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    Cinderella and Feminism

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    John Vicente
    Fairy tales like Cinderella establish patriarchal gender norms and roles for children from a young age. By identifying with the beautiful and submissive Cinderella, young girls learn that their place is in the home, taking care of others and waiting to be rescued by a man. Cinderella represents the ideal woman who is quiet, nurturing and subordinate, in contrast to the evil stepmother who is dominant and represents the "subversive feminine." This reinforces to girls that they should be angelic and selfless, accepting domesticity and subordination as their natural role.

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    Cinderella and Feminism

    Uploaded by

    John Vicente
    259 views1 page
    Fairy tales like Cinderella establish patriarchal gender norms and roles for children from a young age. By identifying with the beautiful and submissive Cinderella, young girls learn that their place is in the home, taking care of others and waiting to be rescued by a man. Cinderella represents the ideal woman who is quiet, nurturing and subordinate, in contrast to the evil stepmother who is dominant and represents the "subversive feminine." This reinforces to girls that they should be angelic and selfless, accepting domesticity and subordination as their natural role.

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    Fairy tales like Cinderella establish patriarchal gender norms and roles for children from a young age. By identifying with the beautiful and submissive Cinderella, young girls learn that their place is in the home, taking care of others and waiting to be rescued by a man. Cinderella represents the ideal woman who is quiet, nurturing and subordinate, in contrast to the evil stepmother who is dominant and represents the "subversive feminine." This reinforces to girls that they should be angelic and selfless, accepting domesticity and subordination as their natural role.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    259 views1 page

    Cinderella and Feminism

    Uploaded by

    John Vicente
    Fairy tales like Cinderella establish patriarchal gender norms and roles for children from a young age. By identifying with the beautiful and submissive Cinderella, young girls learn that their place is in the home, taking care of others and waiting to be rescued by a man. Cinderella represents the ideal woman who is quiet, nurturing and subordinate, in contrast to the evil stepmother who is dominant and represents the "subversive feminine." This reinforces to girls that they should be angelic and selfless, accepting domesticity and subordination as their natural role.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Cinderella and Feminism

    Fairy tales are a way for literature to uphold the patriarchal conventions of society. These “harmless”
    stories are presented to children at a young age, which then establish the normality of the domination
    of men in their minds. Social conventions are instituted to children through fairy tale characters that
    they can relate to in order to embed the “proper” gender behaviors in their brains. “American literature
    is male. To read the canon of what is currently considered classic American literature is perforce to
    identify as male” (Fetterley), but fairy tales come before school years, therefore it is necessary to have
    main female characters. Little girls must learn their place in society before they start their education,
    because then they will be less likely to question tradition if it has been presented to them so early on. If
    girls identify with characters like Cinderella, then they will not need female literature in canon, since
    they already have their gender identification set up. Cinderella is the perfect example of a beautiful,
    quiet, nurturing, and subordinate woman that little girls relate to.
    Cinderella is the image of the ideal angelic female, while the stepmother and stepsisters represent the
    opposite “monster” images (Gilbert and Gubar 812). Starting with the physical appearance, Cinderella is
    beautiful and the others are dark and unattractive. Cinderella has a magical connection with the animals,
    which reinforces the deep connection to nature that a proper woman should have. That quality also
    reveals her nurturing nature, because she clothes, feeds, and defends the living creatures she has such a
    close bond to. Those actions mirror what kind of mother, wife, and caretaker she would make in the
    future. The stepmother is the scheming, outspoken, dominant, and essentially evil character that forces
    Cinderella into servitude in her own house. The evil stepmother represents “the subversive feminine
    symbols (witches, evil eye)” (Gilbert and Gubar 814). Cinderella, on the other hand, follows the “conduct
    books for ladies [that] proliferated, enjoining young girls to submissiveness, modesty selflessness;
    reminding all women that they should be angelic” (Gilbet and Gubar 816). Regardless of how badly the
    stepmother treated Cinderella, she went on doing her household duties and taking care of the whole
    family, which justifies the idea that “a woman of right feeling should devote herself to the good of
    others” (Gilbert and Gubar 816). Cinderella falls in love with the handsome prince, who will complete
    her life, and in the end with the help of her animal friends and her goodness she wins the day.
    Cinderella’s triumph over the wicked stepmother and stepsisters, displays to the audience that her
    female qualities are the ones to be repeated and grained into the unconscious. The “angel” female
    defeats the “monster” and in a fairy tale always has a happy ending, which send the wrong sense of
    reality to the young girl identifying with that innocent, holy character.
    “For every glowing portrait of submissive women enshrined in domesticity, there exists an equally
    important negative image that embodies the sacrilegious fiendishness” (Gilbert and Gubar 819) of the
    monster. Cinderella is a fairy tale that underlines the patriarchal gender roles, and makes the woman
    with a dominant personality to be the villain. Cinderella “a sweet heroine inside the house… is opposed
    to a vicious [monster] outside” (Gilbert and Gubar 819), which is the stepmother. Little girls who identify
    with Cinderella will wait for their prince charming to fulfill their life and accept subordination and
    domesticity as their nature role.

    Works Cited
    Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael
    Ryan. 2nd ed. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. pg. 812-825 and Ch.3 "On the Politics of
    Literature" by Judith Fetterley

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