An analysis by Logan Hurd
“Tomorrow Forever” (1963) by Margaret Keane
Abstract
The paper has a focus on the topic of gender roles in fairy tales and how outdated views of women affect the development of children and their understanding of social structures. Child psychologists and professors of gender studies have observed the relationship between our social view of fairy tales and the analysis of gender within them and found that current day views do not align with the older viewpoints of women from the Grimm’s and Perrault. However, little research follows the social develop of children through the influence of fairy tales, despite evidence that fairy tales have a strong role in the development stages of children. The original base fairy tales provide children with false narratives of gender structures in society by promoting themes of old-world patriarchy, which hinders children’s environmental development as they are rewired to accommodate to more progressive social views later in their lives. By adapting more equal character roles it can help with the perception of female characters in these tales. I have used scholarly journals and a social study finding to compact evidence and build a reasonable argument structure. The evidence is analyzed through how relevant it is to the argument with children, and how specific the argument against gender roles is the thesis. Being able to specify certain quotes has helped narrow down the research process to finding evidence that will be most effective. The thesis of this paper should bring light that there needs to be a change in how fairy tales are read and perceived by children. The youth are the future, and it is important that everything is done efficiently to help their development and social growth in this fast pace world.
Project 3
The Grimm brothers have long been criticized for their patriarchal viewpoints towards women in stories, highlighting female characters with little ambition and intellectual individuality. The original base fairy tales provide children with false narratives of gender structures in society by promoting themes of old-world patriarchy, which hinders children’s environmental development as they are rewired to accommodate to more progressive social views later in their lives. This is explored through understanding the finding the base root problem with stories like Snow White and Cinderella and the flaws they have as stories portraying a socially skewed narrative. Ideas of storyline change and modern-day adaptation is also explored to keep up with current day social standings and explore how children view their own take on classic fairy tales. The background of fairy tales and the importance of their development in children is also explored to understand why it is important to remove the social bias early. Just like other aspects of literature, fairy tales need to be adaptable and flexible in order to survive and remain relevant for children in further generations.
Famous tales like Snow White and Cinderella depict biased gender roles that children learn from early on in their lives. While each tale has a clear story line that can be enjoyed and understood easily by children, all these tales promote an old-world view of women in society where they are expected to end in marriage and accommodate for the husband and family. In Snow White, children are taught that women simply cannot complete a hard task by themselves and in the end a “prince charming” will come along to save the day and finish the job. In Cinderella, she only receives the attention of the prince because her body fit the extreme standards allowed by the prince himself. The current theme of ending revolves around the man entering their lives and suddenly being able to have control of their issues. The end point for both concludes in marriage, seemingly as if marriage should be the final stand of individuality for women in their lives. Maria Tartar remarks at this undoubted standard that “…one shared aspect, for instance, is the domestication of women: Disney went further than the Grimm’s to make Snow White care and clean by nature and make the household jobs seem effortless and fun” (Tartar). At the end of the day, Snow White was just another young woman who became wrapped up in the social pressures of marrying to a man with while having little ambition for future plans of herself. Children at a young age do not understand self-individuality and ambition to a full extent yet, however these stories linger with them early on in life and remain references for how society operates and how women are supposed to act towards men. Children do not understand patriarchy and gender roles, and yet young girls will look up to Snow White and Cinderella because of social influence and the entertainment these stories bring.
150-year-old stories with 1950 adaptations simply do not relate to the lives of current day children. For fairy tales to survive in a constantly changing world, they will need to adapt the ideologies of current day society. By being able to adapt and have fairy tales fit a real-world viewpoint, children can comprehend the messages being conveyed easier and ingrain it into their social development. Changing traditional storylines and re-inventing their meaning can help remove biased gender roles rooted in our culture and give children a new view on social structure. In a social experiment conducted to understand how children react and adapt to a change in characters and gender role in fairy tales, Dr. Wan-Hsiang Chou found that among 16 boys and girls, …”their reflection papers showed a heightened awareness and sensitivity of the cultural assumptions and values that go into the story as well as a self-understanding… Some students started to talk about the possibilities of applying this project in their future classroom and how they realize the importance of teaching children to be aware of the dominant discourse in popular culture” (Chou). Her findings concluded that not only were children socially aware of making a change in the social model of fairy tales, but she also found that their modified stories best supported future readings. Having characters fill modern day roles remove confusion and simplifies the interpretation of construct for a child. The more relevant a topic is in a child’s life, the more likely it is to stick with them and for them to expand on their new knowledge for later works. Likewise, Davidson University professor, Christine Jones, found a similar conclusion in the realm of breaking down gender contracts by applying cross dressing to remove the boundaries between male and female jobs in a particular story. For Jones, “Cross-dressing and war seemed coextensive, and 1 pushed that affinity to suggest that women’s fairy tales waged a metaphorical war – an assault on exclusion and gender bias in the world of letters” (Jones). Cross dressing characters leveled the playing ground in a way as it removes the symbols of power and who is in control and has each character overlapping in status to promote total structural equality. Like Chou’s findings, it connected real world ideologies in neutralizing the view of structure in tales. It is time for the base fairy tales to be readjusted for the new generations for these tales to survive and stay relevant later. Evidence that these tales can be adapted and altered further pushes for a change in structure.
Early childhood stories are crucial for cognitive development in children and their comprehension of social structure. Fairy tales act as educational tools for children even before they step foot inside a school, and that is why it is so important that proper social morals are preached early in order to fulfill efficient development. Children must learn from these stories and be able to apply it later in their childhood when recognizing their surroundings, especially related to gender. If children grow up and only have the “base” fairy tales to learn from like Snow White and Cinderella, certain gender biases can be asserted from just recognizing themes in the language and story line. Child Psychologists Arlandis, Sergio, and Agustín Reyes-Torres find a direct correlation between childhood stories and themes of self-reflection in understanding themselves and their existence. Here they state, “So if, in a certain way, the aim of children’s and young adult literature is to accompany and reflect that transformation of the young reader, it is not surprising that the symbol of the mirror (and other analogies such as water or the moon) has a certain presence and continuity in its most emblematic texts” (Torres-Sergio). Children’s literature has the power to switch an individual’s perspective in a way that they have never viewed before, and this can be said for how a child reflects on his own self-worth and existence as either a boy or girl. Gender studies expert Janice McCabe states that “awareness of gender recognition with its related and associated features is a phenomenon which starts in the early stages of life and gets powerfully influenced by the type of literature children are exposed to in later stages,” (McCabe) and because of this we must recognize the setbacks society puts children in when the literature gears toward a patriarchal viewpoint. Literature and fairy tales are crucial for a child’s development, and society should be conscious of what message the children are receiving as they grow older in their lives.
Gender stereotypes affecting women is still an ongoing issue today in our society. However, by slowing rerouting it from our literature it can become something of the far past that is seen with little weight. Fairy tales will always remain an important figure piece in literature and the culture it has created among children’s entertainment. It is important to realize that Grimm and Perrault stories are not perfect, and part of that is coming from an era far behind ours socially. Evidence from the social studies and developmental research do suggest that story line adaptation is beneficial for the change of pace in social views in children. Just because their moral structures are flawed, does not mean these stories should be shunned and forgotten forever, however only through slight character adaptations can these tales thrive again and survive into the next generation. Fairy tales have proved so crucial in the early and late development stages of children and removal of them would take away their purpose. The solution is a change of heart in character development for fairy tales that supports all genders equally and does not mean that these tales should be forgotten simply because they are outdated.
Work Cited
Akbar, Tahira, Ra’ana Malik, and Farooq-e-Azam. “Gender Issues in Children’s Literature: An Analysis of Fairy Tales.” Pakistan Journal of Education 35.1 (2018)
Arlandis, Sergio, and Agustín Reyes-Torres. “Thresholds of Change in Children’s Literature: The Symbol of the Mirror.” Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, vol. 7, no. 2, July 2018, pp. 125–130.
Chou, Wan-Hsiang. “Contamination of Childhood Fairy Tale: Pre-Service Teachers Explore Gender and Race Constructions.” The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education.27 (2007): 55,73,4.
Jorgensen, Jeana. “The most Beautiful of all: A Quantitative Approach to Fairy-Tale Femininity.” Journal of American Folklore 132.523 (2019): 36,60,107.
Jones, Christine A. “Thoughts on “Heroinism” in French Fairy Tales.” Marvels & Tales 27.1 (2013): 15,33,3,154.
Tatar, M. Off with their heads1.: Fairy tales and the culture of childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (1992)
