Misogynist baggage in Nepali fairy tales

Abstract

This article examines four popular Nepali fairy tales—’The Story of Sumnima’, ‘Sunkeshari Maiya’, ‘Raja Mansarko Katha’, and ‘Hai Rani Chandani’, collected from different written sources—and demonstrates how they perpetuate gender stereotypes and limit women to inferior roles and negative conduct. The study is a critical discourse analysis with a special focus on gender relations among characters. It derives its theoretical lens from feminist theorists like Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous and Cora Kaplan, and gender theorists like Judith Butler. Either origin myths or social and familial tales analyzed in this article relegate the female characters to a stock of voiceless individuals without agency, and limit them to minor domestic chores, or portray them as wicked agents that cause tragedies to their close associates, families, or members of the society. The tales reproduce misogynist baggage and represent a social psychology shaped by patriarchal tradition. The study concludes that characterization in these tales is informed by the value system of the patriarchal society where these tales exist and thus recapitulate gender bias.

Keywords

• Fairy tales
• gender stereotypes
• misogyny
• discourse
• gender discrimination
• Oliver Nyambi, English, University of the Free State, South Africa