|
The feminine beauty ideal is "the socially constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s most important assets, and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain”.〔 ==The ideal in fairy tales== The feminine beauty ideal is said to be prominent in many children’s fairy tales. It is alleged that fairy tales highlight the feminine beauty ideal and lead children, especially young girls, to believe that beauty is essential to a positive future. “Children’s fairy tales, which emphasize such things as women’s passivity and beauty, are indeed gendered scripts and serve to legitimatize and support the dominant gender system”.〔 The fairy tales that we are reading to our children are emphasizing that being pretty is important and needed for a successful future. “It’s essential for parents to understand the messages our children receive about traditional gender roles, especially during a time when women are encouraged to be independent and rely on their brains rather than beauty”.〔 Beauty is often associated with the good characters and ugly and evil are shown within the bad characters. In fairy tales stories (or Disney movies), young girls are exposed to these ideas, which help them understand what it means to be a woman. The Brothers Grimm fairy tales were written by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in German at the end of the 18th century and first translated into English in 1823.〔 According to Grauerholz their fairy tales tend to involve a heroine, who is usually beautiful, and an evil of some sort which is characterized as ugly. Beauty and ugliness are often used as symbols to represent good and evil. Grauerholz stated in her findings that “parents need to be aware that some stories tell children that unattractive people are more likely to be evil and reinforce tradition gender roles that may be confusing for today’s young women”.〔 The Brothers Grimm fairy tales were used in central Europe to educate children on gender roles of boys and girls.〔 “Fairy tales written during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were intended to teach girls and young women how to become domestic, respectable, and attractive to a marriage partner and to teach boys and girls appropriate gendered values and attitudes”.〔 “The lengths adolescent girls go to in seeking society’s beauty ideal, such as developing eating disorders and seeking plastic surgery, are argument enough that the preoccupation with beauty can become dangerous”.〔 Grauerholz says that the film Shrek is more realistic. “It’s the opposite of the ugly duckling story. The princess becomes the ogre in the end. But that whole movie was about twisting the fairy tales around”.〔 From fairy tales we get the feminine beauty ideal, which is: “the socially constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s most important assets and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain”.〔 “Discourse analyses reveal several themes in relationship to beauty. Often there is a clear link between beauty and goodness, most often in reference to younger women, and between ugliness and evil”.〔 Girls believe that beauty is related to the sense of goodness and being a princess. However, they also associate being ugly with not being good enough and having a lonely future. “Both men and women are being increasingly manipulated by media messages concerning attractiveness, a trend that is undoubtedly linked to efforts to boost consumerism. This trend does not necessarily contradict a social control perspective that suggests such messages should be directed more toward women than men”.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Feminine beauty ideal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|