Looking for ‘Suzy Homemaker’–a Real-Life Sequel to ‘Stepford Wives’
From time to time, a film comes along that, for reasons uknown, presents a word that is new expression to the US vernacular to spell it out a label.
There’s Captain Queeg (the tyrannical employer), Mrs. Robinson (the adulterous partner), Dr. Strangelove (the angry scientist).
And there’s the “Stepford Wife,” a synonym for “Suzy Homemaker.”
Well, individuals, pay attention. a version that is modern-day increasing phoenix-like from the chaos of two-career marriages, leading social observers to predict that the real-life sequel to “The Stepford Wives” might be on the road.
“Women are increasingly being pushed back in being Stepford Wives,” records Los Angeles psychologist Rex Beaber and a faculty that is former regarding the UCLA class of Medicine, “but that movement has been promulgated by both women and men. It’s not only the guys who will be carrying it out this time.”
Few would argue that when you look at the mid-’70s lots of men reacted to your movement that is feminist wanting for a Stepford Wife who would put her husband’s, children’s and home’s requirements before her very own.
Today, everyone else dreams intensely about a Stepford Wife.
The movie is based on a 1972 novel by Ira Levin in which the husbands of a seemingly normal Connecticut town called Stepford replace their women’s lib-minded wives with domestic robots who are forever young, for-ever cleaning and for-ever pleasing for anyone who has spent the past 12 years trapped on the freeway. The type played by Katharine Ross discovers the scheme that is dastardly late; by movie’s end, she’s converted into a Stepford Wife aswell.
Undoubtedly, no body related to the 1975 movie ever dreamed so it would breeze a sort up of cult classic, minimum of most its celebrity. “You can’t say for sure,” Ross claims with apparent amazement. “But I’m pleased it has made some kind of contribution.” (For trivia buffs, Ross wasn’t the first option for the part; she replaced Tuesday Weld.)
Influenced by ‘Future Shock’
This campy Gothic thriller attracted a great deal of attention since it ended up being both a mordant indictment of males in opposition to the revolution that is feminist well as being a put-down essay writer of full-time homemakers. Really, Levin’s guide, adjusted for the display screen by William Goldman, had been motivated maybe not by Betty Friedan’s women’s lib manifesto, “The Feminine Mystique,” but by way of a portion of Alvin Toffler’s work that is sociological “Future Shock,” that dealt with domestic robots. Experts panned the film the maximum amount of because of its content in terms of its design; Newsweek reported so it said “some unsightly and unsupported reasons for having what sort of females males really would like.”
But there must be a kernel of truth into the movie since the Stepford Wife has transformed into the Concept That does not want To perish. In 1980, NBC trotted down a sequel, “Revenge for the Stepford spouses.” And NBC made it happen once more Sunday with “The Stepford Children.” for longer than 10 years now, the word has been utilized to explain feminine zombies which range from unliberated Miss Americas to husband-worshipping First Ladies. “My spouse calls Nancy Reagan a genuine Stepford Wife,” claims Thomas Lasswell, a teacher of sociology in the University of Southern California, than we expected.“although she might be running things more”
Today’s wanting for Stepford Wives is certainly not predicated on a unexpected fondness for “plastic, smiley, acquiescent, non-alive beings,” as Friedan de-scribes the film automatons. It’s because there’s no one in the home any longer to complete the chores. Certainly, the full-time mother is going just how associated with the dodo; statistics reveal that only 15percent of families in the united kingdom are “Donna Reed Show” clones, when the spouse would go to work, the spouse remains house, two young ones are created together with few hasn’t divorced.
“The norms went different, just just just what with 60% of married ladies working outside of the home,” records Paul Bohannan, dean of social sciences and interaction during the USC university of Letters Arts and Sciences.
“I personally don’t understand any stay-at-home spouses at this time,” he says.
Also Marabel Morgan, the writer associated with 1974 best-seller “The Total Woman,” who had been described by feminists at that time given that ultimate Stepford Wife, features a full-time career these times as a writer and lecturer. “I never ever did state that each girl needs to remain home,” she said in an meeting.
No body, least of all of the Morgan, is predicting that guys are attempting to force ladies back in your kitchen. If such a thing, it is become an financial reality of life that husbands require their spouses to exert effort so that you can pay for that two-bedroom, split-level Colonial house and Chrysler that is new convertible. “Probably today the earnings of a potential spouse is since essential as her breasts size,” Friedan quips.
However in today’s “have it all, get it done all” age of this Superwoman, it is still spouses whom handle all of the housework in addition to their jobs. “Our culture did a terrible thing to females. It offered them a brand new part which included brand brand brand new duties,” psychologist Beaber notes. “Women said, ‘We may do such a thing a guy can perform.’ And guys stated, ‘Fine. You’ll do all you did as a lady, and whatever you wish to accomplish as a guy, too.’ ”
Morgan claims that she’s needed to “train” her husband become sort of Stepford Spouse. “He folds the garments, makes all the sleep and dries the dishes. There’s a complete lot to be achieved, so he’s likely to need certainly to assist, too.”
The issue comes whenever neither the girl nor the guy, after having a day’s that is hard, desires to place in a tough day’s night, too.
Guys are sick and tired of a domestic front that’s deteriorated into “chaos,” Beaber claims. “Of course they’re completely fed up with this particular. Wouldn’t you’d rather get home and discover supper ready, the table set, the washing taken, the repairs done?”
And ladies are exhausted, period. A current Purdue University research unearthed that among partners who both work full-time, the wife sets much more hours in combined duties in your home as well as on the work.
No surprise there’s such nostalgia for Suzy Homemaker.
As Friedan claims, “It is acutely convenient for the entire home to have Stepford Wife. Anybody who would like to produce one thing with the capacity of buying groceries, changing toilet-paper rolls and operating the automatic washer will likely make a bundle. It’s bound to happen in the course of time.”