Gender Roles in Fairy Tales

Encouragement of Gender Roles Through Fairy Tales Female characters in many fairy tales are the perfect epitome of women following traditional female roles and possessing qualities of worthiness. I will illustrate how fairy tales inscribe gender roles upon females based on Karen Rowe’s argument “[t]hese tales which glorify passivity, dependency, and self sacrifice as a heroine’s cardinal virtues suggests that culture’s very survival depends upon a woman’s acceptance of roles …

…in her essay, “ [f]airy tales are not just entertaining fantasies, but powerful transmitters of romantic myths which encourage women to internalize only aspirations deemed appropriate to our ‘real’ sexual functions…” (Rowe cited in H & K 348) These tales inscribe roles upon women to fulfill, marriage being the ultimate goal, and accepting suffering to reach that goal. Not only do women follow these ‘unset’ rules, but also they live them in every part of their lives.