by Lily Seabrooke

Created on: March 19, 2008

Many stories have been written to comply with a value system that is based on the essence of a patriarchal society. Such stories have a biased or nave view towards the gender roles of women, ensconcing values that are the opposite of what women aspire to be today. Classic examples include Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Through such stereotypical, archetypal stories, women are molded towards what is considered their correct state in a society that is run primarily by men. Any subversion of these characteristics are shown to be disliked and often punished.

Little Red Riding Hood is the story of a girl tricked by a wolf on her way to carry food to her grandmother who lives in the woods. In many reproductions of the story, Red Riding Hood is availed as "the prettiest creature was ever seen". This particular notion, that of being beautiful will guarantee your success and happiness in life, is most definitely present in this particular tale, where the woodchopper is present to save the lives of the grandmother and child, miraculously unscathed in the belly of the beast. It is this adolescent transformation to beauty that is often the promoted focus of the tale, advertising that beauty is the key to everything in a women's life, which modern day people know for a fact, is not.

Snow White, the tale of the girl who lives with seven dwarves and is bewitched into a coma by the evil witch, along with Sleeping Beauty, the girl who is cursed by a fairy to prick her finger and fall into a hundred year sleep, are evident examples of the idea that the best state for women is sleep. She is considered immobile, vulnerable, fragile, and poses no threat to a male dominated society. Women are objects of beauty, porcelain dolls to be admired and surveyed, protected. They are considered pure in their virginity, and must be kept from all threats until under the protection of next of kin (passed from the father to the knight in shining armor, Prince Charming). This is shown in the thorn hedge surrounding Sleeping Beauty's castle, leaving only the tops visible, and the glass coffin in which Snow White is kept by the ever vigilant dwarves. They have but one ideal; to serve the purposes of men. They are for producing heirs, children, and running domestic affairs, until they are old and useless.

Cinderella is perhaps a better known fairytale, due to its popular Disney-ised version. It serves the purpose of showing women that they are to be nave and helpless,

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