Feminism and fairy tales

             When I was a little girl, a long time ago, I could not wait for my mother to read a good old fashion bed time story. Whether it was Cinderella, Goldie Locks and The Three Bears, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, or the girl with the extremely long hair the farthest thing on my mind was sex, love, or marriage. When questions would arise, my mother always informed me that fairy tales was just the figment of someone's imagination, make believe. Where do people come up with the ideas that fairy tales have some sordid agenda to taint our children's minds? And who gives these folklore private investigators the authority to say where these fairy tales originated? Or which makes for a better story, a handsome hero or a hideous heroine?
             After reading Bascom's Cinderella in Africa I was literally appalled. First with all the literature codes, then the constant back and forth with the "English could have", the "Africans could have", or maybe it was the... WHO CARES? It sounds to me as if no one wants to give anyone any credit for concocting a great fairy tale. It is easy for me to say that this whole article was racially biased. "A naked, shoeless society could not have created Cinderella", (Bascom 69). Is it not possible that Africans created it and the English changed it? Historians always said that Africa had an excellent oral tradition. So, there is no need to stress over "historic findings" of where Cinderella originated, children do not care. That is the art of folklore. Some things should just remain one of life's little mysteries.
             Next on my agenda is MacDonald's "The Tale Retold". I do not consider myself to be a feminist, but I agree that the female images in some fairy tales are long overdue for a makeover. Gone are the days when good was associated with beauty and bad with the ugly. Stereotypes like these can be d
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