Calvino, Stereotypes and Misogyny

The stepmother greets Hansel and Gretel. Illustration of Grimm's tale by Henry Ford (c1891)

I mentioned in earlier posts that Calvino’s Italian Folktales has considerable stereotyping. Looking back after reading the entire collection, I notice that although he is a conscientious and thoughtful editor, in his notes he praises any detail except the glaring attitudes to women. I’m trying to identify which, if any, of these tales I could tell my grand-daughter, and I’m struggling. 

I was able to find one scholarly article about the Italian Folktales, by Martin Beckwith (1987), which looked at a few tales in detail and identified how Calvino had changed them. The changes included making some of the tales slightly less gory and violent, not dissimilar to the Grimm brothers in their retelling. However, the Grimms were writing in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries. As a 20th-century editor and commentator, would you not feel it appropriate to address the misogyny? Do we believe that the inherent nature of folktales is that stepmothers are evil and most old women suspect? If Calvino had left his stories untouched, he would not have invited criticism of this kind. But he clearly felt entitled to edit them, so I believe he bears some responsibility for the stereotyping he is consciously transmitting. 

As for other stereotypes, I used a digital edition of Calvino’s Folktales to identify that nine of the stories feature stepmothers. All of these references are to evil stepmothers. For example:

[52] One day the stepmother slapped her for breaking a bowl, and Stellina left home, unable to endure any more.

[82] As soon as the king was gone, the stepmother queen went to all lengths to get into his room. She put opium into the wine of his servant …

[95] the stepmother beat the poor girl every day.

[121] The son remained with his stepmother, who paid him no mind whatever, since she was in love with a Moor and had eyes only for him.

Calvino is not alone in ignoring the stereotyping; many modern commentators seem to do the same. The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales (2014) has just one incidental reference to “misogyny” or “misogynist”. Is that not a key question to address in any modern-day evaluation of the fairy tale?

I am not advocating censorship of literature. We recognize aspects of Shakespeare that do not conform to modern values. But in the restricted world of the fairy tale, the message is hammered home in story after story. You could even say the primary message of many (most?) of the tales is for the hero (usually male) to find a rich or titled wife (who typically has little or no choice in the decision) and to overcome the obstructions of stepmothers and other miscellaneous curses. I'd love to explore how many violent deaths occur in the tales to women, and how many to men. 

Perhaps the only response possible today to the traditional folktale is to follow Angela Carter and to rewrite the stories completely to fit 21st-century values. Should we abandon traditional fairy tales and folktales? I am waiting to be persuaded otherwise.