Construction of Femininity

The three most well-known fairy tales are probably Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Each of these stories has appeared in dozens of story collections and as illustrated picture books. Each has been made into films, the best known being the Disney versions. They all have "damsel in distress waiting to be rescued" and "princess and prince live happily ever after." They are what form our ideas of what a fairy tale is. However, there are more than 1,000 versions and variants of the Cinderella tale.

The earliest variant, Yen-Shen, was recorded in China during the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 CE). The version best known in the West, Perrault's version on which the Disney film is based, as we shall see, is probably one of the most narrowing in terms of the role of women. Many versions from other cultures provide stimulating contrast to Perrault's version, such as John Steptoe's Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, Virginia Hamilton's Catskinella in Her Stories, and Rafe Martin's The Rough-Face Girl. These stories show women and girls succeeding because of their inner qualities or their resourcefulness, rather than their patience in waiting for their prince to come.

It can be tricky to uncover how stories go about building ideas on what it means to be female. Because we, the readers, usually come from the same culture as the story does, we often share assumptions about gender with the story. Because reader and text are making the same assumptions, the roles females take on in stories can appear "natural." The task is about uncovering the assumptions about what it means to be female in folktales and myths. In her book Reading Otherways, feminist children's literature critic, Lissa Paul, suggests some questions that open up to examination how ideas of femininity are constructed in classic text. Have these questions in mind when you proceed with this lesson and read different versions of fairy tales.

• Whose story is this?
• Who is the reader?
• When and where was the reading produced?
• Who is named? And who is not?
• Who is on top?
• Who gets punished? And who gets praised?
• Who speaks? And who is silenced?
• Who acts? And who is acted upon?
• Who owns property? Who is dependent?
• Who looks? And who is observed?
• Who fights for honor? And who suffers?
• How are values systems determined?