Do fairy tales have a lot to answer for?

[poshsinglemum]

Do they perpetuate the myth that all of us women need to be rescued? Or are they harmless fun?

[MarionCole]

I'm more concerned about how impudent girls need to be punished.

[poshsinglemum]

Which impudent girls do you mean MarionCole?

[Sakura]

Absolutely, they're a huge part of the problem.
Thesedays it's translated into misogynistic media: films, TV and books, whereby those who make decision right at the top (always men) systematically try to push the idea that women should be subordinate, or are naturally subservient. It goes from Disney characters, right through to films. Otherwise females are nowhere to be found.

I love Germaine Greer's take on this:
She says something along the lines of:

"Women are taught from an early age that there is someone out there for them, the one. They would be better off being taught that there is noone out there and they might as well just get on with life and work"

[piscesmoon]

Everyone needs fairy tales. Don't read too much into them-just enjoy them for what they are!

[Sakura]

BUt society tells us that only women need fairy tales. Men just get to fight dragons, become knights and do things with their life, not wait around for a wife.

A fairy tale I love is "THe Paper Bag Princess" (written by a man!)

[Goblinchild]

You need to did deeper and move away from Disney if you are to find folktales of intelligent, problem-solving females who are victorious through their own resources.
There are a lot of traditional tales out there, but not many look beyond the basic two dozen that are the most popular.

[Sakura]

Absolutely, My hope is that one day we won't have to dig deep because those stories will be mainstream. But when I was growing up, the mainstream stories out there for girls were of the "handsome prince" genre.
The other problem you have thesedays is that while females are now allowed to save the world, they have to look smoking hot doing so.
Pretext: only women who look smoking hot can ever do anything of significance in life

[Goblinchild]

There's a large number of tales with positive images of strong heroines, as a teacher I frequently introduce my class to Oona, Vasilisa, Katie, Janet, Gretchen, Gretel, Manka, Gawain and the Loathly lady, Mulan and a host more.
It's no good waiting for mainstream to catch up, mothers need to be proactive and tell the stories to their own children to redress the balance.
And if you are telling the story, the heroine can look as beautiful or distinctive as you like. You can change details and conclusions as you wish.

[Sakura]

I agree, but you have to accept that the mainstream stuff is pretty darn sexist before you realise you're going to have to look elsewhere for your daughters.
The tinkerbell fairies look and behave like beauty pagent wannabes.
Luckily there are lots of great female characters around thesedays. I have made a big effort to find them for my daughter. But, for example, if I go to the library and pick up a random book with a penguin as the protagonist, doing penguin stuff, there's a 90& chance it's going to be portrayed as male.

[Sakura]

"portrayed as male" means they're going to use "he" not "she" by default. To me it reinforces the idea that men are people and women are women

[AliceWorld]

I like this take on disney fairy tales

(Apologies for the duplicate as I posted these on another thread the other day, outside of the feminist board, but thought people here might appreciate them)

little mermaid

snow white

I think the way fairy tales are framed now is not so great. I don't think fairy tales per se are innately bad, like Goblinchild mentions, but the way they are frequently represented is.

[Goblinchild]

Just as an aside, I had to buy extra books for my son when he came to be a free reader. There were dozens of lovely books, but he pointed out that wirh a sister, a mother and a grandmother, he had enough confident and empowered women in his life and would like some books with boys doing interesting things,PLEEEASE.

[piscesmoon]

I have to say that DCs like them.
This will be depressing for many, who worry about gender, but it is true:
at a staff meeting we were moderating the level on year one writing. I can't remember the exact title but it was very vague-along fairy story lines. There were no names on the work (only the class teacher knew)and after reading a few it became clear that you could tell if it was written by a boy or a girl- and we were right everytime. The girls had princesses and the boys had dragons and swords.
I have a friend with 2 DCs 15months apart-she was determined that she was going to treat them the same but the girl was into dressing up and make believe, the boy was into construction toys and his bike. I really don't think that parents have the influence they think they do. I was anti guns-DS made one out of duplo at a very young age. He could also make a gun noise-something I still can't do!

[Unprune]

I have a ds. I loved fairy tales as a child (specifically, I loved the 60s ladybird books with the painted illustrations, and not just the fairy tales. There is something about the artwork that makes me wibbly) but don't see them as integral to a child's upbringing, really.

Occasionally DS asks me about eg Rapunzel, and dh and I try to cobble together some sort of retelling of it. We aren't very good. I dare say that sounds like we are keeping some sort of magic from DS, but I really don't think so.

I do think the main culprit in the modern shitification of fairy tales is Disney. We didn't talk about parenting too much before having a child, but the one thing we agreed on was: no Disney, broadly.

[exexpat]

I like this version of the Disney Princesses - Off-duty Disney Princesses.

Pisces, I can quite imagine that at lower primary level the children's ideas of fairy stories would be very gender-stereotyped. What would be more worrying would be if you set a task like 'write a modern fairy tale' for, say, able GCSE level students, and got stereotypical princess-waiting-to-be-rescued stuff from the girls. I think (hope?) that most girls by 16 might have rather more independent ideas?

[Goblinchild]

They might have more independent ideas if they've had a varied diet.
But if they've gone from Disney to WAGs, Jordan and the rest then no. You will get a stereotypical fairytale response with added mobiles and facebook.

[piscesmoon]

I thought my friend giving the same experience to her DCs and my anti gun stance proved that it doesn't make any difference? Much better to let them get it out of their system and move on. I liked very different books to my brothers when I was young-this wasn't good or bad and I would have resented any efforts to influence me.

[AliceWorld]

What is playing with a gun if it isn't make believe?

[Lancelottie]

Pisces, do they really all write princess/dragin stories? Mine three don't have much in common, but they all seemed to revert to 'small talking animal' mode whenever they had/have a free writing task. I still sometimes find random leopard, hedgehog and guinea pig ramblings and can't work out which child did it.

[Lancelottie]

dragon.

oops.

[Miggsie]

OK, just to say I agree that a lot of Disney stuff is very sexist BUT on the story writing stuff, my DD's class had to pick a fairy tale, then re-tell it their way.

DD picked Jack and the Bean Stalk and Jack went up and defeated the giant using his sword...named Sting.

DD did say she felt bad borrowing from the Hobbit but her other choice "Snap" to name the sword sounded like a card game and not scary enough.

I'm proud that my DD is skewing the statistics at her school!

And yes, it was me who introduced her to the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the concept of naming swords.

[pointissima]

Folk tales address a lot of what is in the darker corners of the mind and of society, so they are oozing with misogyny, violence, etc.. I think them fascinating but inherently unsuitable for young children.

The clean pink disney versions may be less violent; but they're still misogynistic. They're also just saccharine and artistically worthless

[TinselinaBumSquash]

I don't know, im in a Pantomime of Dick Whittington, im playing the leading lady and im kick ass, in fact im quite gropey and i don't get rescued my Dick!

I feel good that i may be doing something for feminisim every where! :o

[piscesmoon]

'What is playing with a gun if it isn't make believe?'

Done, fairly automatically, by boys despite discouragement.
The princesses and dragons wasn't a free choice, but the title was fairly vague (unfortunately can't remember it)but there was a different interpretation according to gender.