Fairy Tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty have women as passive characters…
Children start growing very fond of fairytales and stories starting from a very young age. They have young and creative minds, which help their imagination create characters and stories on their own. Another important thing is, they tend to remember each and every thing to happen to hear or come across. Hence, this age group is the most important and delicate one. As a child, I happened to hear stories about Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Frog Prince, etc. which made me feel like princesses and fairies always needed a prince charming to save them, or to lead them. All the female protagonists of the stories and fairytales I heard, were always longing for male characters to come and rescue them or save them from their cruel counterparts and difficult circumstances. All those female protagonists gained respect and dignity in the society only once their male partners accepted them or married them. What is that supposed to imply on a young 5 year old or what is a kid expected to understand or pick from such stories? I believe these misogynistic stories and fairytales have played a huge part in forming the gender discriminative society that we live in today.
We should rather have fairytales or stories that not only have a happy end to them, but also a happy body of content, which do not have females as passive characters with a hopeless undignified life, which show not only men, but also women as strong independent characters, which do not underestimate female protagonists and encourage and empower women rather. Fairytales are supposed to make children happy, not put them into a dark bubble of thoughts that make them question their mothers, sisters or other women around them. Nobody should have to look at anyone with a sight of pity or sympathy. Everyone deserves to have their share of recreation and entertainment, but that does not give us entitlement to hinder anyone else’s life or defame an entire section of the human population. Let us take small steps and thrive towards the evolution of the human minds and make this world a better place for men, women and children and everyone else who is not looked upon with an eye of respect or dignity. We require to work towards achieving this by changing small faults and correcting them, like these fairytales and stories. Let’s tell all those children what heroes their mothers and sisters really are.
A woman myself,
Shubhangini Shaktawat