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Online Source-
http://history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2009/154-gender-roles-indoctrinated-through-fairy-tales/file
Gender roles play a big part in fairy tales due to the portrayal
of women compared to men. The female protagonist is usually seen as
innocent, beautiful, helpless, and not very intelligent. For example; In
the 1812 Grimm Brothers Tale 'Sneewittchen' also known as 'Snow White', Snow
eats a poison apple from who she believes to be a stranger but is in fact the
Queen in disguise. This shows that Snow is not very intelligent, she is
incapable of saving herself and therefore has to wait to be saved by a
man. The male character is seen as the hero who saves the female
character. He's is usually portrayed as a prince, handsome and wealthy.
He could be seen as a plot device just to give the main female character
a happy ending, as it was expected during this time that most people would
marry and have children, that was seen as the ideal life. Beauty is the main
attribute given to the main female character in fairy tales for example; in
Snow White beauty is what makes Snow desirable to the male character and is
what the evil step-mother wants to kill her for. The mother figure
(Queen) is seen as a vain woman who would kill to be the most beautiful,
she is driven by hate, bitterness, and jealousy. The Queen's mission is
to take down Snow to achieve what she wants but her desires become her
downfall. From a feminist approach this isn't portraying both genders as
equal as Snow's only asset is beauty and the Queen who is powerful and self
determined becomes the villain. Fairy tales tend to re-enforce the idea that
the woman needs to rely on a powerful man to give her stability and a happy ending,
which puts the male character in power. The women in power are not
capable of handling that power it goes to their head. A source I found
that is great at explaining the gender imbalance is the "Gender Roles
Indoctrinated Through Fairy Tales in Western Civilization” (2009) by Patel, in
this he says:
"There are only two types of women: the
helpless and the malicious. Good women do not save the day, they do not scheme,
nor do they get themselves out of bad situations; they wait until a Prince
saves them. Women who have desires and the moxie to achieve them are villainous
and will be punished in the end." (p17)
This perfectly sums up how most female characters are seen in
fairy tales. This is a great online source and very relevant for
examining the different gender roles in fairy tales. This source goes
into depth about the girl who is only wanted for her beauty, the evil mother
figure, and the heroic handsome prince, showing examples of how they appear
that way in multiple fairy tales. This source for example, shows
that the prince's only purpose in 'Aschenputtel' (Cinderella) is to fall in
love with the helpless girl and be financially stable to give them their happy
ending:
"He rescues the cinder girl from her misery
so that they may live happily ever after. Granted he is a Prince, and
apparently wealthy, so every maiden in the land would want to marry him. The
tale suggests that it is not only his wealth that makes him a ‘catch,’ however;
he is the ideal man who can rescue the heroine." (p41)
This happens again and again in fairy tales, the woman is never
capable of escaping her wretched life from the villain of the story and
ultimately always needs saving by the male character who is not as relevant up
until that point. Both characters then fall in love straight away without
knowing anything about each other because he is drawn to her beauty and she is
drawn to the idea of being saved and living a better life. This source
points that out several times in other fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty as
most of these fairy tales follow the same pattern with gender roles.
Overall I think this source is very appropriate for this topic and makes very good points always being able to back them up with evidence. I also think the way it is separated into categories with the female roles, male roles, and comparisons to contemporary times, is a great way of covering everything in an organised way and makes it much easier to find the relevant information.
Overall I think this source is very appropriate for this topic and makes very good points always being able to back them up with evidence. I also think the way it is separated into categories with the female roles, male roles, and comparisons to contemporary times, is a great way of covering everything in an organised way and makes it much easier to find the relevant information.
Book Source-
Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America And England (2010) by Jack Zipes
The role of Mother figures and father figures are drastically
different in fairy tales. The 'good mother' is usually dead or absent which
is evident in; Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast,
and Hansel and Gretel. Mother's are seen as nurturing and are
supposed to have a unique bond with their child, a mother wouldn't be expected
to hurt her daughter like in the original Snow White Tale, which is why in the
later editions The Grimm Brother's changed it to the evil step-mother
instead. The step-mother is more believable to be cruel as she isn't the
biological parent. However it is never step-fathers it always seems to
fall to the female to be more evil. In the (2012) novel Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary
Feminist Fairy Tales in North America And England by Jack Zipes, Marcia
Lieberman says in her chapter:
"Being ill-favoured is corollary to being
ill-natured, as with Cinderella's step-mother and step-sisters.
Cinderella is pretty and sweet, like her dead mother. The step-mother is
proud and haughty, and her two daughters by her former husband are like her".
(p196)
This source suggests that the reason we see step-mothers in fairy
tales rather than step-fathers is because the character traits are passed down
from the woman. The step-sisters inherited their traits from their mother
just as Cinderella has, the mother is given the responsibility for shaping the
child so by making the biological mother absent in most fairy tales that could
be the reason why the female character is so dependent. It could be
argued that the loss of the mother figure forces the female character to mature
but rely on the male figures in the story such as a father, or the prince as
they long for protection from a male companion. This would make sense why
the girl can't seem to save herself by the end of the fairy tale, the prince
saves her and their story ends happily in marriage.
Father figures are particularly absent when the evil step-mother
is involved in the story. They are assumed to have important duties that
keep them away or they just don't see the treatment taking place.
Lieberman examines this in Cinderella:
"In 'Cinderella' the domineering step-mother
and step-sisters contrast with the passive heroine. The odious
step-mother wants power, and successfully makes her will prevail in the house'
we are told that Cinderella bore her ill-treatment patiently, "and dared
not tell her father, who would have rattled her off; for his wife governed him
entirely'." (p197)
This source shows perfectly how gender is stereotyped a certain
way to progress the story. Cinderella is the beautiful, passive,
suffering female character who the reader is supposed to like and route
for. The step-mother and step-sisters share similar traits they are
dominating and seen as evil women becoming the villains of the story.
Then the father is the character who is unaware, and described as a man who makes
his decisions based on his wife, he cannot control her and would seemingly put
her before his own daughter. The evil step-mother keeps the power.
This source continues to say that "What is praiseworthy in males, however, is
rejected in females; the counterpart of the energetic aspiring boy is the
scheming, ambitious woman" (p197). This is seemingly true as the evil female character is usually
strong willed and ambitious but is most often described as ugly and usually her
character traits are her downfall, those traits are what make her evil.
However the prince in fairy tales is strong and powerful, he'll do whatever it
takes to get the beautiful girl and in the end he is praised for this and
manages to accomplish his goal.
This source is brilliant for pointing out the differences in
character traits between the different male characters and female characters as
they all have a specific role to play in fairy tales. This source takes a
different approach to gender and manages to point out all of the controversial
aspects whilst trying to identify why they are used and for what reason.
Lieberman in particular points out how the past contributed to certain
thoughts and traditions at the time and the effect this can have on younger
readers today. I think this is a very appropriate source for more
information on gender.
Besides the main female character, the only other female character
we tend to see in fairy tales that is considered 'good' who has power is
usually a character who is not human, for example; In Cinderella the fairy god
mother appears at a time of need for Cinderella and briefly helps her, only to
disappear again. This is most likely because the powerful characters in
fairy tales tend to be the male characters such as the fathers and the
prince's. The powerful female characters never seem to be human
characters unless they are the evil villain in the story, this is because
the females are seen as fragile, weaker and emotional. However the human
male characters are seen as the opposite; strong, brave, a hero. In the
"Representation of Women in Fairy tales" (2010) Siddiqui says:
Male characters in fairy tales are associated
with animals. We come across animal characters including bears, wolfs, frogs,
rabbits, donkeys, and lions, etc. This suggests that male characters possess
the attributes of animals in terms of strength, swiftness, domination
etc. Female characters are dubbed as weaklings, insecure, emotional, and
at times troublesome creatures. (p1)
This sources re-enforces the fact that male characters in fairy tales are described as stronger characters than females which could be a big reason why the powerful human female character always ends up the villain and failing, where as the passive pretty girl gets the happy ending with the strong male character. Even jobs are assigned to certain genders, the men in fairy tales are described doing a range of jobs where as the women spin wheels and do the housework expected of them for example; Cinderella cleaning the house for her step-mother and Snow White cooking for the dwarfs. In this journal source Siddiqui says:
As a part of the process of socialization roles
are assigned and naturalized by the society. Women have been usually confined
to domestic chores. Men, on the other hand, move in the public domain where
they are in possession of economic resources to fund the domestic
expenses. (p1)
This is the view of a patriarchal society where the men are given the responsibility to work and earn a living where as the women aren't seen as capable of that but should be doing the jobs around the house instead. These gender roles are all aspects that affect the way we view the events of fairy tales as the way the male and female characters act is down to the society they live in, which can be harmful to the present day world as we have to remember these fairy tales were written by men in a society that is not as accepting and very different in what they expect of men and women.
Marriage is usually the main event at the
end of a fairy tale to announce a happy ending, as again this is also what was
expected in this time. By having marriage be the happy ending to a fairy
tale, the prince gets the beautiful bride he has been searching for and the
girl finally gets to live a rich life through the stability of a husband.
This gives the male character the power again by being a husband in this
society and because the girl doesn't work so he is the one who will be providing
for her.
The fairy tales reflected the politics
of labeling and categorization where roles, expectations, and
opportunities for males and females were decided on the basis of sex. (p1)
This source is proving the fact that the fairy tales were written
in a time where certain expectations and gender roles took place, which is
important because the genders are treated differently. Cinderella goes
from a suffering girl who wore rags and carried out housework (under her evil
step mothers orders) to meeting a prince who is captivated by her beauty,
desiring her and saves her from her wretched life to get married in the
end. Other fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty and Snow White also end
the same way, the female is never given the ambition of making her own money to
give herself a better life, she always relies on a male character for her happy
ending just as the male who has everything else cannot be happy until he has a
beautiful girl by his side.
Overall I think this source does a great job at pointing out the
gender imbalance whilst taking into account the society at the time these fairy
tales were written. This source points out the gender stereotypes , the
fairy tale tropes, and the use of language that all contributes to the way
gender is portrayed overall in fairy tales. The source is set out in a
very organised way providing examples of several fairy tales for evidence
of the points made in this journal, I've found it very useful.
Bibliography-
- Patel, H. (2009) "Gender Roles Indoctrinated Through Fairy Tales in Western Civilization". Rutgers Honours Papers, http://history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2009.
- Siddiqui (2010) 'Representation of Women in Fairy Tales'. Journal of Gender and Social Issues, Vol 9(1), p.1.
- Zipes, J. (1987) Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America And England, Routledge, 2012 Edition.
- Zipes, J (1987) Brothers Grimm The Complete Fairy Tales, Vintage, 2007 Edition.
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