As we evolve and read tales from long ago we forget that they were written in a different time with different societal rules and expectations.
We must look at these stories with unbiased eyes and see them for what they are or rather what they were, not for what we see in them now. Remember that times then were different, women played the domestic roles, cooking, cleaning, caring for children; while men were men, hunters, providers, protectors and warriors.
These where different times and to think that they imply gender roles would not be wrong, they do, but these are roles that were expected when the stories originated.
In Some Day My Prince Will Come, an article written by Marcia Lieberman (1972), we are shown how fairy tales enforce gender roles. Lieberman writes "Not only do children find out what happens to the various princes and princesses, wood-cutters, witches, and children of their favorite tales, but the also learn behavioral and associated patterns, value systems, and how to predict the consequences of specific acts or circumstances. Among other things, these tales present a picture of sexual roles, behavior, and psychology, an a way of predicting outcome or fate according to sex, which is important because intense interest that children take in 'endings'; they always want to know how things will 'turn out'. From a psychological point of view, I would agree, children do want to know, they want to know everything and these days they can find out everything whether reading fairy tales or surfing the internet. Lieberman goes on to show us the specific roles imposed on these tales; the "meek", "passive", "obedient", and "submissive" girls are usually the beautiful heroines of the these tales. She also states, "Millions of women must surely have formed their psycho-sexual self-concepts, and their ideas of what sort of behavior would be rewarded, and of the nature of reward itself, in part from their favorite fairy tales." I for one am not one of those women, but I don't doubt that many woman have done exactly this.
When we read these stories now; whether to our children or ourselves we must keep these thoughts in mind. If there is such concern for what impressions may be left upon the reader perhaps we should explain that these were different times and today though some may follow these roles they are no longer expected in our society here in the USA.
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