Good Example Of Education Essay

Fairy Tale

People perceive all fairy tales as harmless stories during the childhood. However, as time passes by, adults who reread these seemingly innocuous tales, can find there many examples of sexism. And the vast majority of these examples represent female discrimination. And influence of this is hidden so deep and so imperceptibly outlined that it is difficult to detect, and so it is dangerous.
In these tales, the protagonists are weak-willed, helpless girls who are pushed around by other characters with a strong will. They appear to the reader as persons who cannot control life on their own, make their own decisions. In view of the fact that they are weak, physically and morally, they are forced to obey unwillingly the will and desires of other heroes. For instance, Thumbelina was forced to live either with frogs in the swamp, or in a hole with a mole because she was physically weaker and could not give a proper rebuff. Only unexpected help from positive characters saved her every time. Thus, she could not personally influence events in her life(Andersen, 2009).
Furthermore, women are evaluated solely on their appearance in each of the three stories. For example, Snow White was the victim of envy of her stepmother. Even dwarfs have allowed her to live in their house not because Snow White was a good housekeeper. Dwarfs were fascinated by her beauty, and only this was the reason for their solution. Consequently, the appearance as the value brought to the forefront displacing more important internal qualities of girls as kindness, honesty, decency(Grimm and Grimm, 1991).
In addition, Bluebeard's main character is shown not only as a hostage of circumstances that forced to marry a man she did not love. Heroine did not keep a promise given do not come into one of the rooms in the castle of her husband. This shows one of the most common stereotypes of our time, that women cannot be trusted(Perrault, 1991).
It is possible to find some kind of discrimination in every fairy tale. Tales analyzed by adults, and adults themselves find examples of sexism in fairy tales or other types of discrimination. Nevertheless, in my opinion, these stories and other stories should not be regarded in terms of discrimination of one sex to other. Especially when these tales read by children, they do not take them from this point of view. Adults who read fairy tales for children should focus on what is good and what is bad, focus on moral and ethical aspects and ignore in this case sex discrimination.

Works cited

Grimm, J. and Grimm, W. (1991). Snow White. Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Perrault, C. (1991). Blue Beard (Illustrated). The Planet.
Andersen, H. (2009). Thumbelina: The Graphic Novel. Capstone.