Snow white questions

1. After reading the story, make a list of all the qualities that the story is suggesting are important in women. When making your list, think about physical qualities and the personality qualities that appear to be important.
- Pretty
- Sweet
- Kind
- Able to cook and clean
- Quiet
- Marriage
- Submissive 
- No depth to her

2. Next, make a second list that identifies traits/qualities in women that appear to be undesirable in the story. When making this list, you can think about what the opposite qualities would be to the ones you listed in question one and you can also consider the wicked Queen. Like your first list, consider physical characteristics and personality.
- Loud
- Outspoken
- Unattractive
- Ugly
- Average looking 
- Being dominated
- Being opinionated
- Being single
- Old
- Messy 

3. Now, see if you can make a third list that identifies traits/characteristics (both physical and personality based) that appear to be important in the male characters of the story.
- Dominance
- Wealth
- Attractiveness
- powerful
- Handsome and manly
- Controlling
- Manipulative
- A position of power
- Unable to look after yourself
- You have to save the day
- Men have to be tall strong and handsome
- Opinionated and free to speak their mind
- The men work while the women clean the home


4. After looking over the three lists, are there any conclusions that you can make about what the story is trying to teach its audience about the roles of men and women? Explain in as much detail as you can.

Women: This story seems to state that women should be seen and not heard and their only value lies in how physically attractive they are. This story seems to state that girls should be sweet, good a cooking a cleaning and be submissive enough to fall 'in love' with a man if he is wealthy and attractive.

Men: This story states that men should be firm on what they want and not give up till they get it. They should be wealthy, in a position of power, and attractive, otherwise they are considered peasants. 


5. How would you describe Snow White's relationships with: *The wicked 
Queen
Terrible! The queen is extremely jealous of snow white but why!? She is a seven year old! Most seven year olds are beautiful, but for all we know she could have started to get really ugly through puberty and turned out not very pretty you never know. This relationship is messed up considering that the queen tries to cut out her heart and eat it and tries to kill her three times. Also she is meant to be her step mum! she's terrifying! That would be traumatising for me if I was a seven year old. 
- poisonous relationship Snow White didn't hate the queen but the queen hated Snow White. 
- Competitive because the queen always wants to be better.
- Snow White is very submissive towards the queen. 

*The dwarfs
I think that they would think of Snow White as a bit of a server but someone they love as they think she is lovely and sweet and allow her to live with them and don't get angry at her for practically breaking and entering. I think she likes them because they are kind to her and obviously concerned with her well being because the tell her (repeatedly) to not answer the door because the queen is trying to kill her, but she keep doing it! She's a bit stupid in my opinion but then again she is seven. 
- They show a lot of concern for Snow White because they save her many times
- It is a very trusting relationship as they don't know each other. 

*The Prince
I don't even know where to begin with this one. The prince see's the seven year old snow white in her transparent coffin and says he can't go a day without seeing her and will buy her from the dwarfs and she will be his most prised possession  I know this is a fairy tale but seriously I wouldn't sell her to the prince either now matter how rich he is. But in the end they give her to the prince so he can take her back with him and then the poison apple unlodges from her throat and they get married. Hello she is seven! And the fact that she is a 'possession' to him is extremely creepy. But she seems to like him so I would hope that they have a nice relationship. 

6. Considering this story is still most often read to little boys and girls, do you think it provides a realistic view of men and women? Why/why not?
No way. Usually step mothers are not complete psychopaths so I think this is not really an accurate representation of stepmothers or a good way to present them to children frankly. I don't think its healthy for young children to see beauty as being to only real asset of Snow Whites and I know that little girls are loud and often crazy and talkative so this is not an accurate representation. As for the prince Im not even sure what to say. He is completely not normal and I think in the real world you will find that most men you meet will not be super wealthy or weird like him. 

7. Can you think of any modern stories (film/TV shows/books) that you know of that promote similar messages about men and women as Snow White? 

A lot of reality shows like the bachelor promote messages that girls should be beautiful, men should be amazing and romantic and set them up in a completely unnatural enviroment. Its almost funny how quickly their relationship fails in real life. 

The show on TLC Toddlers and Tiaras (though it is very entertaining) also promotes that beauty is the main value in little girls

Any TV show or movie with stereotypical "dumb blond" girls sort of portrays this message that girls are pretty air heads and its neither cute or accurate.