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Gender roles in fairy tales research paper
Feminist readings of fairy tales
Gender roles in fairy tales research paper
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Since the time fairytales first started, women were always the princess and the main character of every tale. Little girls fantasize about being a princess from the fairy tales their parents read to them. But in reality, how women are portrayed in the fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Anderson, is utterly disgusting. In fairy tales, women who are passive, powerless, naïve, and who would do anything for men are beautiful and become the princess at the end, but women who seek power are ugly and evil. The role of women in society are present in fairytales as well, women do the cleaning, take care of the children, and cook, while men go out into the world to earn a living. When a young girl thinks of a princess, …show more content…
Unlike today’s society, fairy tales continue to follow the old society norms of a housewife, women do the cleaning and cooking, while their husbands are out creating a living for their family. In the fairy tale, Snow Drop, Snow Drop found a home in the woods that belonged to seven dwarfs. The only way Snow Drop could continue living in their house, Snow Drop had to become their housewife. Snow Drop promise to clean, cook, and keep the house in order. The same representation of a housewife is present in the story Cinderella, in this story Cinderella cooks and cleans. When she doesn’t do her tasks, she receives consequences, which suggests it is the women’s best interest to complete their tasks. Besides cleaning and cooking both of these women do not have knowledge in other aspects of life. Fairy tales create an ideal wife, where women are passive, do their chores, make love and repeat. Women become property for men, instead of a human being he loves. In other words, according to this representation of women, women are nothing if she doesn’t cook or clean. Cinderella and Snow Drop are implying men will only love those who are a
In the Brothers Grimm, the first characterization of Cinderella is a description that “she was always good and said her prayers” (Grimm 122). This helps define her as an obedient daughter who will later be rewarded for such behavior. Obedience was clearly an important aspect for women in the Brothers
This female inferiority idea has been imbedded in the world for many years. Fairy tales are a very good example of how this notion has been present in the United States. The themes that exist in these stories normally deal with masculine heroes who come to the aid of young women who are seemingly helpless. After they are saved by these male heroes they become obedient docile beings. These old fairy tales are part of the beginning of this inferiority idea.
The characters’ roles in the Grimm’s fairy tales such as Briar Rose and Snow White are consistently gender uniform. The princess, because of her submissive and naiveness, is stricken by misfortune and is left to suffer until a male character comes to solve the conflict. Additionally, the accessory characters in the tale are also gender uniform. Many tales contain the evil stepmother not the evil stepfather. In Snow White, it is the stepmother who is envious and abhorrent of her stepdaughter, which leads her to wish for her stepdaughter’s death. In contrast, in Briar Rose, the father carries out a massive demand: to destroy all spindles throughout the kingdom in his attempt to protect his beloved daughter. Therefore, it is the male figures who are depicted as the most caring and the best parents, where the female characters are depicted in a much more negative way. Even when a female character is initially positively presented, she often succumbs to a sudden catastrophe, such as death (Little Snow
In “Cinderella” by the Grimm Brothers, the moral is that one should never lie or be wicked to others. In the story, Cinderella’s mother passed away and a year later her father gets remarried to an evil woman who has two daughters. The wife and daughters torment Cinderella, making her complete tedious chores. Eventually, Cinderella attends a ball for the Prince and they fall in love. However, she runs away every night and he cannot find her. The Prince finally takes one of her slippers and sets out to find the love of his life. He then goes to her household and asks all the sisters to try the slipper on. The stepsisters try to deceive the Prince but “the blood was streaming from” their feet and they are eventually caught. When Cinderella tries on the shoe it fits perfectly and the two get married. At the reception, two birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, punishing them “with blindness as long as they lived.” The archetypes in the story are Cinderella who is the damsel in distress, the Prince who saves her and the evil stepsisters and mother who are the villains. A convention is that true love always...
Have you ever read a fairy tale? Who were the protagonist and antagonist? Did any of these women contribute to the happy ending? I didn’t think so. Fairy tales and many similar animated motion pictures display the unimportance of women in society. Andrea Dworking, a radical female feminist explains this sufficiently in her essay, “Onceuponatime: The Roles.” Her point is validated through the use of her evidence and helps use sneeze the mucus and muck of our past that have been right under our noses. It is unfortunate that many of individuals’ values are derived from fairy tales, but it is the ugly truth that we have not discovered. Fairy tales act as a blueprint that corrupts gender roles and teach children, females are subservient.
The portrayal and role of characters in fairy tales is often something limited to gender; the adherence or deviation from those prescribed expectations is what labels a character 'good ' or 'bad ', particularly in the case of women. Female character were expected to be 'good ', which was described as following the rules and being submissive to embody the idea of femininity, and commonly described only by how beautiful and fair tempered they were. Women with outstanding characteristics outside the idea of femininity, such as ambition, vanity, greed, or want of authority, were handed the roles of the wicked witches, ogres, stepmothers, or were simply unimaginably ugly and made a point of describing them with unflattering imagery. While the
Marcia Lieberman in her essay “ Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairytale” argues that the stories are not just based on the women that have being affected or had an happy ending but also it have affected the life and mind of children who believes in these stories. In the essay Liberman have made many examples and comparisons upon which some of these stories had many traditional values and not only that, but also had traditional fairytale endings. Many of these stories have not shown children feminist ideas, buyt there were many different traditional roles that were being played. There are many points to which these issues can be related to such as “beauty is the way to go”, “getting that ring”, and “every princess
In addition, the fairy tales objectify women in the socialization process that these stories seem to have. Cinderella's father, her own flesh and blood, even objectifies her when he co...
Instead males are fulfilling the ambitious roles. These fairy tales teach women to be submissive in this male dominated world. Belle of “Beauty and the Beast” (1991) is described as a “strange” “funny girl” by the townspeople as she is seen reading and enthusiastically making her way to the library. She shows interest in pursuing knowledge and intellect by learning from her reading. However the people around here are disgraced because“ it’s not right for a woman to read” and Gaston negatively exclaims that “soon she starts getting ideas, thinking.” Giving us the viewers the idea that women should not read, they do not need to learn or be capable to think for themselves. Males are the leaders whilst women the followers whom should be passive in this man’s world. Beauty and the Beast furthermore shows males taking on all the successful/intellect roles such as the store owner, baker or hunter as we see in the opening scene. Females show no pursued intellect and carry out jobs such as washing or taking orders. With the exception of Belle. She is the only female we see with a dream of ‘adventure and far off places’ nevertheless this dream is taken away as result of the love for a male character. In order to save her father's life she must live with the Beast. Reinforcing males are the dominant gender. In the Little Mermaid Ariel depends on a man to reach her goal of having human legs. Ursula the evil sea witch gives her permanent legs in the deal that she will win Eric’s heart. Ariel does not show any wise talents however reaches her goal by claiming this man's love. Wachutka (2006) declares that “the most a female can hope for is to fall in love and she must rely on a male's assistance in life” The message is that females do not need to learn as they will not be successful anyway. Some girls may as a result fear being teased or known as unusual if they do show
In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that females are supposed to be docile, dependent on the male persona and willing to sacrifice themselves. In many cases, when strong female characters are presented they are always contradicting in these characteristics, thus labeled as villainous. Such is the case of the Cinderella’s stepsisters in Perrault’s “Cinderella” and the stepmother in the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White.” These female characters face judgment and disapproval when they commit the same acts as male characters. With such messages rooted in our beloved fairy tales it is no wonder that society is rampant with these ideals about women and disapprove of women when they try to break free of this mold.
While they can attempt to be different, they will not have much success doing so. Andrea asserts, “Grown men are terrified of the wicked witch, internalized in the deepest parts of memory. Women are no less terrified, for we know that not to be passive, innocent, and helpless is to be actively evil.” Andrea illustrates the consequences of being different. Women are not expected to behave the same way as men. She cannot give orders to others; she must obey orders given by the opposite sex. Women are not powerful, they are pacifists and are innocent. When a woman behaves the complete opposite, fear arises as men want to be the only ones in charge. Men see these women as evil and rebellious, not adapting to their gender-specific lifestyle. Women are also fearful of becoming evil. They are very cautious in the actions they perform as they do not want to be regarded as evil. The duties women should follow as seen in the fairy tale Snow White are as follows, “...you will keep our house for us, and cook, and wash, and make the beds, and sew and knit, and keep everything tidy and clean.” As demonstrated by the quote, women and men have distinguishable roles. Women are expected to be a housewife, nothing more, nothing less. They cook for others, wash and clean the house. This idea generates the stereotypes that are seen in today’s world. Men are typically the
Not only does this setup pit women against each other, but also leaves the reader with an unsatisfying and stereotypical view of women. The women in this story are put into the limiting categories of a passive and silent object of desire, or a wicked and jealous monster. This gives the reader two negative and narrow ideas on what a woman can be. In contrast, Disney’s take on the story adds a few more female roles that help illustrate a more wholesome view on femininity. The three fairy Godmothers in Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” although a bit quirky and ditsy, represent a new type of female character. The fairies were the true protagonists, and without their power and help, the princess could not have been saved. They embodied a more powerful and positive portrayal of women. Their role in the story gives girls something more to admire and look up to than beauty and passiveness; but intelligence, capability, kindness, responsibility, and even sense of humor. Their role also encourages women working together, instead of battling against each
Moreover, it creates inequality of gender since the male is considered right, good, and gets rewarded but the female is portrayed wrong, bad and gets punished. This is why the girls reading the fairy tale might never gain high-level of self confidence and might have a low self-esteem knowing that they represent the sex that is weaker and not authoritative. On the other hand boys reading the story might exalt themselves only because they were born male.
Throughout the ages women have always appeared to be victims of oppression by men. There are many cultures and religions that have separate rules for the men and the women. Traditional gender roles have cast men as the providers, while women are the nurturers and stay home to keep the house clean, cook, and care for the children and their husbands. Even the clothes men and women wear are subject to the different rules. Men are free to dress without restraint in order to get the job done, where as women are required to dress modestly - in some religions covered from head to toe, and compelled to cover their hair in others. However, the fairy tale of Cinderella turns the idea of male repression of women on its head, casting women in a position of dominance. It is still a man's world where women must bend to the demands of man, the ball for example. It is in these confines, the ultimate goal in obtaining a suitable husband, that we see what women are capable of doing to one another in order to reach their goals. Women use different techniques in order to keep other women down. As Tony Morrison states she is "alarmed by the violence that women do to each other: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. [She] is alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women." (Cinderella's stepsisters, p. 500) In this situation, the women in Cinderella, specifically the step mother and step sisters, dominate Cinderella in many ways: name calling, degradation, mocking, and dishing her false hopes. The story as portrayed in Cinderella by Charles Perrault, Ashputtle by the Grimm Brothers and the Walt Disney adaptation written by Grant as well as the animated film Cinderell...
The selfless and subservient nature expected of women in the past have impacted the writing or portrayal of females throughout literature. In Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, not only does he demonstrate how willingly a woman will sacrifice her freedom of power by giving the powerful females of status servitude, but Perrault also illustrates how the role of dominant females is threatened when challenged. From Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper, with the stepmother punishing and degrading Cinderella for making “…her own daughters appear the more odious,” thus partaking in the matriarchal balance of evil overtaking the vulnerable and humble (Perrault 2). To Little Red Riding Hood, questioning how her