In the fairy tale Princess and the Pea, the completely disappeared female perspective from the princess made the character of the princess almost recede throughout the whole story. The author didn’t spend any ink to present the character of the princess other than her complaint about the pea under the mattresses which only foreshadows her identity as a princess. She is in a completely passive status throughout the whole story. None of the story's turning points occur from the princess's perspective and decision. Even her marriage at the end of the story is decided by the queen and the prince but not herself. She is like an object just to embody the exclusiveness of the royal family. I believe that the objectification of women is the problematic part of this story and some research is done to expand my ideas by demonstrating what’s objectification, how it caused, and how it harms.
To discern whether there is an objectification of women in this story, the definition of objectification should be clarified. The Objectification: “A Slippery, Multiple Concept” in the book The Objectification Spectrum: Understanding and Transcending Our Diminishment and Dehumanization of the others by John M. Rector reviews several definitions of objectification proposed by Immanuel Kant, Andrea Dworkin, and Sandra Bartky. Kant claims that objectification is when “a person is depersonalized, so that no individuality or integrity is available socially or in what is an extremely circumscribed privacy.” Andrea points out the replaceability and the commodification of objectification while Sandra adds how “the body is thought to represent the whole woman” and women actually “come to be both objectifier and objectified” under the influence of patriarchal societies.In the story, I would say the princess is definitely objectified based on the definitions read. First, she is not gaining respect and hospitality from the queen and the prince simply as a person. Only after she announced her royal identity, and knowing the fact that the queen is trying to find a real princess as her son’s wife, do they accept her to live in the castle for a test. Besides, she is completely replaceable due to the fact that she married the prince not because love affairs happen between them but because their only requirement is a real princess. The commodification of this marriage is also embodied through the requirement of the queen, she asks for someone with royal power instead of someone her son loves to be the wife of her son. Last but not least, the idea that the body represents the whole woman is hidden under the plot of how tender her body is to tell there is a pea under. The value of the princess is testified simply by her delicate skin but not her knowledge or cultivation. Thus, strong objectification of women can be found in this story.
The objectification or even self-objectification of women is usually caused by “gaze”, in other words, “visual inspection of the body” according to Objection Theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Objectifying gaze happens in every aspect of society, and of course, it is under the influence of patriarch society. It happens in three spheres including “actual interpersonal and social encounters”, “visual media that depict interpersonal and social encounters” as well as “fusions of culture and visual media that spotlight bodies”. Such pervasive and intense condensation forces women “internalize on observers’ perspective unphysical self” and from self-objectification. Self-objectification happened to the queen in the story. Not hard to imagine what she has been through so that she would use a similar male perspective to quantify another girl. Especially in the royal family, sexuality is not the only factor that causes objectification but also the royal identity. The perspective that the story is written also feels likes a typical gaze to me, it is not described from the inner perspective of the princess but we are seeing through the view of the prince and the queen. We are quantifying the girl and testing whether she is a real princess with the prince since there isn’t a word describing the inner thoughts of the princess.
The fact that objectification is really harmful sexual violence no matter in a psychological way or physical way makes it so important for us to add the princess’ perspective and humanize her. Article Less than human: Media use, objectification of women, and men’s acceptance of sexual aggression by Seabrook, Rita C.; Ward, L.M. and Giaccardi Soraya shows the physical harm of objectification by researching the relationships between media that objectification of women and sexual aggression of men. The experiment takes into account various factors such as race and gender in the selection of the subjects, and discusses assorted aspects such as sexual deception, Rape myth acceptance, and Acceptance of objectification of women, giving strong evidence to prove that the harm caused by female objectification should not be underestimated. At the same time, the authors also demonstrate that the concept of female objectification can influence men's acceptance of sexual violence through stories, media, and other external messages, and this conclusion can be used as a powerful argument against the objectification of women in stories, especially fairy tales for kids. Objection Theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks state that mental health can also risk from objectification, symptoms like anxiety and depression can be caused by the shame and pressure brought by the gaze.In the story Princess and the Peas, there is an evident objectification of women. The author reduces the princess to “mere objects without affection or agency”. Such objectification in a fairy tale can be extremely powerful in affecting the values of children and adding risks to sexual violence in the future. Thus, we believe that the princess’s perspective should also appear in the story.
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