The Scrutinizing of Women: Fairy Tales Reveal 

Misconceptions of female roles in society have been and continue to be influenced by fairy tales. Specifically, the traditional gender role stereotypes that are included in them. For instance, traditional fairy tales normally include a passive female heroine who is always defined by her perfection and physical beauty, yet she is not always so bright and needs to be saved by a “strong” male, usually a prince or king. This role is seen in early stories such as “Cinderella” and “Little Red Cap” by the Brothers’ Grimm and “Sun, Moon, and Talia” by Giambattista Basile. These traditional ideas of females in fairy tales degrade and undermine women by enabling their passivity, emphasizing their beauty/perfection, and sexualizing them.  

Passive character roles, typically and traditionally given to female heroine’s, are led by the plot. Talisen Joan’s article “Active and Passive Character and How Narration Supports Them” defines a passive character as someone who “…doesn’t actively influence the story through decisions or actions and who does not willingly choose to take certain paths in order to change or influence their own future” (Joan). Joan explains that passive characters do not actively move the plot forward, instead they wait for others to influence their decisions. By enabling a character’s passivity, it creates the idea of weakness and helplessness as the character does not help themselves when they are in danger or in an unsuitable environment. This role is present in the popular story “Cinderella”. 

“Cinderella” by the Brothers’ Grimm enable Cinderella’s passivity and emphasize her perfection. In the story, Cinderella is the persecuted heroin. She is perfect in every way such as physical beauty, yet she is scrutinized by her stepmother and sisters. She does not take any action to stand up for herself, instead she waits to get help from magic and nature in order to go the ball and in the end, she marries the prince who saves her from her family. The traditional female role given to Cinderella is explained in the book Gender Roles Indoctrinated Through Fairy Tales in Western Civilization by Henal Patel by stating “Good women do not save the day, they do not scheme, nor do they get themselves out of bad situations; they wait until a Prince saves them” (Patel 17). This traditional role enables Cinderella’s passivity by not actively making decisions, waiting for help or to be saved, and overall letting the plot decide her future. Cinderella is a good woman as she does not get herself out of bad situations such as her home environment and is saved by the prince. The relation of enabling passivity in order to be a woman undermines a woman’s strength to protect herself. It degrades women by representing them as impotent and incapable of taking action. Furthermore, according to the article “Things Walt Disney Never Told Us” by scholar Kay Stone, she explains the emphasis on Cinderella’s beauty perfection as she notes “Heroines are not allowed any defects, nor are they required to develop, since they are already perfect” (Stone 5). This emphasis the female heroine’s beauty, Cinderella is not allowed any physical flaws or development since she is already the ideal woman. This unrealistic standard of perfection undermines a woman’s intelligence by only focusing on her physical appearance and not her brain.  

The perfection of the female character’s physical beauty not only undermines the women’s intellect, but it also degrades them because their physical appearance is used to sexualize and abuse them. In “Sun, Moon, and Talia” Talia’s passivity and beauty made her a victim of rape. The king was unable to control himself when he saw her fascinating beauty while she was sleeping and “gathered the first fruits of love” (Basile) with Talia. In the journal article “Food Symbolism, Sexuality, and Gender Identity in Fairy Tales and Modern Women’s Bestsellers” by Natalia Andrievskikh she states that “In literacy and popular context, appetite often stand for sexual desires” (Andrievskikh 137). With this information the audience understands that the wording of “first fruits of love” (Basile) means sexual desires and in this context of the story it means rape. Her being asleep enables her passivity by being defenseless and therefore not being able to protect herself. Moreover, it is her beauty that put her in danger. The king sexualized her due to her physic and took advantage of her vulnerability. This undermines a woman’s consent and respect. In another journal article titled “Innocent Initiations: Female Agency in Eroticized Fairy Tales” by Jeana Jorgensen she claims, “Fairy tales deal with desire on several planes, including but not limited to desire for material goods, power, and sexual union” (Jorgensen 28). This shows that many fairy tales deal with the idea of desire. In “Sun, Moon, and Talia” some of the main desire is sexual union and power. The king wanted power over Talia’s sleeping body and sexually assaulted her. It degrades woman by viewing them as objects of pleasure and being powerless. 

Being an object of pleasure is especially degrading when the context of the story blames the woman for anything sexual happening to her. This happened in the story “Little Red Cap” by the Brothers’ Grimm. Popular stories of little red riding hood are often considered to be more innocent and purer as they teach the readers important life lessons. Such lessons include the dangers of talking to strangers and how one should obey orders, much like not straying away from the road for the sake of their safety. However, the Grimm’s version is actually openly sexualized. In the article “A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood’s Trials and Tribulations” by Jack Zipes we start to understand how the little girl is sexualized and how she has been asking for it. Zipes states that “Little Red Riding Hood is more or less incited by the wolf to enjoy nature and to pick flowers. Her choice symbolizes her agreement with a devilish creature whom she had already directed to her grandmother. Instead of being raped to death, both grandma and granddaughter are saved by a male hunter” (Zipes 80-81). Zipes noted that Little Red Riding Hood was excited by the wolf, her agreement to pick the flowers shows how she has been asking for it. Once the wolf reaches the grandmother, he rapes her and when Little Red arrives, he rapes her as well. The story does not fault the wolf for raping them therefore degrades women by blaming them for being raped as they were supposedly asking for it. Additionally, this story, like the others, also enables the women’s passivity. Little Red and her grandmother do nothing to save themselves from the wolf and instead wait for the male hunter to come and save them thus making them appear as vulnerable. Once again, this would be undermining a woman’s strength. 

On the contrary, there are scholars that believe fairy tales include many strong female characters. Moreover, they claim that characters such as the stepmother in “Cinderella” and the queen in “Sun, Moon, and Talia” are active characters. Active characters “actively choose their path inside the story, the actions they take and therefore oftentimes lead the plot or at least contribute to the continuation of the story” (Joan). As an active character they are powerful as they are smarter, ambitious, able to make decisions for themselves, and tend to lead the plot. However, these active and powerful females are always the evil ones in the stories. Patel agrees to this as he notes, “The female characters that do show signs of intelligence or ambition are evil…Women who have desires and the moxie to achieve them are villainous and will be punished in the end” (Patel 17). This indicates that the strong females are monstrous and wicked as they do not follow the passivity that good women are supposed to. This stereotype is dangerous and degrading since it claims that ambitious, smart and active women are simply unpleasant and deserve to be punished. Furthermore, it makes women scared to speak up for themselves since they know there will be consequences. This undermines any female victim’s story as they fear what will happen to them if they do say something. 

Overall, the degrading and undermining of women was normalized in fairy tales by sexualizing, emphasizing perfection, and enabling passivity onto female characters. This created unrealistic standards for women in the way they represent themselves. Today many authors try to take a feminist approach when retelling fairy tales in order to demolish the gender stereotypes associated with them. This can be seen in the new live Disney action movies based which are based on the fairy tales’ animations. These new live action movies have a more modern approach when it comes to the lead female role as they do not enable their passivity. Additionally, they do not sexualize the female roles and they have started to add more diversity in the physical beauty of women. This is strongly enjoyed today since beauty is subjective. Traditional ideas such as misconceptions about women are slowly decreasing as people realized how inappropriate, degrading, undermining and unrealistic the old traditional fairy tale female roles can be. 

Works cited 

Andrievskikh, Natalia. “Food Symbolism, Sexuality, and Gender Identity in Fairy Tales and  

Modern Women’s Bestsellers.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 37, no. 1, 2014, pp. 137–153. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24332704. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020. 

Basile, Giambattista. “Sun, Moon, and Talia.” Sleeping Beauty, D. L. Ashliman, 7 June  

2013, www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html. 

Grimm, Brothers. “Cinderella.” Grimm 021: Cinderella, www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm021.html. 

Grimm, Brothers. “Little Red Cap.” Grimm 26: Little Red Cap,  

www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm026.html. 

Joan, Taliesin. “Active and Passive Character and How Narration Supports Them.” Medium,  

Medium, 1 July 2019, medium.com/@joan.runkel/active-and-passive-character-and-how-narration-supports-them-658cea0cf206. 

Jorgensen, Jeana. “Innocent Initiations: Female Agency in Eroticized Fairy Tales.” Marvels &  

Tales, vol. 22, no. 1, 2008, pp. 27–37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41388856. Accessed  

11 Nov. 2020. 

Patel, Henal. “Gender Roles Indoctrinated Through Fairy Tales in Western …” AnyFlip, 2017,  

anyflip.com/pqfx/nevf/basic/51-67. 

Stone, Kay. “Things Walt Disney Never Told Us Author(s): Kay Stone … – Rohan.” Yumpu.com, 

2009, www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/8423359/things-walt-disney-never-told-us-authors-kay-stone-rohan. 

Zipes, Jack. “A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood’s Trials and Tribulations.” The Lion and  

the Unicorn, vol. 7, 1983, p. 78-109. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/uni.0.0105.