A Short Introduction

Unintentionally Teaching Stereotypes to Children

Starting from a young age, sterotypes are being forced and encouraged upon children. Simplistic things such as toys, clothes and emotions are stereotypically encouraged for children to follow. Girls are assumed to wear pink, play with dolls, and have a lot of emotions. Whereas, boys wear blue, play with cars and are supposed to be tough. Most of these steeptypes stem from society, storybooks, and cartoons.

More often than not, parents have no idea that their children are being exposed to sterotypes when they read them a bed time story or put cartoons on during the morning. In Linda Christensen’s story makes “Unlearning the Myths that Blind Us,” she points out these sterotypes that exist.

“Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mother’s or father’s lap”

-Christensen

Parents try and protect their children but most of them have no idea they are influencing skewed societal expectations. Simple disney stories revolving around Princesses repeat the same storyline of where a women is saved by a man. In the case of Cinderella, she loses her shoe at a ball and Prince Charming picks up her shoe, finds her and saves her from her awful step mother. In the case of Sleeping Beauty, a man saves Aurora from a deep sleep by kissing her, she then falls in love with him too. Although one may argue that Beauty and the beast and Aladdin are different from the others, in both cases the women fall in love with men who make bad choices. Belle falls in love with her kidnapper and Jasmine falls in love with a thief. Both of which depict women to fall in love with anyone. Although children reading these stories may question why Belle falls in love with her kidnapper or how a men can give the women the power to wake up from a deep sleep, parents can not explain the stereotypical societal exceptions. Instead they give a short and sweet response, that agrees with the stories.

In particular the story of sleeping beauty and snow white were both stories, I was never told as a younger child but instead I heard the stories anyways. More often than not, I heard girlsaround me asking if a prince could save them from their sleep. When I was in the moment, of course I agreed who wouldn't want a happily ever after, however looking back at the movie I realized how women are depicted as people who need men to survive. Also, the main characters in the story are white, and the protagonist is a strong, white male. Both of these movies pass the belchel test, but not with flying colors. Essentially, these women are not depicted as the heres, instead they are the victims.