[- Are women the only Stepford Wives?
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By amy, Section question corner Posted on Wed Jun 18th, 2003 at 10:59:34 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME
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The New York Times has published this story about the upcoming remake of the 1975 film, The Stepford Wives. But, midway through the article, the writer, Maureen Dowd, makes a sharp left turn and stops discussing the film; instead she asserts that since the original film was made, real life women have largely turned themselves into Stepford Wives.
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This sparked my interest since I often find myself making broad cultural comparisons to Stepford. Sometimes I find entire cities or countries that seem inordinately complacent and obedient. My thinking about Brian's nettime post on fascism in the USA is that in the past 20 years or so, American culture at large has become increasingly docile - since just about the time Ronald Reagan began reducing complex geopolitical issues to the ultra-myopic "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" However, I've tended to think of this sort of Stepfordization as affecting both sexes.
But, maybe I'm wrong? Is it just women that have become more complacent/docile/obedient in the past 20-25 years? And .. is this trend specific to the US? Or are the poppies blowing farther and wider than that?
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