ipl-logo

Do Fairy Tales Encourage Gender Role Stereotypes?

698 Words3 Pages

Do Fairy Tales Encourage Gender Role Stereotypes?

In her essay ”Onceuponatime: The Roles” American writer Andrea Dworkin declares the necessity to reevaluate our current ideas about gender equality and calls attention to the damage fairy tales cause by inflicting gender driven stereotypes to our youth:
“The culture predetermines who we are, how we behave, what we are willing to know, what we are able to feel. We are born into a sex role which is determined by visible sex, or gender. We follow explicit scenarios of passage from birth into youth into maturity into old age, and then we die.”
By implementing that outer forces such as society shape us as a person, Dworkin reveals that we are held back by gender driven stereotypes, as we constantly surrounded by gender propaganda. “Fairy tales are the primary information of the culture. They delineate the roles, interactions, and values which are available to us. They are our childhood models, and their fearful, dreadful content terrorize us into submission – if we do not become good, then evil will destroy us; if we do not achieve the happy ending, then we will drown in the chaos.” Yet, what …show more content…

The moral of the story is not happiness, rather it establishes a very set in stone border which separates women and men. “Men and women are complete opposites. The heroic prince can never be confused with Cinderella, or Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty. She could never do what he does at all, let alone better.” Dworkin helps delver the true meaning behind what otherwise might seem as an innocent tale. To place invisible boundaries on characteristics or traits is utter nonsense. To give characteristics a gender is wrong, if we as individuals are unique, then why deter who we are by telling us what traits we can or cannot

Show More
Related
494 Words | 2 Pages

These stereotypes have always existed but have been passed down to us, precisely, by these stories. They target the most impressionable part of society, children. The purpose of these tales is to teach children how to behave and in which social norms they must fit into. “Fairy tales are a child's world of imagination and pleasure, but

Read More
193 Words | 1 Pages

Like our culture, stereotypes played a major role in this fairy tale. We see this comparison throughout the film as the characters undergo transformations, just as we do throughout life. For instance, Mrs. Potts is heartening, reassuring, and warm just like a good cup of tea should be. However sometimes in life going through these changes within our culture is a bad thing and it takes time for us to see that just like the countdown pertaining to the enchanted rose in the tale. There is also outside complications that can influence our views on stereotypes as well.

Read More
809 Words | 4 Pages

It treats women poorly to cause them to comply with gender expectations. Not only do women have to face pressures of conformity in real life, but they also face intimidation in fairytales. Grimm’s Snow White and Cinderella perpetuate society’s notion that a woman is the inferior being whose value lies not only in her beauty but also in her abilities to perform domestic work and satisfy men. Grimm uses the characters of Cinderella and Snow White to perpetuate the idea that women should lead quietly domestic lives. In Cinderella, Cinderella spent most of her time in a kitchen.

Read More
1318 Words | 6 Pages

In her essay, “Onceuponatime” American writer Andrea Dworkin proclaim that culture is prearrange who we are; by implying that we are born into a sex role based on what we learn in fairy tales. Dworkin expose many fairy tales to make vivid the fact that gender inequality is an immense conflict, as its primary information teach men and women how to interact. “We dream that death will release us from suffering - from guilt, sex, the body… We dream of a death that will mean freedom from it because here on earth, in our bodies, we are fragmented, anguished - either men or women, bound by the very fact of a particularized body to a role which is annihilating, totalitarian, which forbids us any real self-becoming or self-realization.”

Read More
395 Words | 2 Pages

These concepts are depicted within the classic Disney princess film Cinderella directed by Clyde Geronimi. This film has ‘taught’ and/or shown little girls to stop everything they are currently doing and to become dependent on a man to save the day. Cinderella can be seen as the ultimate example of a “damsel-in-distress” because she gets saved from being “abused, humiliated and a servant in her own house to her stepmother and stepsisters” (Cinderella). However, the film does not fail to mention how despite this Cinderella still remains “gentle” and “kind.” The usage of ‘gentle’ and ‘kind’ rather than ‘understanding’ pinpoints the societal gender norms in action— according to these, a woman should be compliant and quiet.

Read More
969 Words | 4 Pages

Synthesis #1 Our concepts of gender are constructed by our biological characteristics and societal factors. In many societies, these concepts of gender, and the differences in men and women are rooted in tradition. The moment a child is born a kind of social construction begins. A child whether girl or boy will most likely be shown some behaviors on how they should behave according to their biological characteristics. Throughout history, we have seen the same stereotypes placed on gender, men should be strong and brave.

Read More
1461 Words | 6 Pages

As previously discussed, this research study looks to investigate the role or rather representation of women through the medium of children’s fairy tales to uncover and explore how these representations and ideals may have evolved and changed through the ages. It is suggested that cinema and popular culture continues to act as a medium of social

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

Perrault, a 17th century French author, wrote about women as damsels in distress in his fairy tales, while Atwood, a 20th and 21st century Canadian author, offers a more realistic and modern approach in her writing. Sharon Wilson, author of the essay “Margaret Atwood and the Fairy Tale: Postmodern Revisioning In Recent Texts”, calls Atwood’s use of fairy tales to talk about current issues in society as “meta-fairy tales”. Atwood’s “meta-fairy tales” offer insight on gender politics in a current patriarchal society. Instead of using generic conventions to tell her story, like Perrault does, Atwood uses them and then dismantles them in order to show the reader the problems within the genre like she does in her poem.

Read More
1880 Words | 8 Pages

Furthermore, another aspect worth considering is the impact the depiction of such hostile behavior in fairy tales has on female readers. Girls most certainly notice (whether they do it consciously or subconsciously) that fairy tales glorify and reward beauty (Lieberman 385). When they identify with the beauties, girls tend to become suspicious of their less beautiful peers; and in case they identify with the plainer characters,

Read More
1276 Words | 6 Pages

Most of the children read about many fairy tales, especially Snow Whites, Sleeping beauty, and Cinderella when they grew up. It is a surprising fact that to discover a hidden, unexpected political intention in the simple plot of fairy tales. That is a feminization of woman. The fairy tale world suggests a male-centered patriarchy as an ideal basic society and impliedly imply that man and woman need to have a proper attitude toward this opinion. However, Jewett’s A White Heron describes a new perspective of fairy tale’s plot.

Read More
881 Words | 4 Pages

Numerous schools of criticisms have attempted to find the meaning behind most of our favorite childhood stories. From Marxist who pursue the idea of social classes portrayed in literary works, to Psychoanalysts who depict the sexual tensions and desires that are subconsciously embedded behind characters’ motives and actions, to Historicists who try to show the preservation of tradition in stories, many different concepts exist for each fairy tale. The Feminist school of criticism greatly focuses on unveiling the patriarchal system and sexist roles that are displayed in stories, and more specifically, fairytales. Four versions of the well-known fairytale of The Little Mermaid will be compared and discussed while focusing on many distinctive

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

“Beauty and the Beast” is an original fairy tale and over time have incorporated social, religious and cultural themes. An analysis of the Disney version of “Beauty and the Beast” exemplifies the stereotypes of the more subtle forms of social manipulation that fairytales undergo to employ. The question of whether these stories are made for entertainment or send a much larger picture, depicting to children their gender roles within a society. In this paper gender roles will be represented showing the typical female and male character within a society. Historian Sylvia D. Hoffert defines a gender ideal as “the cluster of characteristics, behavior patterns, and values that members of a group think a man or a woman should have, a set of cultural expectations.”

Read More
1059 Words | 5 Pages

As children would grow up, physical appearance would be valued more over inner beauty causing bullying in schools and discriminating among others with low socioeconomic status. In addition, the story provides unequal freedom between men and women where women are trained to become good housewife and to please a man through her looks, and following with marriage. As oppose to men who make their own choices on life-partner, marriage and other important life-changing decisions. Throughout the story, the character of Cinderella is portrayed as a passive, vulnerable, and

Read More
177 Words | 1 Pages

In children's books, including fairy tales, women are misrepresented such as weak, speechless, uneducated and the only thing they can do just wait for a prince and home duties. However, in modern life, women are educated, owns companies, they can perform jobs that men perform, they are strong and successful. Reading fairy tales to children which represent women stereotypically, they may detrimental to girls. It lowers their self-esteem and potential for their future because they will mirror themselves with protagonist where women’s job is to cook and clean a house.

Read More
1546 Words | 7 Pages

Iconic fairy tales such as Grimm Brother's Cinderella and Snow White are not innocent tales about young girls achieving their dreams but are rather misogynist stories. The two fairy tales have the similarity of involving a young girl who is oppressed by a wicked step mother then later on, the girl is saved by marrying a prince. One can discover the misogynist and the men controlled society by examining how the writers represent women in their fairytales. Both, Cinderella and Snow White can be dissected and analyzed through the Feminist theory. The two tales contain gender roles stereotypes, unrealistic importance of superficial beauty and the view of men as salvation for the girl's oppressed lives.

Read More

More about Do Fairy Tales Encourage Gender Role Stereotypes?

Related Topics

Open Document