Response to the Fairy Tale Aritcle

The fairy tale article we read in class opened my eyes to new ideas and also increased my knowledge on what I have already learned about beauty. In this article it talks of how the fairy tales we have come to known and love may be harmful to young children. If you have noticed, the fairy tales usually involve a beautiful princess and prince and then the villain who is evil and ugly. In these fairy tales the evil villain is always associated with being ugly therefore, meaning that only beautiful people are worth living or being rescued. A really good quote that I pulled from the text was, "We don't discourage children from reading fairy tales, even with these misleading stereotypes and failure to include minorities, but we strongly recommend parent or adult interaction while children read or view fairy tales." This proves that the fairy tales that children are reading may have a harmful effect on their future beliefs. I never before realized that fairy tales had this kind of effect, but this article has opened my eyes towards the reality of fairy tales.

After reading the article in class, we had a sort discussion on the roles of women and men in todays society. We first began talking about what roles our parents play in our families. It was really interesting to hear how my classmate's families functioned and how their ethnicity tied into what their roles were in their family. We then went on to talk about what women and men are expected to do. We came up with a list of expectations for both genders. Some of the expectations on the list for women were to cook dinner, be the caretaker, and drive the kids around. Some of the expectations for the men were to make the money, fix things up, and relax from a hard days work. Overall, this conversation really opened my eyes to how our society has changed and progressed.