Fairy tales have harmed women for centuries. Fairy tales often vilify women’s anger, undermine their pursuit of financial independence, and set unrealistic expectations. These biases shift the focus from abusers to women, making them see themselves as the problem. Join Anne Blythe, M.Ed, Host and Jane Gillmore as they discuss misogyny and fairy tales.

If you relate to any of this episode, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Fairy Tales Harmed Women: Vilification of Women’s Anger

Society often labels women’s anger as overreacting, in stark contrast to men’s anger, which is seen as justified. This double standard shifts the focus from the abusers to the women, conditioning them to see themselves as the problem, rather than addressing the root cause of their frustration.

Of course, women will be angry if they’re oppressed and abused! To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women: Financial Independence Double Standard

Women are often condemned for seeking financial independence, a desire celebrated in men. This contradiction highlights the gender bias in societal expectations, undermining women’s right to financial security and autonomy.

The expectation for women to set boundaries calmly is unrealistic and unfair. It parallels the absurdity of asking women to call the police without anger if they witness a crime, illustrating how these societal scripts demand unrealistic levels of composure from women, even in distressing situations.

Fairy Tales harm Women by Normalizing Misogyny

Stories like “Beauty and the Beast” perpetuate misogynistic tropes by suggesting that men need women to become better people. This harmful narrative places undue responsibility on women for men’s behavior and personal growth. Which reinforces gender roles that confine women to supportive and transformative roles. Without considering their own needs for autonomy and respect.

Transcript: How Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women

Anne: I have Jane Gilmore on today’s episode. Jane is a writer, speaker, and feminist, and you can find her at janegilmore.com. Welcome Jane.

Jane: Thank you. And it’s so lovely to be here.

Anne: I love talking to you. Jane is on today to talk about her new book, Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children. The Little Mermaid is a personal nemesis. So I wanted her to talk about this new book and how it can help all women who are going through abuse recognize it, set boundaries and get to safety. So let’s start, Jane, with what gave you the idea that this book needed to be written?

Jane: Well, I’m living in Melbourne, and we had such a long lockdown during the first part of COVID. Like, basically two years we were in and out of lockdown. And you start going into weird places when you’re at home that long. I haven’t paid much attention to fairy tales since I was a kid. For some reason, I watched the Snow White movie on the Disney Channel. I was horrified.

This is a children’s movie, mostly aimed at little girls, and the misogyny in it was so deep, but it was more than that. It was this idealization of women being not just helpless and submissive, but actively participating in other people abusing them. And I was thinking, oh, this is just because it’s old. This is not what they’re like.

So I started looking into them and the five stories I chose for this book, which I retold. Along with an essay about why, were Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. I show how fairy tales have harmed women.

Themes In Fairy Tales

Jane: And when I started looking into them, it was so clear that Snow White was about making other women the enemy, not men. Sleeping Beauty is obviously about consent. Cinderella is about women’s unpaid labor that we are supposed to do, not just uncomplaining, but enjoying our manipulation to serve mostly men. The Little Mermaid is about staying silent in the face of somebody, constantly diminishing you.

Beauty and the Beast is coercive control. If you love him enough, he will turn into your handsome prince. This angry, dangerous, violent man just needs you to love him more. And if he doesn’t turn into your handsome prince, it’s your fault for not trying harder. And that’s what these fairy tales are about.

They’re telling little girls that the way to be a good woman, a proper woman, a fairy tale princess that the defining characteristic is what they call unselfish. Which is to not ask anything for yourself, to not think that you deserve respect, kindness, agency, or money. That to even ask for those things, to even want those things, even if you don’t ask for them, makes you morally culpable.

And you don’t see it when you first look at it because, Oh, aren’t they pretty? They get the handsome prince and everybody gets married and lives happily ever after. And isn’t that wonderful. But the underlying message is, It is wrong for you to want anything for yourself, including self respect, fairy tales have caused women so much harm.

Anne: Yeah, I have so much to talk to you about. This also reminds me about how biblical submission becomes abuse.

A Friend’s Story: Recognizing Abuse

Anne: I want to tell a quick story of a friend who was finally divorced from her first abuser. She was dating, and met this man. She told me how wonderful he is, and his ex was such a gold digger. I was like, whoa, what? Red flag there, we’ve got another abuser on your hands. He said, she’s such a gold digger, she wanted me for my money. Then she says to me, he has a lot of money. I don’t care about that, that’s not what I’m interested in. I just want a good relationship.

They go on a trip, and he’s like, get anything you want. What would you like to buy? And she says to him, oh no, I’m not like that. I’m not into money like your ex. I don’t want anything. I was like, whoa, stop again. He’s already groomed you. An example of how fairy tales have harmed women is by silencing their wants and needs.

Jane: Yes.

Anne: To not want anything already, and you didn’t even know. She thought he was so nice and everything went well. And I was like, he’s already groomed you to say that you don’t want money or need anything. If you marry him, you realize you’ll be like, hey, I’m going to the grocery store and he’ll be like, what again? You just married me for my money, like my ex. He’s setting you up for this. Of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I should have kept my mouth shut.

And so I said to her, if you’re going to continue dating him, if he says that again, what would you like? Say, oh, I want this and buy something expensive. Something like $150. Not like super expensive, even if you don’t want it.

The Gold Digger Label harms Women

Anne: If he says get anything you want, try it out. See what happens. She was like, no, what? And I said, never ever say I’m not a gold digger, I’m not like that. Say, oh, that makes sense that your wife wanted a roof over her head and groceries, most women do. Fairy tales have harmed women by this “unselfish” ideal.

Jane: To me, the warning sign is always, if you take the word that they’re trying to get you to prove that you’re not like gold digger is a perfect one. Is there an equivalent? It’s a word that can apply to any gender because if it’s just about women, then again, it’s tying into that. Are you a good woman?

You’re not like other girls, prove to me that you can be all the things I can use to manipulate you. Gold digger is such a good one, because in men that’s called ambition, and it’s a good thing.

Anne: The other one is the that she said, the same woman, his ex never gave him any sex. It was a sexless marriage, and he was really deprived. And I said, anytime a man says that to you, this is how you respond. Again, gave her advice she didn’t ask for. I have a bad habit of doing that. And I don’t know if I’m going to stop. But I said, this is what you say. You say, oh, I’m so glad she did what she wanted to. I love it when women do that.

Fairy Tales Have Harm Women because Women Are taking the Blame

Jane: Yes, and the other thing always is that I’ve got one of these in one of the regular talks I do. A study found that women become less interested in it the longer a relationship goes on. And then you flip it around and go, what if it’s men becoming less appealing?

In a relationship, because they do less to earn your respect, your trust, your joy, your sense of fun, and your desire. And that you are constantly on edge and afraid. And that walking on eggshells feeling, nobody feels like it when they’re walking on eggshells all the time. So if you can’t see that those two things are connected, and somebody is saying to you, this is your fault.

This is all your fault. You’re not interested in sex. You’re not trying hard enough and not this is our relationship and we care what goes on here. Again, massive red flag.

Anne: As you studied all these different ways fairy tales harm women, what were some of the overarching themes that showed up in all of them.

Overarching Themes in Fairy Tales

Jane: I was surprised about some of them, not because they were shocking, but because I didn’t realize how deeply embedded they are in this fairy tale princess myth. One of them was this constant idea that men are not responsible for anything. That the villain is always other women, the wicked stepmother, the wicked stepsisters. The man is either the prize you get for being unselfish, the handsome prince, or the father who has no responsibility at all.

So every fairy tale princess, her mother dies when she’s a baby. Except for a Sleeping Beauty, and the mother doesn’t come into the story at all. And the father is the king who might send people out to run a mission or something, but he’s never responsible for his daughter.

He marries another woman, because of course he couldn’t be expected to bring up a child on his own. And the evil stepmother becomes the villain. And there is no point in the story where the men who make choices that affect women’s lives have any responsibility for those choices. Fairy tales have harmed women, because in them women are powerless.

So Snow White, for instance, which was the first one I did. I was shocked when I returned to the original story by the Grimm brothers. Snow White is seven years old in the story. She’s seven years old. She is a child. She’s taken off to the woods by a hunter under orders from her evil stepmother. The hunter is ordered to kill her in the original story. He’s supposed to cut out her heart and lungs to take back to the evil stepmother so she can eat them.

How Fairy Tales Harm Women In Snow White

Jane: So she won’t show visible signs of aging, because the most wicked thing any woman can do is visibly age and still expect to have a place in the world. Snow White is seven, she goes off, finds the seven dwarves, she immediately takes on all their domestic labor and sings songs about how much fun it is. And how wonderful it is that she does all the work to look after seven men, and how much she loves it. Fairy tales harm women by showing them in subservient roles.

Then the evil stepmother poisons her, and they think she’s dead. So they put her in a glass box, and a handsome prince comes past and sees a dead child in a glass box. And says, oh, that’s beautiful, that’s mine, I want it. And the seven dwarfs immediately recognize that he’s a rich, powerful man. So he should have the beautiful dead girl that he wants.

Oh, brilliant, you’re awake now, you can be my wife. And she says, oh, thank you. Yes, I’d love that. That’s the Snow White story. And that was the one I rewrote. So I didn’t change the plot at all. I just rewrote it to point out all these things about, wow, this is the story we tell little girls, and little girls still dress up as Snow White. They want to be like Snow White. And this idea that when other women are the thing that will put young girls in danger. Which we know is just not true.

And I’m not saying that other women don’t have their problems. They absolutely do. We can get into all kinds of discussions about that, but other women are not the threat to your life.

Fairy Tale Stories Are Supposedly Safe

Jane: Other women won’t commit the kind of abuse your male partner will. But nowhere in a fairy tale princesses story is The handsome prince ever the problem. This is one way fairy tales harm women. The story ends when they get married and the marriage is never a part of the story. It’s why the mother dies at the beginning of all the fairy tale princess stories, because marriage and children and the relationship itself is not the fairy tale princess myth.

It’s be good and beautiful, submissive, kind and unselfish. And do everything you can to prove how much you deserve a handsome prince. And then your story ends.

Anne: It’s almost like that’s where the man wants it to end. He’s like, okay, you’re beautiful. You do all the domestic labor. You don’t have a voice. And I can do no wrong. Then marriage, and then I own you, and you have to do whatever I say because of coverture laws. You’re literally my property in the day when these were written, and you’re essentially my domestic slave. And that is a happy ending for me. This is how fairy tales have harmed women.

Jane: Yes, these are the stories we all grew up on, and it’s not even the Grimm Brothers stories, which were horrific, but the Disney stories. And again, you think Snow White, that’s a hundred years ago. Whoever watches that, Disney plus has over a hundred million subscribers. I’ve got little kids and I’m going, okay, God, I just need an hour to myself, put them down in front of the electronic babysitter.

I know it’s not ideal, but we’ve all done it, come on. And you think, well, the Disney channel, they’ve got to be safe there, right?

Sleeping Beauty: The Original Story

Jane: And then you have the quintessential fairytale princess, Sleeping Beauty. The first published one I could find was from Italy in about 1500. Her name is Talia. Talia has the curse, falls asleep. It’s not a handsome prince. It’s a King from a neighboring country who finds her asleep, looks at her and says, oh, wonderful. Tries to wake her up, fails. So he impregnates her. Now we know what the word for that is, right? That’s?

Anne: Rape.

Jane: That’s rape. She eventually wakes up after she’s had twins, and is so delighted to find that while she was unconscious, somebody impregnated her. She doesn’t remember who and has babies. So, he meanwhile forgot about her, and this is specifically in the story. Then he remembered her and came back presumably to do it again.

Anne: What?

Jane: Yeah, he finds her and the babies. And she’s like, oh, how wonderful to meet you. Finally, the father of my children. I’m in love. Let’s get married. And he’s like, okay. Sure. But there’s just a problem. I’ve already got a wife, but nevermind. Let’s go back to my place, and we’ll find the wife. I’ll kill her, and then we can get married, and everything will be fine.

In the original story, I think it’s called Talia and the Summer and Stars. It’s available online because it’s not copyrighted anymore. They return to his place. He says he’s going to kill his wife, but then she tries to kill Sleeping Beauty first and the children.

Anne: Because she’s the bad one, not him.

Jane: She’s the evil one. not him. He’s the hero of this story.

Disney’s Sanitization Of Fairy Tales

Jane: She fails in her attempts to kill Sleeping Beauty, and the children. Mind you, she does this by telling the servants to kill them and serve them up to Sleeping Beauty and the King as dinner. The servants say, oh, maybe we won’t kill and cook the babies. So no, they tell the King. He sets his wife on fire and burns her alive, and then marries Sleeping Beauty. And they live happily ever after such a cute story, right?

Anne: This is horrifying.

Jane: So bad. And obviously Disney sanitized this a lot, because we wouldn’t let our children watch that movie. But essentially, it’s the same story. She sleeps through her entire story. This is how much agency that story wants to give women. This is how fairy tales have harm women. You are unconscious while we tell your story. But the handsome prince kisses her while she’s asleep, which is Disney’s version of rape.

And she wakes up and, oh, my handsome prince, how wonderful. Let’s get married. That’s her story. Because the idea that a woman needs to be conscious and talking, and having a personality and ideas, thoughts, feelings, desires and wants for a man to fall in love with her, is so abhorrent that we have to make Sleeping Beauty unconscious. For the handsome prince to want her agency that we’re giving little girls in this story.

Anne: Wow, I love your stuff, Jane. You are so smart. You say it and I’m like, Oh, that’s so good. Why didn’t I think of that? Love it.

Jane: Because honestly, this was how I spent most of lockdown. I was just reading through these stories.

Shocked By Fairy Tale Research

Jane: Going, okay, so what does that mean? And where does it come from? And where’s the, oh my, that’s the original story that comes from. That was my pandemic experience.

Anne: So I’ve been shocked. I mean, Disney tries to be inclusive and modern and whatever. So when the new real life Beauty and the Beast came out with Emma Watson. I thought, surely they have fixed this to not be so terrible, like Stockholm syndrome, which is not a thing. Women are just trying to survive. They’re not falling in love with anyone. So like, surely they have fixed this, but it was exactly the same as their cartoon. This is how fairy tales have harmed women.

And I thought, what is happening? Like, did they not notice? Cause in my head, I have it rewritten so it works perfectly. So that they could fall in love. And she would not be coerced and or abused and or treated bad, and it would make sense. But like, I couldn’t believe they did the same thing over again when they seem maybe like they’re trying to be committed to not being misogynists.

Jane: I had exactly the same reaction when I watched it. Cause like you, I thought, Oh, they’re doing a real life version. It’s Emma Watson. Surely they’ll fix all this. And I had exactly the same reaction as you. I was like, this is almost word for word, the cartoon version. What is going on here?

Anne: 2017.

Jane: Yeah, right.

Anne: That’s almost post Me Too.

Jane: Yeah. And it is absolutely a story of control and abuse in both of them. He’s so angry and he’s punching walls around her and he’s terrifying her. And the solution is for her to love him more.

Fairy Tales Have Harm Women by telling her If She Loves Him Enough, He Will Change

Jane: Yeah, do more to turn him into the handsome prince. He has no responsibility to change his behavior. That’s up to her. If she loves him enough, his behavior will magically change. But he has no responsibility at all. And that’s the story of Beauty and the Beast. Which tells women that when a man is so angry, even before he’s physically violent. That you are genuinely terrified, then your responsibility is to try harder to please him.

So when I started going into these stories, as I said, I watched the Snow White movie. And I was so horrified by it that at the time I wasn’t planning on a book or anything. I had to rewrite it, just for my own satisfaction. Because I get obsessive about these things, I couldn’t let it go. And so I started looking at the other movies and started rewriting them as well. When I got to Sleeping Beauty, I couldn’t rewrite the same plot.

I could not write a story about a woman where she is unconscious throughout her story. So I changed it, and I am far from the first writer or feminist to ever do this. There’s a long and glorious history of feminists rewriting fairy tales to point out how horrific they are. And what women’s stories can be like if they’re that horrific. So Sleeping Beauty, I actually just went, okay, I’m going to go the full feminist fantasy.

What would the Sleeping Beauty story be if women actually wrote it for women? About the sort of lives that are in an ideal world that we wish we had. Fairy tales have harmed women, so I rewrote them to help women.

Having Fun Rewriting harmful fairytales

Jane: So I went to the full other extreme of the Snow White story, which I rewrote according to the Snow White plot, but just to point out how horrific it was. And that was a lot of fun. That felt redemptive. It felt I’d taken control of it. And again, this was all for me. So then I think the next one I did was Beauty and the Beast. And I was going back and forth between rewriting it so that she had a good outcome, a good story.

I was trying to think, how do I write this so that she has a good, equal, respectful, happy relationship? And then I thought, in all these fairy tale stories, the prize at the end for the fairytale princess is marriage. It is a man, a relationship. And there are so many other things that women want that we do, work for, and take pride in. And there are so many stories about the happy ever after ending, and I didn’t want to write another one.

So I rewrote a couple of them with a happy ending that didn’t relate to having a good relationship with a man. It was about other things that women can want. But Beauty and the Beast, I thought maybe I give her the ending of the relationship, but a realistic one of what a relationship actually looks like. When you start with a man who’s frighteningly angry at the beginning, who is controlling and abusive fairly early on, and then you get married.

What is that relationship actually? How does that end? Because it does not end happily ever after. We know that, never. There’s no way that relationship ends happily.

Publishing The Book

Jane: That one took me to some pretty dark places actually. And I was, I was hesitant about publishing it. Because it ended the way I know too many of these relationships do. This was when I started to think, actually, you know what? I need to publish these. Because this is the point of what I’m doing.

It’s pointing out what these fairy tale princesses are telling little girls and young women about what they should expect from their lives, what they should hope for, what they should plan for and dream of. And this is the reality of that violent, controlling, abusive man. So yes, I should actually write this, and then I should publish it. People may disagree with it, they may not like it, they may not read it, that’s fine.

But that was when I started to think, okay, let’s do more and put them out into the world.

Anne: I love it. Fairy tales have harmed women, you want to educate them.

Jane: Then I went on to The Little Mermaid and watched the Disney movie, which is all cute and awful. And then went back and read the Hans Christian Andersen, original story. If you want to be truly horrified, read the Hans Christian Andersen story. It’s an entire short story written to tell women to keep quiet. If you are in pain, stay silent. If you are bleeding, don’t upset people by telling anyone about it.

In the original story. They cut her tail to turn into legs, and she feels like she’s walking on knives. She leaves a trail of bloody footprints behind her with every step she takes. But she smiles and dances for the handsome prince because that’s what he wants her to do.

The Pain Of Changing For A Man

Anne: Wow. I’m not trying to justify this story, because like I said, The Little Mermaid is my nemesis. I don’t like it. But in the original version, could that be interpreted to say it’s going to be painful to you if you try to change for a man?

Jane: Oh, look, I wish that was the case. I wish I could say yes. I wish I could say yes, that’s what we’re aiming for here. But no, it’s about women. You will experience pain in trying to change for a man, and that will only work if you stay silent about it. And eventually he might love you. In the original story, he doesn’t. He falls in love with somebody else who’s a proper woman. A real woman who can praise the handsome prince, agree with him, and laugh at all his jokes.

So the Little Mermaid kills herself. I swear to God, this is what happens in the original story. She throws herself off the side of the ship, and angels come to her and say, “It’s okay, because you chose to die rather than cause pain to the handsome prince and his new bride. You get to live as a sort of spirit guide for the next 300 years.”

And if you do enough, you will eventually go to heaven. That’s her salvation for failing to win the handsome prince is 300 years of silent, unrecognized servitude to the world to earn her place in heaven.

Anne: Like a nun.

Jane: Yeah.

Anne: Like if you can’t get a husband, the next best thing you can do is do service to the world in another way. Fairy tales harm women, this one sacrifices her.

Fairy Tales Have Harm Women by Sanitizing Happy Endings

Jane: Yes, but you have to die, so nobody can see you or hear you doing it. So you do it as a ghost. It’s staggering, this is the Little Mermaid story. Now, obviously, again, Disney sanitized it, and they get the happy ever after.

Anne: Sanitize? Well, even the Disney version is awful. You have to give up your voice for a man to like you. And he falls in love with her, by the way. My kids, they hear me say this stuff, they’re like, Mom, why do we always have to talk about misogyny? Why can’t we just watch a movie? And I’m like, because it’s so blatant. I have to point it out to you. Anyway, they loved the end of the new one, the one that just came out where it says like years later. Did you notice that?

Jane: I haven’t seen that one. I was honestly reaching the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d done these five stories and literally watched dozens and dozens of Disney movies.

Anne: Totally, so the new one, at the end, she can talk, and they don’t get married. And then, sorry, ruining it for everyone. I should have said spoiler alert, but then it says years later. You assume they’ve gotten to know each other, and then they decide to get married.

Jane: But again, marriage is the happy ending and they’ve tacked on this little bit at the end.

Anne: Exactly, my kids thought it was funny. They were like, yeah, right. So they just throw it years later in and solves everything. They were being really sarcastic about it.

Other Disney Movies

Jane: The getting to know somebody and the developing a relationship of trust and respect and happiness and support.

Anne: That’s boring. And you just cover that in a years later .

Jane: Yeah, that’s not the story. I have to say, I was going through the Disney catalog. The only one I saw that I genuinely thought was a delight was Encanto. That one I liked. It was cute. It was real, like the people didn’t look like little white skinny stick figures. They had a variety of women with a variety of stories, because we’re not all one thing, right? And that one I actually liked.

But the other one, it’s not in the book, but just in the research. I watched Frozen, which was supposedly lauded as Disney finally discovered feminism. No! There are two women. They’re sisters, they have a relationship that’s not just about men. Instead of the helpless fairy tale princess, Anna is the Disney version of the manic pixie dream girl. She’s funny, clumsy, and chatters too much. She is charming, and she’s there to fix him. So he starts off angry, violent, and mean.

Anne: Kristoff starts out mean? Really? This conditions women to belive it’s normal if their husband is always yelling.

Jane: He’s angry with her. Like he doesn’t like her and he’s mean to her.

Anne: Oh, I see what you mean, but it’s not like over the top mean.

Jane: He’s not beast mean, but he’s mean to her. And he doesn’t like her or respect her. He doesn’t think that she can do anything,. and doesn’t share anything with her. He’s just dismissive and rude. So no, he’s not the beast, you know, Disney’s run past that.

Elsa’s Story: A Different Kind of Feminism

Jane: But you scratch the surface a little bit. And here’s this man who doesn’t look at her when he talks to her and doesn’t take her seriously. He thinks she’s just stupid and incapable and can’t do anything. And she tumbles along and has a lovely time and la, la, la, la. And slowly, he learns to become a good person because of her. That’s the role of the manic pixie dream girl is to fix men. And that’s Anna. Elsa has a different story.

She doesn’t have a story about a man. Which I think is the reason it looks like a feminist movie is because it’s the first time ever that a fairy tale princess in a Disney movie doesn’t have a happy ending that revolves around getting married. But her story is that she has this power inherent to her. And it’s dangerous for her to use it. People get hurt when she does. So what she’s got to learn is to use her power for other people, not herself.

If she uses it for herself in the service of her own dreams and ambitions, that’s cruel, wrong, and bad, and she becomes wicked. But if she uses it in the service of others, she can live a life of service to others and be a hero.

Anne: That kind of reminds me of the, you can set boundaries, but don’t do it in anger, kind of vibe. So like these men do these awful things to them, lie to them, full on emotional, psychological abuse, and sexual coercion.

And maybe they’re in couple therapy. And it’ll be like, well, yes, set boundaries, because his behavior has been unhealthy. That makes sense.

Fairy Tales Have Harm Women by villifying Women’s Anger

Anne: But like, do you need to be so angry about it? Like we need to set boundaries, but not in anger. How can you have compassion while setting boundaries? And the question I always ask is if someone hijacked a car and witnessed it. So you’re going to pick up your phone and call 911. Would anybody tell you, but take a pause, breathe, and make sure that when you call the police, you don’t do it in anger?

Jane: Because it’s particularly women being angry with men that is so reprehensible. That women’s anger immediately means they’re crazy, being oversensitive, overreacting. When men get angry, they’re just reacting. When women get angry, they’re overreacting and they’re unreasonable by definition of being angry.

Again, it’s that part of that myth designed to tell women when somebody is being cruel to you, the problem is you. If you’re angry about it, if you’re traumatized by it, if you show visible signs of that trauma, you are the problem. Not the abuse, not the man who did it. The problem is you, and you need to fix you. And then maybe you can go back and fix him. They are structural institutions designed to force women into believing that when they are being abused, they are the problem.

So continue to submit to the abuse. Continue to not just submit to it, but play into it by telling yourself, I just need to try harder. I need to do more instead of saying to women, right, you should be angry. You should be furious. You should be so enraged by what this man has done to you.

Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women: Financial Independence & Security

Anne: So there’s the abuse. Then there’s the overall societal system of oppression. that supports these ideas to continually oppress women and keep women from being true equals to men in being taken seriously, in being able to express their views and have them valid in taking up space, in not being exploited for domestic labor.

Jane: Yes, absolutely, and you can see that so clearly. Again, going back to the fairy tale princesses, the idea that you could want money, which is always in women, like the going back to the gold digger idea. It’s always taken as being avaricious, as you just want money.

Because you want things, but men wanting money is admirable, but wanting money is about wanting security. If I have my own money, if I have a place to live, if I can support myself. Firstly, I don’t need a man. So I might choose you, but I also might choose not to, that idea is so threatening. I don’t need you. I will just choose you. And so you have to deserve it. If you don’t, I can choose something else.

That’s what having money does. It’s not about, Oh, I can be vain and cruel and an evil step sister. It’s I can be independent and make my own choices. That idea is such a threat to all the myths that we need women to buy into for abuse to continue.

Anne: And for exploitation and oppression to continue. Fairy Tales Harm Women by idealizing abuse.

Jane: Exactly.

Domestic Labor & Fairytale Princesses

Jane: So one of the ways that those systemic things work is by forcing women to do all that unpaid work, all that domestic labor. And there’s Snow White singing, whistling while she works. Because domestic labor is so much fun, I love it, and that makes me a good woman that a handsome prince will want to marry.

Cinderella does the same thing, there are the evil stepsisters who want a handsome prince because he’s rich. They’re gold diggers, they want the jewels and beautiful dresses. And that makes them evil. But Cinderella, by not wanting those things, proves she can deserve them. Actively not wanting them. So that’s the idea we set up for women.

Anne: It’s the same idea when an abuser tells you, well, if you wouldn’t have said something, I would have done it.

Jane: Yes, exactly.

Anne: Right, and you’re like, well, you didn’t do it. And so I said something. So what are you talking about? If I hadn’t said something, you would have done it. It should be done. But now that I said it, you’re not going to do it? So what? It’s like this circular insanity.

Jane: Yep, but if you point that out, you’re being oversensitive and hysterical. So you just get stuck in this logic loop that you can’t get out of until you can sit back and look at the myths. And say, this is the story you’re trying to tell me. And that story is rubbish. It’s like beauty standards. They are impossible to meet. They are designed to be impossible to meet. Fairy tales have harmed women by setting up impossible standards.

Fairy Tales Have Harm Women by imposing Impossibly High Standards For Women

Jane: You are too skinny or not skinny enough, too white or not white enough, too busty or not busty enough. You are too pretty or you’re not pretty enough. You are too submissive or you’re not submissive enough, trying too hard or not trying hard enough. The point of those standards is impossible to meet, so it can always be your fault if something goes wrong. And those fairytale princesses are part of that myth. They’re everywhere.

And you said before that your kids, my kids used to do this too. Oh, why do we have to talk about feminism again? Mom, come on. Can we just watch a movie? And I get it, but where these ideas are at their most dangerous is when we don’t see them.

Anne: Oh, I’m like, it’s fine. If you watch it, if we deconstruct it so that you can start seeing this everywhere. But if you watch it without deconstructing it, that is dangerous, and I’m not going to do that.

Jane: Absolutely, the most dangerous ideas are the ones we don’t know that we have. So if they’re floating around in the back of your mind, and you’re not able to look at them and see what they are. And where they come from, that’s when people can use them against you. And we all have them. I can’t remember if I said this previously, but I talk about this a lot, because I’m such a feminist. And I write about this, and I do this as my work, my study, and my play all the time.

I Rewrote fairytales To Help Women

Jane: And still, when my kids were seven and nine, my daughter had to say to me, hey, why is it my job to unstack the dishwasher on my brother’s job to take the rubbish out? And I’m like, darling, that’s the patriarchy. That’s why that’s happening. No, like I was doing, I was the one assigning the tasks, you know, and I didn’t see it. So these things are embedded in us that we have to constantly look for them. And if you don’t know what to look for, how can you?

Anne: I want everyone to buy this book. It is incredible. It’s called Fairytale Princesses Will Kill Your Children. You’re a woman after my own heart, because I want to rewrite it. So, I just want to play this game for a second if you don’t mind. The game I want to play is one that I play with my kids. And it is what would make this appropriate. And for Beauty and the Beast, my kids did not want to watch the new one. Fairy tales have harmed women, so let’s make this one safe.

They hate the cartoon version. And I said, well, let’s watch it, because I wanted to watch it. Of course, they’ve changed it. They didn’t, so we were all horrified. But we played the game, what would have made this okay? She’s in the woods. Her dad is sick and injured.

And the Beast comes along and he says, Look, I know you think I’m scary. I understand why you’d think this. I have this castle here. Only if you want me to, I take your dad there and hopefully get him better. He’s super nice. There’s no problems, he’s fine.

Men Can’t See The Problems

Anne: She feels safe to take her dad to the castle to get medical attention. Then the Beast lets her go, and she just comes back, and he’s super nice. How hard can this be? Fairy tales have harmed women, why can’t we make them safe?

Jane: I think it’s to do with the number of men in decision-making roles, it’s not because all those men are abusive or misogynist. I don’t think that’s true, but you must’ve experienced that thing where there’s a guy you meet through work or friendship circle. And you say to other women, something about him is just off, there’s something creepy about him. Most other women immediately know what you’re talking about.

And men will go, Oh no, he’s a good guy, what are you talking about? And they make you feel silly for saying it. It’s that because men don’t get it. They don’t see what that guy just gives off bad vibes. It just gives you the creeps, how threatening that can feel, because they don’t tend to feel that kind of threat. And even men who are not, like I said, abusive and misogynist will still say, I don’t get it. So it makes it very hard for them to tell those stories.

When you look at the writers, show runners, directors and producers of most of the stories we get. Most of them are men. So they’re telling it from a male perspective, and they just don’t understand what it’s like to experience that. And to return to your game, I agree with you. One of the things I would like to see would be not that the beast is the beast. Because of an evil old woman made him that way, but because he chose to be that way.

The harmful Myth of the Evil Witch

Jane: And his ability to choose another way without a woman having to do it for him, without having to say, let’s go to therapy. And let me use that as a way to manipulate you. I’m going to choose to be a different person, and I’m going to work on that myself. And I’m not going to make my mother, my wife, my sisters, my friends be responsible for making me a better man.

I could talk about this for hours, and I frequently do, but the evil witch myth again, in all those fairy tale princesses, so many of them, there is an evil witch, she’s old. The evil witches are women with some kind of power. Either by age, which brings wisdom and experience, or magic, or beauty, they have some kind of power.

Anne: Or even money, like an evil stepmother, she has the money that the husband used to have.

Jane: Yep, and that’s what makes her evil, is age or power. And age is a form of power, although we usually don’t acknowledge that in women. But that’s what makes an evil witch, is a woman who has power. And that’s what the whole thing in reality. When they used to burn women, tens of thousands of women were killed and tortured for being witches. Any woman who had knowledge or power could be accused of being a witch and punished for it by being killed.

That was reality. And in those stories, they become any woman who is powerful. And that woman then becomes responsible for what a man does, that’s wrong. Fairy tales have harmed women and blamed them.

Beauty And The Beast: A Deeper Look

Jane: So Beauty and the Beast, the Beast was a good man who was cursed by a powerful woman into being a bad man, and it’s her fault, and then Beauty comes along and saves him.

Anne: Wait, in the original, was he a good man and got turned into a bad man? Because in the Disney movie, the reason why she puts the spell on him was because he was so terrible and he wasn’t nice to her. Fairy tales harm women because women are mainly the villains.

Jane: The interesting thing about Beauty and the Beast is that there are many versions of the story. Almost every culture has a version of this story. I went around the world, and almost every culture has some version of this story, and the similarities are amazing. In some versions, he’s a good man cursed by an evil witch. In some versions, he’s not bad, but he’s a selfish, typical spoiled young man from a wealthy family. And then he’s turned into the evil, violent, abusive man.

Anne: And that’s the other thing. So in the Disney version, she needs help, and he doesn’t help her. He doesn’t know she’s an evil witch when he doesn’t help her. He just doesn’t help her. And then she’s like, ah, you turn into the beast. But then it’s still her fault that he’s so angry and bitter.

Jane: Because it’s always a woman’s fault when a man is angry and bitter. And the number of women I’ve talked to tell me their stories about their abusive partners. And they will so often tell me, it’s not his fault, like his mother was awful to him or his last wife did all these terrible things to him.

Always A Woman’s Fault

Jane: Now he can’t trust a woman except for me, you know? And she’s got to prove to him that she’s not like other girls. Like that’s such a…

Anne: …bad thing, right? Like that she’s not like other girls, that she has a voice and expects not to be exploited.

Jane: Or she’s not like the woman who turned him into this because she’s a good woman. She’s going to be nice to him. She’s going to love him better. Unlike the evil woman that turned him into this bitter, angry, misogynistic mess. So that trope is woven through so many of these stories. Fairytales harm women by using them to demean and blame women.

And while I’ve written the Disney princess stories and only the first five. When you start looking at it, all those romance movies, rom coms, books going back hundreds and hundreds of years to going forward to tomorrow. Whatever romance book, movie or TV show will be published tomorrow. These tropes are woven into it and they’re sanitized a lot now, so that they’re not so immediately recognizable and you have to scratch a bit deeper.

But underneath is always this same thing of a beautiful, unselfish woman, who will save a hopeless or bad man from himself by being beautiful and unselfish. And then they get their happily ever after.

The harmful goal of Happily Ever After

Jane: And I just want to also mention happily ever after as a goal. What is that? What is happily ever after actually look like? Because if I think about the things that make me happy. I’m planning to do a doctorate this year, where I’ll talk to men convicted of rape about their perceptions of women, sex, and sexual violence. Nothing about this is happy, but doing it, achieving it, and hopefully finding out something that we can use to try and reach boys and men.

Before they end up in prison for this kind of stuff. That will give me a sense of achievement. That almost nothing else could. So happily ever after, just sitting back, like some Stepford wife going, la, la, la, everything’s lovely. That’s not happiness. Happiness is so much more than that. Fairy tales have harmed women by giving them false expectations about happiness.

And women have so much more that they can do and achieve. Sometimes that can come from having a beautiful home and happy children. And that can be a thing that gives you pride and happiness. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Anne: I was gonna say, of course it can. Of course, having a beautiful home and having your family around you can bring you peace and happiness, but that’s not abuse.

Jane: No, absolutely not. Because you’re doing that for yourself. When you’re doing it to serve somebody else because you’re scared of what they’ll do, if you don’t do it properly. Because you need to keep trying, keep trying, to make them happy, that’s not something you’re doing to make yourself happy. That’s something that you’re doing, because somebody is controlling you and you believe that you have to it.

The Importance Of Self-Worth

Jane: Choosing to do that because it genuinely brings you pride and joy and a feeling of fulfillment and achievement. And in fact, I would say, if you can find that thing that gives you that sense of self worth, pride, and achievement, whatever it is, then that’s a sign that you are actually living your best life. But happily ever after is not that. Happily ever after is not just nothing ever goes wrong, and I never have to work hard, and I never have to do anything.

And everything’s going to be fine forever, because that’s not happiness. That’s a belly haze, you know, that’s not being happy. I think a lot of that comes from this idea that we’re trained from babyhood, that it’s wrong to think about what you want. Fairy tales have harmed women and reinforced that notion. Little boys and men, you know, we do a lot of awful things to little boys and men in the name of gender roles.

But one thing we tell them is to think about what they want and go after it. But we tell little girls and women that doing that makes them selfish, which is bad. It’s often hard for women to think about, well, what do I want? What makes me feel happier with myself and my place in the world?

Because it’s not something that we’re trained to think about. So we have to unlearn an enormous amount of things to learn about ourselves. And I don’t think anyone should discount how difficult that can be, how much work it can take, and how much you have to overcome.

The Struggle For Financial Independence

Jane: I was at a conference the other day talking about this book, and I had to remind myself at the end of the conference to ask people to buy it. Because for a woman to stand up in front of a couple of hundred people and say, buy my book. Because the work I have put into it is worth you giving me money for, and you’re a writer. That’s what you’re there for. They’re asking you to talk about the book. Of course, they want to buy it. Tell them to buy it, because that’s natural.

And it doesn’t come naturally to me, and I have to work at it. I have to point out that I am deliberately selfish in asking you to do this, because I’m choosing not to be a fairytale princess. Because fairy tales have harmed women. I am choosing to be active and ambitious in my own life and to ask for the things that will help me get financial security. In doing that, I want to reflect that back to you. And say, how does it make you feel?

When people came up to me afterwards going, yeah, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. And then we have that wire, and I totally get that. And I totally get how hard it can be to overcome those lessons. But I think it’s part of the work we have to do, of disassembling those structures that keep us locked into this idea. That we exist only to serve others because we don’t.

Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women: Supporting Our Families

Anne: At the Betrayal Trauma Recovery team, we have coaches who work hard. It’s their full time job. They pay their house payment with it. I am a single mom of three children, get zero child support, alimony, zero anything. And I don’t get half the medical anything. I 100% financially support my kids. And sometimes we get messages that say, you guys are awful because you’re asking women to pay for your services.

And I’m like, what would pay for my house payment? To be of service to everyone, I would also have to have someone take care of me. And I wouldn’t be independent. Like, just think that through a little bit, follow that to its most logical conclusion, and maybe they feel that way because they also don’t have the financial resources to get the help they need. Because maybe their emotionally or psychologically abusive spouse is blocking their finances, and they want help and can’t get it.

I realized that it’s deeper than just being frustrated that I cannot work for free. It’s also a sign that women are not independent and have their own resources to use as they see fit. Fairy tales have harmed women because they encourage dependence upon men. Handsome princes rescue and take care of princesses. So I can also totally understand the situation they’re in. And when it comes to abuse, the financial abuse piece, the spiritual abuse piece, they are overwhelming.

When you have been taught that it is your role in life to serve a man and not have anything independent from him. It’s overwhelming when you start thinking about how do I get to emotional and psychological safety, because that’s a whole new world that so many victims of abuse have never thought about before.

We Need To Earn Money

Jane: It’s frightening, because it’s changing your worldview of my role is to serve unrewarded. That’s such a big thing to do. I completely understand why it’s overwhelming. I get that a lot too, because I do a lot of speaking work and I’ll get people saying, what do you mean you want to get paid? I’m like, well, I like to eat and turn the lights on. That helps me keep doing this work.

But like you, I understand it, but I also keep thinking, who says that to men who offer services? Who would expect a father who’s solely financially responsible for his children and his house to do this kind of work unpaid?

Anne: Full time, eight hours a day, yep. Fairy tales have harmed women. We need to respect ourselves and feel good about getting paid what we are worth.

Jane: Nobody’s saying that. Firstly, he’d be lauded as an absolute hero just for being a single father. The bar is so low for men sometimes, I swear, they put it in hell and they still can’t meet it. But for a man to say. This service I provide, whether it’s doing what you do, doing what I do, doing anything, the service I provide is worthwhile. I work really, really hard at doing it.

And it is right for me to ask you to contribute to my ability to continue doing this service. Now, like you, I also understand that there are many women, because of the stuff we do, who don’t have that money. And where I can, I try to work with that as much as possible. But at the same time, for me to do it free would mean I would be homeless and not be able to provide those services anymore.

Physical Safety Beyond Violence

Jane: And also be giving into these myths that I am fighting so hard to change, which is that women should not want things, women should not want financial security independent of a man. Women should not want a beautiful house, but just a reasonable house to live in that’s theirs. Fairy tales harm women by having dependence on men as an ideal.

Anne: Right that men and husbands say that your the problem no matter what. I talk about this in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. I talk about physical safety, and they immediately think, am I being punched in the face? And I want to say, no, no, no. Your physical safety is, do you feel safe because you know that you have shelter. You know, you have a roof over your head. That’s physical safety. Do you know that you can pay for food or obtain food? That’s physical safety.

So if you are stressed out for good reason, because you’re like, I don’t know if I can file for divorce. Or, I don’t know if I can separate, because I cannot afford an apartment. Or how am I going to pay for food or childcare when I need to care for these young kids. And it’s going to be more expensive for me to pay for childcare than the money I can make. If that’s the case, and I ask you, do you feel physically safe? The answer should be like, no, his actions are threatening my physical safety.

Because I’m worried about where I’m going to live, about food, and clothing. I’m worried about the basic necessities. That is a severe physical threat that women don’t recognize as that, because they think he’s never punched me in the face.

Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women: The Crisis of Homelessness vs. Violence

Jane: The start of that is that myth that you’re in a relationship headed towards marriage. Fairy tales harm women by showing that they can rely on men to rescue them. Then for women, your job becomes service to him, rather than the relationship is in service to both of you. And if you’re heading towards that position of not being safe, and I’ve been in that position where, Uh, where are we going to live? How are we going to eat? It’s terrifying.

So I understand why some women are afraid of that choice. We know that women choose between a crisis of violence or a crisis of homelessness, and feel like those are their only two options. I know how hard it is to dig yourself out of that hole, but I also know it can be done. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. And it requires work and faith in yourself that is so hard to hold onto after you’ve been in an abusive relationship.

While overcoming this belief that they can never do it, and they try anyway, and that most of them succeed. Not all of them, I know, and that breaks my heart, but so many of them do. It astounds me that so many women do it. It’s astounding to watch how strong and capable women are, and so often those women would never believe they are those things.

One of the things I take from this work is how much strength those women have, who’ve survived those abusive relationships. And make that choice to leave, thinking it’s going to be awful. It is for a while. And then they come out the other side, because they have that strength to rebuild their lives.

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop

Jane: And there is nothing they can’t do. Nothing as strong as those women who have rebuilt themselves. I wish I could find a way to encapsulate that and show that to the women who don’t think they can, because so many of those women I’ve seen do it started thinking they couldn’t. And then discover they could.

Anne: Yeah, it’s incredible. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop focuses on how to think a little differently about the situation to make progress toward that, toward living free and feeling peace. Because it’s not just getting out of a psychologically or emotionally abusive relationship that we focus on here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery. But it’s also post divorce, where they deal with emotional and psychological abuse due to co parenting.

Every domestic violence shelter will be like, Oh, divorce is the answer. And I’m like, it might be one step on your journey to safety. But for those who were severely emotionally and psychologically abused post divorce, for me it was eight years. Of post divorce abuse.

Knowing how to live free from this is important. So check out The Living Free Workshop. And to learn more about Jane’s book, Fairytale Princesses Will Kill Your Children. Go to janegilmore.com. You can also find it on Amazon. Jane, I love talking with you about how fairy tales have harmed women. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast again.

Jane: Oh, thank you. It was so nice to be here. I love talking with you too. I always enjoy these conversations. Thank you so much for inviting me.