Sexism In Rumpelstiltskin

Margaret Mead was a feminist who believed that human behavior wasn’t determined by genes, rather it was determined by the society around them through cultural conditioning. Cultural conditioning is the idea that society dictates what is masculine or feminine and thus influences their behavior. This idea is well portrayed in the fairy tale, “Rumpelstiltskin”, which is basically a story of a woman who was able to succeed but only with the help of men. Although “Rumpelstiltskin” appears to be a success story for women, the fairy tale contains many sexist notions which shows that Mead would not have supported this fairy tale.
One of the reasons why Mead would not support “Rumpelstiltskin” is because of the sexist ideals that are present in the

In the beginning of the story, we can clearly see this male dominant and female subjectiveness within the characters. More precisely, “The miller basically sold his daughter, the King commanded the daughter like a slave, Rumpelstiltskin exploited the daughter for everything she had, and worst of all, the miller’s daughter accepted it without any serious opposition” (Grimm). The main character, the miller’s daughter, allowed herself to be subjected to these males, and thus Mead would never support this fairy tale. Being a firm believer of feminism, Mead would be highly shocked and angered that this fairy tale, intended for youths, would depict women with such characteristics acceptable. Another characteristic that Mead wouldn’t approve of in the story is greed and evil. These example of feminism so far have only been about how women were unfairly treated, yet feminism means equality for both genders. The men in the story, the miller, King, and Rumpelstiltskin, are all presented as greedy and evil, “The miller was greedy and wicked enough to sell his daughter, the King exploited a young girl for his own greed, and Rumpelstiltskin worse of all was twisted enough to want to steal her first born child”(Grimm). All of these events portray men in a negative manner, and thus not equal because women can be just as twisted as men are. Mead even says, “women’s motives, women’s interests, were identical with men’s, that women should take as bloodthirsty a delight in preparing for war as ever men do.” Mead acknowledges the fact that womens’ personalities can be just as scary as mens. Yet, this story portrays women as helpless victims, whereas men are seen as cruel scumbags. Therefore, Mead would never support this story based on the personalities of each character in the