In mid 170os, a parlor game aroused, in which many women would retail old tales in a spontaneous manner. “This social function of amusement was completed by another purpose, namely that of self-portrayal and representation of proper aristocratic manners.” (Zipes 21). Women usually told controversial stories by disguising them through a decorative language. These stories criticized the autocracy.
As a result, many of these stories portrayed young girls being controlled by the men in society, higher power, and evil fairies. The young girls were then saved by wise beings such as animals which gave them their rights. By telling these stories, they were able to, “Expose decadent practices and behaviors among the people of her class, particularly those who disgrace independent women.” (Zipes 21)
Gender stereotypes has been established from these fairy tales over time as the audience for these tales began to expand to children as well. “Cinderella,” and “Snow White,” supports such stereotypes which includes women should be passive and submissive and the association between beauty and goodness and ugliness and evil. The gender roles and the way women are portrayed in fairy tales support the gender stereotypes in society today.
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“Snow White,” by the Grimm Brothers shows how women were oppressed and depicts the stereotype that women are expected to remain at home and sacrifice themselves to be good wives and mothers. Even if they are not treated right, women were supposed to remain silent and passive or else they would receive consequences. “If you will keep house for us, and do the cooking and make the beds and was and sew and knit and keep everything neat and clean, you can stay with us, and you will want for nothing.” (Karasek103)
When Snow White ran away from the huntsman and gets “Saved by the dwarves, they make an agreement that she can stay as long as she fulfills all the roles that the dwarves ask her to do such as kitchen roles. While Snow White stayed at home, the dwarves who served as the men in the fairytale, searched for silver and gold in the mountains. This helps reinforce the stereotype that women should be fulfilling house roles and remain passive. In order for a girl to be passive, she has to be innocent and listen to men or she would encounter difficulties.
The Dwarves told Snow White to make sure that she does not leave the house or let anyone in. However, due to her naiveté, she opened the door to the evil witch. As a result, she had to suffer the consequences of not listening to the dwarves (men) such as by lying in her coffin for years and years after eating a poisonous apple. This supports the stereotype by showing that if women don’t stay at home and try to leave the home, they will receive undesirable consequences and its better for women to stay at home while men make money for the family outside of home.
Another example where it shows that women are expected to be passive is in “Cinderella: Or the Little Glass slipper,” by Charles Perrault. Cinderella was expected to, “Wash the pots and pans, clean out Madame’s s bedroom and those of her stepsisters too.” Although she is treated like a slave by her, she still fulfills all the rules that a female is expected to do in house. Because she remains passive and does what she is expected to do, Cinderella is considered to be admirable. She endures all her problems until a man comes to save her from her evil stepmother and stepsister.
The fairytale supports the stereotype that women should do household chores and remain quite despite of any oppression since a girl here cannot achieve any happiness unless she has gone through hardships. In Cinderella’s case, her hardship was being treated as a salve. She was expected to always be obedient and not talk back and basically wait until a prince comes and saves her from the misery in order to have h a happily ever after.
Another stereotype in society supported by fairytales is that beauty is very important. According to an experiment done by James Anderson, for example, “Attractive men and women make more money than unattractive men and women, even though they are no more or less cooperative on average than unattractive people. According to another research, “A study of the evolution of 106 tales that originated in 1857, found a strong correlation between the number of times a book was reproduced as the number of times the appearance (beauty) of the female lead was stated. (Neikirk 2)
This shows that in order for a woman to achieve happiness, she needs to have beauty and intelligence is not considered. There is a connection between beauty and grace and ugliness and depravity. In many fairytales, ambitious women are also usually shown as wicked and are consumed by jealousy and greed. An example, where beauty is shown as very important is, “Snow White,” by the Grimm Brothers. The importance of beauty starts off from the beginning of the story when her mother wishes her daughter will be, “As white as snow, red as blood, and her hair as black as ebony.”
Her beautiful physical appearance mirrors her good personality and innocence. White symbolized innocence, red showed love, while black symbolized sophistication. Because of her beauty, she also had a beautiful ending where a prince came and married her after falling in love with her at first sight. Another character in the story that shows how important beauty was is by the stepmother. Unlike Snow White, the stepmother’s beauty was full of flaws. She loved it when people praised her beauty and even had a magical mirror to fulfill that duty.
“She was beautiful but she was proud and overbearing and she couldn’t bear the thought that anyone might be more beautiful than her.” The stepmother wanted to remain as the fairest but as Snow White grew fairer than her, she decided to resort to evil acts. When the stepmother thought the huntsman brought over to her Snow White’s lungs and liver, she, “Ordered the cook to salt and stew them all the godless woman ate them, thinking she was eating Snow White’s lungs and liver.” (102)
By doing this, the stepmother thought she was receiving Snow White’s beauty and youthness from her. By performing this act, it showed that the stepmother was envious of Snow White’s beauty and beauty was super important to her. Because she thought Snow White’s beauty was a threat to her own beauty and power, she wanted to kill her. Her ambitions caused her to disguise herself three times to attempt to murder her step daughter. The first time, “She stained her face and dressed like an old peddler woman so that no one can recognize her.”
The second time, she disguised as another form of old woman and the third time she faked herself as an peasant woman. The queen disguises herself as an ugly woman in order to do evil actions such as poisoning Snow White. These disguises depicted her ugliness and exposed her true personality. This fairy tale supports how beauty is an important asset since it makes someone more respectable while people that are not as beautiful, suspicious. In the end of the story, the evil stepmother, “Fell to the floor dead,” but Snow White who was beautiful ended up marrying a prince.
“Cinderella,” by Charles Perrault is another fairy tale that shows how important beauty is. In the story, Cinderella’s godmother changed her, “Workday overalls and aprons into a dress of cloth of gold and silver, embroidered with precious stones.” (45) By doing this, Cinderella is able to become beautiful by dressing up in a nice dress and wearing gorgeous slippers. The fairy tales shows that in order to be beautiful one needs to wear nice clothing, jewelry, and shoes in order to attract someone, in this case a prince. The prince would probably not have noticed Cinderella if she came in wearing her dirty robes.
In the end of the story, the prince would not have recognized the princess without the slippers in which every woman needs to put on in order to see who he truly danced with. This supports the stereotype that a woman needs to be beautiful in order to find her prince. Other characters from, “Cinderella,” that show the link between beauty and goodness and ugliness and evilness are Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters. “Yet even in her dirty clothes, Cinderella could not help but be a hundred times more beautiful than her sisters, however magnificently they dressed themselves up.” (43)
Besides appearance, the stepmother and stepsisters also were different from Cinderella due to their personalities. While Cinderella represented the good in the story, her stepfamily represented the villains. Her stepmother only cared about her daughters and did not care how Cinderella felt. In “Ashputtle,” by the Grimm Brothers which is another version of Cinderella, the stepmother kept dropping bowlfuls of lentils in order to make sure that Ashputtle can’t come to party.
This shows how cold-hearted the stepmother was and how jealous she was that her that her two daughters were not as fair as Cinderella was. This supports the link between ugliness and evil. The stepsisters were also very jealous of Cinderella due to her beauty when they wanted to marry the prince. As a result, “They made more than a dozen corsets laces because they pulled them in so tightly in order to make themselves look more slender and they were always pimping in front of mirror.”
There was no reason as to why the two stepdaughters wanted to get married to the prince. The fairytales support how ugliness is associated with evilness by showing that the stepdaughters where more interested in the prince’s wealth and were symbolized as “gold-diggers.” In, “Ashputtle,” the stepdaughters would go to any extent in order to get the prince.
“The girl cut of a chunk of her heels, forced her foot into the shoe, gritted her teeth against the pain, and went out to the King’s son.” In order to be able to become queen and become wealthy the two daughters were willing to go to any extent to get what they wanted. These injuries show how deceptive and competitive the step daughters were to win the prince to the point where even family relations were not considered. These characters were portrayed to be completely different from Cinderella.
The noticeable differences, makes it easier for readers to see the connection that beauty has more positive traits while ugliness have more negative traits. If someone is not as attractive as the main character, then that person will be portrayed as evil since she will be jealous of the more attractive woman. As a result, in order to be good, one has to be beautiful and this form of thinking is still very prevalent in society.
Many modern stories have developed to show women making their own choices and having more freedom. However, it is crucial for more stories to portray females with different roles such as doctors, warriors, and political leaders other than the traditional roles such as working at home and taking care of children. By doing this, children can also learn more about the different types of roles that women can play in society. As values in societies changes such as gender equality, stories should also adopt the new values and reduce biased stereotypes.
