Her speech is really interesting to watch and really thoughtful - you should all watch it too. Her speech is basically everything that I've found out about what fairy tales teach about gender. The line that really caught my attention (and is featured in Beyoncé's song) was:
"Because I'm female, I'm expected to aspire to marriage; I'm expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. A marriage can be a good thing; it can be a source of joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same?" [14:08]
This is basically what most fairy tales also teach girls; to aspire for marriage and nothing else. Disney's adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid for example shows how Ariel gives up everything (her identity as a mermaid, her voice, family, life in the ocean, a job, a dream, a career) just to be with Prince Eric, which does not teach a very good lesson - it encourages girls to give up any professional goals and therefore settle for the lowest common denominator. Masculinity is also linked with money in fairy tales - most men are wealthy princes. This implies that you fail as a man if you cannot provide adequate economic support for one’s family. This is a substantial amount of pressure for young men, one that surely is quite damaging. Adichie also talks about this in her speech at 11:20.
No comments:
Post a Comment