Gender Roles In Fairy Tales

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who is rebellious and has broken down stereotypical genders roles putting patriarchy at risk and being labelled as witches.
The heroine in fairy tales forms in the image of the ‘maid’, she serves as the model women that all girls should aspire to be. She conforms to the stereotypical gender roles set by society. Young readers are influenced by the fairy tales they read, they are prone to imitate their favourite characters and aim to be just like them, in appearance, mannerisms and even in values. In his article Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches, Donald Hasse argues that “there was and still is widespread agreement that fairy tales ‘have been made the repositories of the dreams, hopes, and fantasies of generations of girls” (3). Hasse …show more content…
These stories are highly influential and teach girls that they will find happiness if they behave like the heroine from their stories. Hasse points out that “classical attributes of ‘femininity’ found in these stories are in fact imprinted in children and reinforced by the stories themselves” (3). Tales such as Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty teach young girls that all they need to do is be passive, patient and beautiful and just wait for their knight in shining armour to come and rescue them. This message is emphasized to not only young girls but also to young boys reading the story, and they are taught that males and females have very different positions in society. While men are meant to be active members that are heroic and brave, women’s role is to depend on men to save them, their only attribute being to look pretty for their prince. The women in fairy tales are modelled after the image of the ‘maid’ who has been created by men in order to turn women submissive women and having to rely on a man to move anywhere in her life. Jack Zipes stresses the influence of fairy tales in his article Don’t Bet On The Prince , he writes about how the “socially conditioned roles [in fairy tales] prepare females to become passive, self-denying, obedient, and self-sacrificial as well as nurturing, …show more content…
This role is meant to showcase them as being wicked, unnatural mothers who stray from the norms set by society. Step mothers are given the qualities that are opposite to the qualities of the heroine to show that they do not fit into the values prescribed by society. The stepmother is created in opposition of all the characteristics associated with feminisms and is meant to steer young girls away from those characteristics. The fairy tales we read “shape our cultural values and understanding of gender roles by invariably depicting women as wicked, beautiful, and passive, while portraying men in absolute contrast” (Haase 3). Through these images, men are able to establish themselves as the dominant leaders of society. These negative interpretations of women who have broken away from the norm of society allows men to disapprove of them and create them into something undesirable. Through this fairy tales socialise young readers to believe
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