Childism and Grimms Tales (original) (raw)

A week ago I participated in a Huffington Post Internet panel discussion about fairy tales with three people, who began waxing poetic about the wonders of the fairy tale and how it benefited children à la Bettelheim. I, too, was a little guilty of this, not of waxing poetic about Bettelheim, but about the utopian qualities of the fairy tale. And then, at one point, I blurted out something like: "We've been talking too much about the virtues of fairy tales, while they're really terrible! They're sexist and racist! They stem from patriarchal societies, and depict white men as saviors and women as comatose and barbie-doll princesses." Everyone laughed, and then we became serious shifting the topic to discuss some of the negative qualities of fairy tales, but we did not go far enough in our ideological critique. We did not discuss the childist aspects of fairy tales and how the tales reveal prejudices against children and young people, and how they might partially socialize children to accept the abuse they suffer, even today, without realizing it.