Week #1

"What image of womanhood is represented in this piece and how does that image uphold or subvert expectations regarding the female gender?"

 We have just finished reading "Don't Bet on the Prince" by Jack Zipes which showed a lot of interesting points that I wasn't aware of before. Zipes gives pros and cons about fairytales and what kind of gender roles they are teaching little children who are reading these stories (or read to) in the first few pages of the article.

The image of womanhood that Zipes is trying to show is a complex one. Women in old school fairytales are meek, nice, beautiful and are waiting for a miracle to happen to them. Zipes explains on pages 8-12 that as long as the male gender role isn't changed neither will the female one. Zipes suggests that children should be read fairytales with strong a female character who isn't waiting around for prince charming, who are independent and don't pretend to be something they aren't just in the hopes to find their prince. Also beauty shouldn't be the main definition of what womanhood stands for, women are complex just as much as men and should be represented as characters with many traits. Not just beauty and meekness as old school fairytales tell us we should be like in Jack Zipes article. If there are more stories with strong female characters girls won't grow up having the Cinderella Complex, which is what Zipes mentions in his article is one of the main factors that limits women to live up to their potential.