Tonight, I got to thinking about gender and development. When I teach, it's a challenge to make global concepts like equality, maternal health or discrimination tangible to a middle class western audience of kids or teens. Getting them to truly comprehend the scale of cultural differences that divides us from 'them' is part of the challenge that makes my job worthwhile (on a good day) and bearable (on a bad day).
I came across this image of the Disney Princesses and thought that it's message speaks to my point no matter what part of the world you live in. Girls everywhere strive to be princesses but the roles we assign them insult their intelligence, their abilities and indeed, their humanity.
What do you guys think?
(Apologies guys - I'm having some trouble getting the picture to upload. You can see it here: http://clareherbert.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/whatIlearned-from-disney.jpg I'll attempt to upload it again tomorrow.)
Clare, the princesses are great! (Have you tried signing out and in twice? Usually helps to upload pics) It would be interesting to know what those whom you teach think about it. Did they get your message?
“...but the roles we assign them insult their intelligence, their abilities and indeed, their humanity.” True! If we didn’t, everybody would have much more freedom and much less lives would be wasted.
The only princesses I see is you two, Giedre and Clare
I have to admit I often don’t bother uploading the images I use, I just paste the URL from where I find it into the image URL box (at the risk of it disappearing later and at least in the case of Flickr I follow their guidelines to have the image in my post link to the originating site).
Anyway: Sociological Images / DISNEY PRINCESSES, DECONSTRUCTED. The second image from that post was circulated and voted up on reddit or digg or something like that recently so I suspect this is it?
Oh sorry, the second is making fun of princes - hah, what a mix up
@ Giedre: Thanks for the trip. I tried turning it off, saying a prayer and turning it back on again, but to no avail. I’ll try again later when my connection is a bit faster.
@ Benno: Haha! What a charmer. Thanks for the link. The first one is the pic I intended to post. The second one, on the princes, is funny too. Although, they should add that Aladdin never wears a shirt. Always helps
Clare, great post. I love the pictures. Aren´t these stereotypes just perfect:)!
Sadly, when you look at media nowadays they are full of stories of princesses and princes (showbiz “stars”). You get to know who likes or does not like who, but real content is not there.
Maybe authors of these articles should go back to their childhood to fresh up one important thing - fairy tales are full of stereotypes, yes, but they teach us what is and is not important and where true values lie.
The picture seems to be visible now, right?
Thanks for the comment Radka. I agree that we learn lots about morals from fairy tales and Disney stories, but they also reinforce all sorts of negative stereotypes of both men and women. Men who race around on a valiant steeds are just as victimized as women who sit around being pretty and dumb.
Glad you guys liked this one,
Clare
Clare, the pic is not visible :(. I used Benno´s link.
I can’t see the picture, Clare. Maybe it’s my Firefox’s fault.
You know what I really dislike about these fairy tales? That children actually learn to sit around being pretty and dumb and race on a valiant steeds, as you say. Just go out on the tube or on a bus and you see young girls with perfect make up trying to live up to these “standards” imposed on them, estimating their personal value depending on how many glances they got.
Here here, Giedre.
I saw the pic thanks to Benno’s link… yeah, actually seeing this pic with a parallel and the notes… well, that’s impressive.. but when we were children we were enjoying all these.. impressive!