2 years, 1 month ago-
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 ShaktawatListening to bedtime stories during childhood is also fun. But we often come across some fairy tales in which a princess also need the support of a prince but is it always true. Why can’t we tell stories where male need female? Why we also tell that women are the weaker section?
Children are innocent whatever we told them during their innocence period get stored in their memory and they start behaving like that. We should never create a passive character of women in front of children. If we tell these stories to a girl child she starts making herself weak and tries to imagine herself in that story and we tell these type of stories to the male child he thinks that he is the only saviour of female and he tries to dominates her in future.
These stories are not of the kind type which is one of the first ethics issues that children should learn but they are full of cruelty. Fairy tales are essential as they develop ideas in children but these type of idea not only create passive thought but also create a sense of dominance against another gender.
We should always try to read stories which are having some moral and ethical value that can create a good human. These stories must be gender-neutral. Stories must deal with reality, not with myths that create a sense of only joy in life. Children should be prepared for the worst and best for tomorrow. It should not promote patriarchal structure in the mindset and nor create hatred for another gender. Do we often show the female part as a good wife, good daughter, good mother why they don’t take into consideration good husband, good son, good father? We should create an environment with can nurture children with good values.
From old times onwards till today’s generation, stories like fairy tales and sleeping beauty are very popular that parents used to tell their children. And children perspective, thinking and mindset creates from stories and thoughts they used to listen from their parents and teachers. Stories like fairy tales and sleeping beauty these storytelling needs to get stop for children because it doesn’t teach them equality and it shows that Cinderella are slim, beautiful and fair due to which girls from childhood has the thinking that girls with slim body and fair skin are beautiful which creates wrong perspective about races and body shapes. Sleeping beauty have the women’s passive character where they think prince charming will come to safe them, through which it sets the mindset of the girls that someone will come to safe them and they try to make true like stories but it is not like that instead girls need to listen stories like where they will get motivation and inspiration to follow their goals and be independent to save themselves by their own power. Fairy tales are someway good to teach lesson but it is not the only story that children should listen rather than all types of stories they need to listen from their parents and teachers. They should tell more stories of inspiration, motivation and which give moral or lessons to children and also they should tell stories that shows the equality that all the races and shapes are beautiful in their way without making discrimination and comparisons. The reason of why children need to stop listening stories like fairy tales and sleeping beauty because from childhood whatever children sees and listen it will forever remain in their mind and their way of thinking. It also shows that prince charming are one who saves her from society thinking which is wrong rather than girls herself can take stand against wrong and save herself. Being independent and confident is the very important thing children need to slowly understand instead of listening that prince charming will come to save them.
Child literature is one of the earliest ways for young people to be exposed to stories, and “that plays a powerful influence in molding the world. Fairytales are important, like other literary forms, beyond aesthetic value. Literature is crucial in socializing, and the subtle focus given by the fairy tales genre is significantly better than other forms of teaching. Initiating children into social ideals and conventions. Traditional gender roles depict men as being intellectual, powerful, safe, and determined; emotionally (irrationally), weakly, nurturing, and submissive, they cast women. The lower position of women in society is therefore culturally driven by patriarchal factors and is not biologically fixed. Feminists think that fairytales have pushed the patriarchal objective of women’s subordination and a cursory look into the fairytales. These fairies propagate patriarchal beliefs as an instrument of preserving a gender hierarchy instead of just reflecting social norms. The apparently impartial fairytale is founded on patriarchal ideology, and most of the tales are structured around the common pattern. The children’s orientation through fairies, as infancy is an impressive stage, enables them to accept inequalities of gender and hierarchy until they become gender-stereotyped patriarchy figures. Tales such as ‘Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ reveal how girls are prepared and boys are warned to show courage and reason at any time. Female figures in the fairy are either in trouble or depicted as witches or bad ladies. The story of fairy tales is often how a girl is saved from poverty by prince charm, which means marriage to the appropriate guy ensures a happy life that ends with the story of the girl. In spreading gender stereotypes, Fairytales play an important role and teach societal standards to children. The way sex is implemented in fairytales helps young people to understand the function they have in society. The ‘sweet, naive, meek and self-sacrificing’ stereotype in many of the stories is found in content, languages, and drawings, encouraging girls, while encouraging boys to be strong, adventurous, self-sufficient heroes and saviors” “the appropriate masculine and feminine roles”. The patriarchal imagination underlies the middle-class genre, which naturally naturalizes the servitude of women in the world of men. The most damaging effect of such teaching is that girls appear to internalize their anticipated passive and submissive behavior.
I have grown by listen and watching all the beautiful fairy tales stories, they have very beautifully presented the story of Cinderella, Rapunzel and snow-white many more such princesses, when you are a child your brain is functioned to believes what are you see you tend to believe its real for instance it is shown that women are very beautiful charming they love dancing, doing makeup and styling themselves and one day the very rich and good looking prince is going to marry them and take them to the beautiful castle but this all fantasy, but we can even portray this fantasy by showing them that girls need to be independent they should not have to wait for any prince to fulfill their dreams and be the hero of their life but they can also be the hero of their life, I would not say it is all wrong but fantasy should have some real-life related acquaintances. Passive characters should not always show for girls instead we should tell them to be active. we can empower them to show them how strong they are always glorifying man is unequal. Earlier if women should accept by men, they have to calculate or change many things to be accepted by the man. Fairytales are very unrealistic and they have some things which are true.
Fairy tales that are often narrated to children as bedtime stories are highly misogynistic and sexist. These stories have been known to portray women as nothing but damsels in distress. These stories have a way of depicting women as passive characters who are not capable of protecting themselves. The princesses in these stories are not even given a real voice, they are depicted as dolls who just exist to glorify the muscle power of the male protagonist in the story.
When we tell these stories to children, we knowingly or unknowingly teach them that women are just supposed to be a side character or a damsel in distress in life. We teach the children that women are not capable of taking care of themselves. Our world has changed a lot in the past decades, and it’s time for us to change these stories as well. We shouldn’t be narrating these old sexist and misogynistic fairy tales to children anymore. Afterall, children are the ones that are going to be the future of this country, and we should raise them with a better mindset than we were raised with.
Fairy Tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty have women as passive characters? YES!
When we teach children about the stories where a girl is a victim and is always rescued by a boy and without a boy, she is helpless and hopeless then we are teaching them the concept of sexism, patriarchy, and inequality. Some will say these stories are just for entertainment but we all know that children have a stronger grasp on things than anyone else, so to tell them in an indirect way that if you’re a boy, you’re supposed to be the stronger one, you have to be the “man” and solve problems and help girls because without you a girl will always be helpless, it’s is like serving them with bad virtues indirectly with fairytales as a platter. Similarly, through these fairytales, girls get the idea that they will have to rely on a prince charming to come up and save them every time they are in danger and the fact that they are weak to save themselves.
There is no doubt that traditional fairy tales have elements of sexism. At the time they were written, women were supposed to be inferior to men. A common trope from fairy tales is the evil stepmother like in “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. It indicates that women are a threat to one another and will not support each other. It also suggests that a girl is a victim of the cruelty of her stepmother, tarnishing the relationship that a child and a stepmother share. The female character is often painted as a victim who lives an uneventful life alone depending on some miracle to happen that could save her or waiting for a prince to solve her problems and then be rescued by him and then marry him, and live happily ever after. These fairy tales also bring unrealistic beauty standards for girls. It is a fact that the female character is portrayed as perfect, extremely beautiful with no flaws. Through this, girls get insecure about themselves and try to run after the fictional beauty of the character. It also implies that women who are not fair or perfect in every way and unmarried are worthless, which is an outdated idea for modern times.
Fairy tales are supposed to teach children good values, the lesson of good over evil and so on. If it contains messages that indirectly uphold sexism, patriarchy and inequality instead of actually empowering girls then they should be amended. Otherwise, they have no use to society anymore. We need tales that empower girls, show equality of all genders and smash social taboos. We don’t need to have fairy tales that indirectly preach immorality.
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