Fairy Tales Shaping a Girls Image

Society shapes who you are, whom you will become and whom you decide to be around through fairy tales. Fairy Tales are a great part of our identity and how we view the world and how we understand various perceptions, such as sex and gender. Fairy tales have been around for a long time to create moralities and to educate children on what is right vs what is wrong targeting what your gender role is depending on your biological sex. Most Fairy Tales shape girls in particular to make them distinguish themselves from what a girl is supposed to behave, look, and act in many ways it leads to having the male be more superior.

Most of us as children were introduced to fairy tales in our homes and in our schools. Fairy tales have been around for generation to educate us women on our gender role and give us morals to follow so that we can meet the standards of society. Fairy tales manipulate girls to behave and act a certain way. For example, in the fairy tale Cinderella, it educated girls that working hard and staying home to clean is not such a bad thing because in the end you will find a prince who will change your life. If you behave and follow orders you will soon be rewarded although, in real life that is not always the case, but it showed women were depended on a male figure. Girls watching or reading these fairy tales will start to realize that helping out in the kitchen and being submissive could help them gain a prince since Cinderella had to gain the attention from the prince before her stepsisters did so she can have a perfect life. Girls here are given a specific gender role to play. Women should stay home and satisfy the male that is usually taught by society.

Given that there is always a Prince that rescues the princess in most fairy tales so the women can be in a better life situation, or so they can stop being in danger and be safe in the hand of the male. How many fairy tales does society need to create so women can understand that the male is the strongest, smarted person they will ever meet? Young girls get obsessed with the magic, the evil stepmother, and the handsome prince, but what they realize the most is the male since a,” Male characters appear to be strong, dominant, generous, and helpful whereas female characters are portrayed as weak, meek, and helpless”(Shahid Siddiqui). Many girls might not think they are weak or helpless, but when it comes to how they behave in their homes or how they want to be submissive enough to catch the guys attention. They start to fall into the gender roles that fairy tales have placed in their mindsets.

As girls transform into a woman most try to have the ideal slim body, beauty, and tenderness that a girl is supposed to have. Have you as a child ever looked yourself in the mirror in hoping you would be more slimmer so you can get someone else's attention. Think back to the Princesses, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella all contain a small waist and are admired for their beauty. Also have a great big gown after they marry the rich handsome prince. Girls are taught to believe that their beauty is the most important thing in their life. Since the villain especially from Little Mermaid is fat, a different color then white, she is half octopus and is known to be ugly.

The Princess that are beautiful and white, are usually given titles sweet and charming as for a princess that is from a different race get discriminated. An African American princess was first introduced as a Disney princess in 2009. Her title is The Princess and the Frog. The first African American princess gets a frog as a prince and is a frog throughout the movie. This fairy tale strongly showed how an African American girl was in a poor village who had a white, pretty, rich friend that got everything she wanted. It did not take long for the discrimination to start as the black princess father dies for no specific reason. Even though the fairy tale tried to make her a hard working black woman it made it clear that she could not have accomplished her dream without a male. She worked day and night trying to own a restaurant, but accomplished it with the rich prince.

Fairy tales are well constructed to still get discrimination across towards gender roles and female expectation even when it gives a positive view. Fairy tales constantly show women cleaning, and things women should not do. In Beauty and the Beast, she was seen differently because she would read books and have interest in wanting to learn as if she was not supposed to learn and be educated. Females are capable of so much more than simple yes and no answers. Especially being able to take care of themselves and not depend on a male figure.

In many other fairy tales contradict the role a guy should play for being the hero and the one who will be your true love. Emma Teitel, argues that many times a male is not saving the princess, “ In Maleficent, Princess Aurora--a.k.a Sleeping Beauty-- isn’t awaken by the kiss of a handsome prince. Her spell is broken instead by the kiss of a maternal figure ( one I won’t name) who has been looking out for her discreetly since birth.” Girls are shaped on by fairy tales that are created by society giving them the wrong impression of many things around the world.