The Truth of Feminine Beauty in the Writing of the Grimm Brothers

 [Review of] The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales by Lori Baker-Sperry 

        The secondary source titled The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales by Lori Baker-Sperry explores how the themes of Victoria fairy tales specifically in the Brothers Grimm Fairy tales are centered around or have a heavy emphasis on feminine beauty. Grimms' Fairy Tales or the Children's and Household Tales are a collection of fairytales that eventually had 210 unique fairy tales by 1857. The Grimm brothers wrote many fairytales or folk tales that are still shown today and were remade into other books or movies these include Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and many more. Many of these fairytales you know today by the modern and remake names were not originally named those, for example, Cinderella was called Aschenputtel. The series of fairytales by the Grimm Brothers has had a large impact on the literature exposed to children. This secondary source explains how the literature influenced and written by the Grimm brothers has influenced childrens' image of societal beauty standards and how their literature reflected societal views of women. The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales argue that the literature produced by the Grimm brothers has normalized unjust feminine beauty standards in society.  

    The gender imagery in the Grimm brother's literature work often paints women as passive and beautiful objects. The main gender imagery in the Grimm brother's work that Baker-Sperry points out is the emphasis on the ideal woman, to be passive and most importantly, beautiful. At the time, society viewed women as an object more than a living human being. The role of women in Victorian society was to strive to achieve and maintain feminine beauty and to be submissive to their husbands and run the households. This is displayed by the fairytales of the Grimm brothers. Baker-Sperry points out that fairytales written during the nineteenth centuries intended to teach young women how to become domesticated and attractive to a suitor or to find a husband who could take care of them. The fairytales were also intended to teach boys gender values. This is shown in Grimm brother's literature work. The first example is Snow White or Snow Drop as the Grimm Brothers wrote, Snow White is helpless and appears dead as her evil step-mother poisoned her to be the most beautiful in the land. A prince comes across Snow White's body and the seven dwarfs who kept Snow White's body safe gave the prince Snow White as a gift after the prince convinced them. Only after Snow White was kissed by the prince did she wake up and was made his wife. This paints societal standards because Snow White was saved by a man after being helpless showing societal views that men need to save and take care of women. Snow White was also made his wife without given a choice, in society when a wealthy man especially a prince wanted her to be his wife you agreed even if you were unhappy. 

    The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales by Lori Baker-Sperry also argues and provides evidence that many of the writings of the Grimm brothers pointed out the societal feminine ideals were the ones who were remade many of them into movies. Baker-Sperry found that 94% of the tales mention the physical appearance of women up to 114 times in the fairy tale. The remake of these fairy tales by the Grimm brothers promotes these old-fashioned societal views in today's society to impressionable children who are reading and watching these remakes. 

    Without a doubt, I concur with Baker-Sperry's argument. I had my own suspicions of the Grimm Brother's stories containing misogynist ideals because that was what was considered normal in their time. My first suspicion was with the illustrations of the fairy tales. The young women were always painted as these elegant and picturesque women. These women were illustrated as the ideal women of their time and should be sought after. Older women of the fairy tales were mostly painted as these feeble and almost jealous characters. For example, this illustration of Snow White shows the evil stepmother as this old woman who is trying to deceive the gorgeous Snow White to eat the poisonous apple. Baker-Sperry brings in many intelligent impacts of how Grimm brothers subconsciously impact the minds of youth that I never thought of before and would like to explore further in our discussions of views of women in society. The work of the Grimm Brothers depicts societal views of the ideal qualities of women, to be submissive and elegant and the remakes of their work incorporate their ideas into modern entertainment and literature as Baker-Sperry explores in The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales.