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