RE: Fairy tales villans?
Michael > November 4th, 2020, 11:46 AM
We don't know who made up the original folk-tales but the prevailing theory I've always been taught is that men wrote most of those stories, so they tend to be sexist.
However - and this is not to excuse the sexism or suggest that it's a good thing in any way - those stories were composed in societies that were extremely sexist. It would be difficult for feminist stories to spread and become popular because men controlled wealth and information for thousands of years. European fairy-tales describe women doing everyday tasks, from cooking to making clothing to caring for children. They often represent the worst-possible aspects of those roles for heightened drama.
It wouldn't make much of a story if Hansel and Gretel were taken in by a kindly old woman who raised them with love everything they needed. And the truth is that families often did abandon their children when they couldn't feed them, although it's my understanding they usually took them someplace where they had a chance of living - exchanging their labor for food and shelter.
During the medieval period, many families took children they couldn't care for to the local castles. The feudal lords took in the children and raised them to become their servants. It wasn't much of a life, I suppose, but they had food and shelter and were in safer places if they were attacked than the people in the nearby farms and villages.