Joanna’s Photography Symbol Analysis

Joanna’s passion for photography—and the fact that she gives it up at the end of the novel—symbolizes the challenges that sexist, male-dominated societies pose for women with their own ambitions and aspirations. Before moving to Stepford, Joanna has worked as a semi-professional photographer, and though she isn’t wildly successful, she has sold several pictures to an agency. In Stepford, though, she has a hard time keeping up with her craft, largely because it’s clear that everyone else in the community expects women to set aside their own interests in order to devote themselves to housework. The idea here is that women should prioritize their husbands’ lives over their own, and though Joanna tries to fight this at first, she’s unable to succeed. When Walter and the other members of the Men’s Association eventually turn her into a robot, she gives up photography completely, which illustrates how patriarchal societies exert pressure on independent, hardworking women to lead domestic lives void of ambition.