Fairytales and the impact on women / Individual text deconstruction

Fairy tales have always been a part of children’s lives. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and so on – we all know them off by heart, but have we ever stopped to think what messages they are sending to society? What kind of influence they have on the structure of social and gender roles? “Male/female roles have been ground into us since the day we were born, in the disguise of innocent little fairly tales”.1 It is amazing how many of us don’t realise what fairy tales teach us until we closely examine the way females are portrayed in each story and what roles have been assigned to them.

I have chosen to deconstruct Cinderella and Snow White as I have found them to be sexist and to be portraying women in a subordinate light, which oppresses them. Both stories perpetuate stereotypical thoughts on the “ideal virtues” of women. They are shown naturally beautiful, vulnerable, passive and obedient. “These tales teach us our little girls that the only way for ...