Cinderella Stereotypes

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A fairytale written by Charles Perrault depicts the story of a young girl named Cinderella. The story is about a poor girl’s acceptance of the abuse received by her step family, which ends with a happy ending due to winning over a prince's heart with the help of a fairy godmother. Most children have watched this movie, probably at a young age in development. Young girls see Cinderella being saved by a handsome prince and think they need to be saved too. Young boys see the handsome prince saving Cinderella and think they need to save someone. Although the story sounds sweet, in reality, it is one of the many examples of gender stereotypes being embedded into children's minds. Gender stereotypes are harmful pressures that are pushed onto children …show more content…

The following biases are just simple examples of a bigger problem; boys are supposed to play with trucks and girls are supposed to play with dolls. Boys are supposed to be tough and not show emotion and girls are supposed to be emotional and empathetic. In research aimed at the relationship between self-perceived empathy and traditional roles, studies found that “empathy is influenced by contextual factors and can be systematically biased by gender roles and stereotypical beliefs,” (Loeffler and Greitemeyer 1). Girls are not more empathetic but rather are allowed to express their feelings more than boys. Girls are encouraged towards more artistic activities, such as music, while boys are pushed towards sports. This is called differential socialization, which is the tendency to behave differently depending on a person’s gender. Children are categorized as their gender rather than just children. The more society pushes stereotypes, the more containment and loss of opportunities people experience. Young children feel they have to follow the path that is already paved for them. Around the age of two or three is when children start to fully understand their