Preview

Gender Stereotypes In Fairy Tales

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1170 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gender Stereotypes In Fairy Tales
Young girls and marginalized groups are especially vulnerable in society because of the culture they’re raised in and what they are taught to believe is acceptable and normal in relationships and society. Right from childhood young girls are taught that they are objects that are chosen by men. Fairy tales send misleading messages to young girls about love and relationships. I think the media socializes people, and shows them certain social scripts on how to behave and how their expected to behave in society. Disney fairy tales are a good example of this because they depict how the media thinks romance and gender roles should be played out. In the Article peer involvement in adolescent dating violence, it states that social and popular media, which inform standards, appearances, and behavior, also heavily influences adolescent social norms. Often in the fairy tales men are shown as handsome, big and strong, and the women are beautiful, fragile and petite. I also think that their looks and qualities are hyper …show more content…
In these films the men have all the power and control. Women are portrayed more timid, and weak. They’re also not strong emotionally like the guys in the films. They’re soft-spoken and kind of docile. I think this pattern also plays out in adolescent dating, where the girls usually don’t have a lot of control in the relationship and just follow the guy’s lead. I can see how, young boys might think they have to be aggressive and chase after girls, and be the initiator of the relationship. I think this may be a factor in adolescent dating violence. This expectation to act aggressive and protective of women, and so much that other male’s act aggressive towards other males, or to the females they’re dating. I believe that these gender roles, attribute to adolescent dating violence. The gender roles portrayed in fair tales are stereotypical and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In all these versions, readers or viewers find a common thread to all. The wicked stepmother and siblings are either punished or forgiven, while the sweet, gracious, and beautiful Cinderella marries the prince, and as such escapes her miserable life. According to this tale, marriage is the ultimate goal in life especially for the woman. In Cinderella, all the maidens in town go to the ball just to marry the prince. Even Cinderella desires to go because she sees marriage to the prince as the solution to her problem. “The ideological and psychological pattern and message of either Perrault’s or the Grimms’ Cinderella do nothing more than reinforce sexist values and a Puritan ethos that serves a society which fosters competition and achievement for survival” (Breaking the Magic 195). And this applies to the other two versions in this analysis. Women are typecast as incomplete and invisible without the prince, who obviously is a wealthy archetype. There is a certain important message in Cinderella that is most profitable to marry a rich man, because it earns the woman respect and dignity.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fairy Tale Conventions

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Fairy tales always used “once upon a time in a kingdom far far away” as the beginning of the story, thought very simple but this sentence is actually very important to a fairy tale because it makes every thing about the story divorced from the reality and allow things impossible in real life, such as talking animal present in the story. Especially for fairy tales, animal personification is a very important part. In my story, the folks in the village are animal and human, they are equal, thrive together, sharing the land, however human is the master of the world in the reality, so I need to put that sentence to lead my readers to a different world. In addition, the main characters are not prince and princess so I used a “village” rather than a “kingdom”. I think this sentence had added some feelings of mystery into my…

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Woman in Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz studies the feminine representations in fairy tales. She bases her study on collective symbols assumed to be present in these stories to shed light on the various facets of the anima. This book points at the fact that even if fairy tales are generally seen as a form of distraction, these stories have also a psychological function which expresses the psychic processes of the collective unconscious. This is of a capital interest to analyze the instrumentalization of the princesses in the advertising campaigns.…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie She’s the Man is based on the Shakespeare Twelfth Night because in the movie it goes to show how the idea of gender stereotypes is still influenced in today's society and what the mainstream perceptions are about gender roles to show how the idea of gender equality transcends to the twelfth century. In the movie and twelfth Night the theme of disguise is very important because Olivia in the movie was very passionate about soccer to the fact that she was willing to disguises herself as her brother, so she can be able to compete with the boys soccer team. Unfortunately, her school disbands the girls soccer team. However, in Twelfth Night Viola decided to disguise herself as a man named Cesario, so she would not be in a vulnerable position in…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pretty Little Liars is the story of four teen girls—Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily— whose world is turned upside down when their ringleader Alison goes missing.…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Disney Princess Effect

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Stephanie Hanes’ “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” first appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in 2011. Hanes aims to convince her audience that little girls are being subjected to the hypersexualization of women. With supporting evidence, strategic organization, and a specific purpose and audience, Hanes is able to produce a convincing argument.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Media plays an important role in the depiction and construction of gender. Several studies exist which have focused on gender role portrayals and gender stereotyping appearing in the media. Considering this phenomenon, gender stereotyping is not only displayed in commercials or other television programs, but these can also be found in media products directed towards children. One of the issues , which is of great interest to many researchers is that even fairy tales, like cartoons and animation films, present male and female characters portrayed stereotypically (Robinson et al. 2006:203). Fairy tales have been the first kind of literature with which children…

    • 103 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The actions one takes are overlooked due to the rules created by society. Gender roles are norms created by society that dictate the behaviour of each gender. The main types of gender stereotypes are personality traits, domestic behaviours, and physical appearance. In the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the protagonist, Macbeth, gets very ambitious about becoming King. He commits murder after being convinced by his wife, Lady Macbeth. He then gets other people killed in order to reach his goal of becoming King. Shakespeare explores and challenges the traditions of society by creating unique circumstances. In the play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Macduff, and the Witches subvert the stereotypical gender roles.…

    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender socialization is defined as the process in which societal factors such as school, family, and the media, teach children their gender roles at an early age and those roles are continually reinforced throughout their lives. Boys are raised to adjust their behaviors and actions to the male gender role, while girls are raised to adapt to the female gender role. Schools reinforce such roles by enforcing uniform policies; for example, in some schools, girls are required to wear skirts while boys are required to don pants. Children are also segregated through lines by their gender. Family members have a big impact on gender socialization, since gender roles are imposed as early as the infancy period. Also, girls in the family are taught nurturing behaviors, things such as cleaning and cooking; while boys in the family do not exercise nurturing behaviors, but are rather encouraged to go out and be adventurous. Many forms of media such as advertisements and television shows often portray men as the bread-winner and show women in more of a domestic role. In commercials, men typically advertise things like tools; while on the other hand, women would be advertising household cleaning devices. I will be explaining how another form of the media—specifically Disney movies, also influences the construction of gender roles in society. I chose to explore Disney movies, because a lot of people have watched Disney films while they were young. Many girls, such as I, wanted to be a princess living in a beautiful castle, while many boys wanted to grow up to be strong and muscular, and to be a leader. While many see no harm in Disney films, they actually perpetuate…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender Stereotypes

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One of the many ways in which the media treat men and women differently is in the way that the news covers female and male politicians. Female politicians in general receive less coverage than male politicians, and the coverage they do receive is often more focused on their appearance and personal life rather than their policies and positions. When people see female politicians being treated this way by the media, they may begin to value women less in leadership positions. Media can have a huge influence on people’s views and opinions, and seeing women in leadership positions, or running for leadership positions, being belittled trivialized can be very damaging to society’s view of female leaders. This coverage can also have a negative effect…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the years society has differentiated in many ways. There is always something new for society to criticize about a person, especially when it comes to gender roles. Society can definitely influence how children are raised and how they’ll act when they grow up. Children will learn a lot about the world from stereotypes and the media. They will learn the differences between how men and women are treated.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Not fitting into the specific gender roles and characteristics have to be some of the hardest things that some males and females go through. It has been decades since the whole “mothers stay at home” and “fathers work and earn the money” era, but when one expectation ends, others multiply. In today’s culture it is not okay to be a feminine man, and a masculine female, those two things just do not add up in 2016. There are standards men and women must live up to in order to “fit in” and be considered “normal”. It is unfair, to say the least, for the people who will never be able to overcome these qualifications. In this culture there is an ideal body shape, certain BMI to obtain, looks you must live by, and specific ways to act, all of this…

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Modern Day Cinderella

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Modern day fairy tales function in our society as hidden instructions for morals and behaviors that we teach children. One such fairy tale is Charles Perrault’s classic known as Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper, which on the surface seems to be a magical story about a young woman who is forced to live as a servant in her own home due to her evil stepmother and stepsisters, but then is ‘rescued’ by her Prince Charming. However, the story tends to perpetuate numerous gender roles and stereotypes, and defines expectations of ‘goodness’ for women. Cinderella is more damaging than valuable to children because the tale reflects rigid cultural expectations of women's behaviors and goals, and reaffirms and reproduces male dominance and female submissiveness through the portrayal of passive, conformist and weak behavior. In effect, this problematic representation then becomes acceptable and desirable for all women.…

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For the past several years, I have been a babysitter for a little girl by the name of Magnolia. She and I have developed a clockwork schedule of our time spent together. Four o'clock we play princesses, five o'clock we eat, six o'clock we play princesses again, and by eight o'clock I am reading a story to her while she drifts away dreaming of faraway kingdoms. My favorite part is always story time; when her little hands eagerly shove her now tattered copy of Cinderella into my own. I always suggest another story, perhaps the Velveteen Rabbit, or Rainbow Fish, but to her her bedtime story is not complete without a princess, a brave knight, and a happy ending. These once upon a time’s are all that dominate…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A sociological video illustrates how cultural messages in children’s media normalize domestic violence in the movie Beauty and the Beast. The characters describe the beast abuse as “just a shot temper”. The movie teaches the girls that unacceptable behavior of the male will change when you counter it with love and care and that the women should be patient of the man’s abusive behavior to help him change that behavior and help him get the prince inside him -when the beast transform into a…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays