that they like to women without considering women’s feeling. It results in an unfair treatment towards women in the form of subordination.
3. Stereotyping
Stereotyping or labeling women with certain traits is a form of gender discriminations that even women often unnoticed. In male dominated society,
women’s stereotypes are mostly associated with negative traits. It is because the positive traits are attributed to men. Patriarchal society labels women with negative
traits such as inferior, submissive, timid, dependent and emotional because the society sees women as inferior creatures. Even though the effect of stereotyping is not
as obvious as other forms of gender discrimination, it still has negative impact such as trauma. Stereotyping controls the expressions, ideas and creativities of women and
it prevents them to have freedom in expressing themselves as individual in the society. In Cookie, Beauty is stereotyped as inferior, submissive, timid, emotional, artsy,
clumsy and domestic.
a. Women are Stereotyped as Inferior
There are certain women’s stereotypes which are believed by patriarchal society. The stereotypes weaken women positions and roles because most stereotypes
denote to women are negative. One of the stereotypes that mostly occurs in the modern patriarchal society is that women are assumed as inferior. In a male
dominated society, men belong to superior class whereas women belong to inferior
class. As a result, women often have inferior feeling towards themselves because the society does not consider them as important part of the society. Women are often
unconfident with their ability and appearance. Inferiority that women feel is presented through some actions and feelings that happens in their daily live. In the novel,
Beauty is stereotyped as inferior. She often feels inferior because of her physical appearance.
I was christened Beauty. It’s a ridiculous name. It would be a silly show-
off shallow name even if I just magically happened to be beautiful. But I am so not beautiful. I don’t take after Mum, I take after Dad. I am small
and squat, with a big tummy. My blue eyes turned green as gooseberries
when I was still a baby, and you can’t really see them anyway because I have to wear glasses. My hair’s mouse, long and lank. Mum tries to tie it
up with slides and ribbons but they always fall out. You can see why Emily and Arabella and Skye tease me so. I am a laughing stock because
of my name.
Wilson, 2016: 7 The datum above shows Beauty’s feeling about her existence. She feels inferior about
everything in herself. First, she feels inferior because of her name. She dislikes her name because she thinks ‘Beauty’ is a silly name that is not suitable with her physical
appearance. Her name is a total opposite of her appearance. Second, she feels inferior because of her physical appearance. Society thinks that beautiful women should be
good looking with decent physical appearance such as tall, slim, fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. In the novel, Beauty is not tall and slim but she is short and fat. Her
eyes are not blue but green and her hair is not blonde but straight and brown. With this kind of appearance, people do not consider Beauty as beautiful. This condition
makes Beauty become object of discrimination and humiliation done by her friends and her father because they stereotyped her as inferior.
A family belonging to a domestic area, should be the place where children feel safe and happy because there are parents beside them to protect and love them.
However, the condition that Beauty faced in the novel is different. Beauty is humiliated by her own father because of her physical appearance. When Beauty
makes mistake, her father will be angry. He insults Beauty’s physical appearance by uttering ruthless words. It affects Beauty’s feeling and dignity and she believes that
she is really ugly and no one wants her. The condition is presented in the datum below.
I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I put my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear them arguing about me. I saw myself in my Venetian glass mirror. I tried
brushing my hair. It stuck limply to my head. I looked at my big face and my fat tummy and my ridiculous clothes. Dad was right. I did look
a sight.
Wilson, 2016: 97 Inferior stereotype that can be found in Beauty’s character occurs as the effect of
standard of women applied in the society, that is women’s beauty standard. When Beauty is mocked by her father, she experiences the feeling as someone who is
inferior and does not have something can be proud of. When her father insults her by saying
‘look a sight’ which means her appearance is awful or unsuitable, she looks at the reflection in the mirror and believes what her father says. She feels that her father
does not deserve her as his daughter because she is ugly. Furthermore, Beauty also thinks that she is inferior because she receives a lot
of bullies from her friends. Bullying is the effect of inferior stereotype towards women because the society sees women as inferior creatures. In Cookie, Beauty cries
to express her feeling towards the bullying that she receives from her friends. Her
friends bully her by making several nicknames for her such as Ugly and Brainbox. As a result, Beauty believes that she is really ugly and it makes her hates her own name
and figure. When she is mirroring herself, she thinks that she looks like a gargoyle that has very ugly face, and her appearance is totally silly with the outfit that does not
suit her body. It is presented in the datum below:
No wonder Skye and Arabella and Emily and all the other girls called me Ugly. It wasn’t just a play on words because of my silly name. I
really was ugly ugly ugly. It was like staring into one of those distorting mirrors at the fairground. My hair drooped, my face twisted like a
gargoyle, and my body blew up like a balloon.
My clothes shrank smaller so that my blouse barely buttoned and my skirt showed my knickers.
Wilson, 2016: 97 From the expression above, Beauty suffers from bullying because her friends
stereotyped her as inferior. They consider Beauty as an ugly and weak child who is not suitable to be friend with them. This condition gives bad effects on Beauty’s
personality. She believes that she is ugly and it makes her feel unconfident with herself. She thinks that her appearance is very bad by referring her face to gargoyle
face and her body to balloon. Therefore, inferior stereotype can cause greater effects upon women’s life because it makes women have no confident with their appearance
and even their existence. Inferior stereotype that is already embedded
in women’s lives cannot be erased. Even when women move to a different place, still this stereotype can be
experienced by them. In the novel, when Beauty leaves the house and moves near the seaside, she still feels inferior about herself. It can be seen in the quotation below.
I was glad I’d changed my mind and made Mum happy and Mike proud – but in the middle of the night, wide awake, I wished wished wished I
didn’t have to. I kept imagining what it would be like. I’d be in a studio with a lot of cool, co
nfident, talented, beautiful girls like Skye. They’d all dance and sing and I’d make a muck-up of my cookies and they’d all
goggle at me and chortle
– and children from John o’Groats to Land’s End would goggle and chortle too.
Wilson, 2016: 305 The datum above shows that Beauty feels anxious about her appearance in the
television show. She is afraid if everyone laughs at her because the other kids who come to the show are very confident, cool and talented which are the total opposite of
her condition for just being a shy and awkward girl. Not only that, inferior stereotype also makes her feels inferior about her skills in making cookies. She is not confident
to show her skills in front of people. She is afraid when she makes cookies she will make mistakes and create such a mess in the studio.
In conclusion, inferior stereotype is very harmful and it is destroying women’s lives. Women consider themselves as inferior because the society makes them believe
that they are not important and ignored. Beauty is one of the examples of female children’s character that experiences inferior stereotype. It makes her cannot live the
way she wants because she always feels inferior about her existence and other people’s opinion about her.
b. Women are Stereotyped as Submissive
