Stepmothers and stepsisters are often portrayed as evil in fairy tales.

Dead mothers and fairy godmothers are portrayed as good, as are beautiful princesses.

• Choose three or more fairy tales and examine the ways in which the females are portrayed.

• What messages are we being given?

Often fairy tales portray women as being cruel to each other. Such cruelty seems to be on the increase in our society.

Rewrite a fairy tale, such as Cinderella, in which the young women help each other to achieve their goals.

The Frog Prince is a tale in which a handsome husband is won by a girl's acceptance of a creature that is at first repulsive to her (in Opie, p. 238).

What other fairy tales are similar in this way?

Journal: Explore in your journal writing what such an idea could possibly mean.