing but wives and mothers which is exactly how the women in Stepford have been designed to be. In Freidan’s article it says “I begin to feel like I have no personality” and in the film, by creating their idea of the perfect woman, the husbands of Stepford are essentially stripping each woman of her personality.

With Joanna’s discovery of the clones that are created in Men’s Association mansion, she discovers the patriarchal society trying to extinguish any forms of femininity and women’s independence. Freidan says “Every American girl wanted — to get married, have children and live in a nice house in a nice suburb.”. This quote describes the entire town of Stepford and its appearance. But things are not always what they seem. Although the town appears perfect on the outside, what lies within is nothing but horrific minds and insanity.
The ending scene of Joanna finding her drone and being strangled by it represents patriarchy killing femininity. As the drone stands up the viewers notice the physical differences between human Joanna and drone Joanna. She has significantly larger breasts and wider hips (desires of her husband) and black, robot-like eyes. As the drone stands there with a pair of stockings wound tightly around it’s hand and moves towards human Joanna, this symbolizes the step taken forward by the men of Stepford to create unproblematic wives and mothers. We can conclude that Bryan Forbes’s The Stepford Wives represents patriarchal society trying to eliminate femininity and independence of women by creating what men think is the perfect woman.