(Not Always) A Damsel in Distress: Reimagining Feminine Power in Folktales

Folktales are more than just children’s bedtime stories. They teach us the very first lessons about cultural values, beliefs, and social norms passed down through generations. While many traditional narratives across cultures feature women in passive roles, a closer look at Vietnamese folklore reveals a more complex picture, showcasing female characters who defy typical stereotypes and demonstrate remarkable agency and strength.

“Cinderella” is not just about the triumph of good

Many know Cinderella, but the traditional Vietnamese version, Tấm Cám, is a familiar story told differently. Like the Western version, in the story’s first half, Tấm is a kind and beautiful girl who has to endure maltreatment and repeated injustices. With resilience and help from others, she ultimately finds her happily ever after life.

Yet, the Vietnamese version offers a striking twist: far from passive forgiveness, Tấm takes brutal revenge, leading to the demise of her stepfamily. This narrative, reflecting potent ideas about female agency and the evolution of Tấm from passive virtue to actively seeking justice, sparks a question. Are gender norms embedded in Vietnamese folklore consistent with the known biases? More importantly, are there any variations in gender portrayals in a culturally rich and diverse nation like Vietnam?

AI-assisted annotation of gender portrayals

In our British Academy-funded research, we use the advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP)—a field that enables computers to analyse human language—and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to systematically analyse the stories and extract prevalent motifs and gender signatures, such as patterns of description, action, and role by gender. The results revealed most of the main characters are men. Across the board, common gender stereotypes are echoed, with female characters often associated with good-looking appearance, gentle actions, and familial roles. In contrast, male characters are linked to less flattering appearances but more forceful actions, and are frequently depicted in roles assigned by occupations or circumstances. These “collective” depictions of women and men also emerge in the stories originating from patrilineal societies (eg, Kinh, Mường). Conversely, in Chăm stories, female characters are described with assertive or aggressive actions. This aligns with their matrilineal kinship system, where women traditionally have significant roles in the family and society. These variations suggest a fascinating potential correlation between a group’s social structure and the gendered agency depicted in their traditional narratives.

And beyond machine reading

Although modern technology, particularly NLP and GenAI, can help us gain a high-level understanding of gender portrayals collectively and across groups, there are more nuances and subtle messages beyond typical gender stereotypes and biases that are worth exploring. Women in Vietnamese folktales rarely emerge as paragons of unblemished virtue for modern-day readers, but neither are their “feminine” traits ever painted as weak. On the contrary, softness, empathy, and grace cohabit powerfully and subserviently with defiance, incredible wit, and vengeance.

Such cohabitation is best exemplified by Princess Liễu Hạnh. She, daughter of the Jade Emperor, was banished to earth for her unruly spirit. She opened a tavern at Transverse Pass—welcoming honest travellers with tender care—yet mercilessly punished any man who tried to force himself on her. A crown prince who schemed to seduce her was first enticed by a bewitched peach, then sent mad by a phantom monkey and cobra. When the king’s priests and the Eight Vajrapani came to subdue her, she bested them with a three-day magic battle, only to clarify that her wrath was aimed at chastising men who prey on women. Her hospitality and her fury are two “sides” of the same undeniably indomitable agency “coin.” Tấm Cám and Princess Liễu Hạnh remind us that “softness” does not equate to “weakness.” They are wise and stubborn, nurturing yet ferocious, obedient when it suits, and defiantly impertinent when it does not. The heroines of Vietnamese folktales embody dichotomous traits co-existing in harmony and creating compelling, brilliantly nuanced characters for children and adult readers.

More work is needed to harmonise modern technology and human input to deepen our understanding of nuanced cultural values, particularly gender aspects, in folklore. At the same time, it is also essential to understand how such values or biases are reflected in today’s society and their economic impacts (eg, women’s labour force participation).

Acknowledgement: We are grateful to Major Books for granting us access to artworks of Tấm Cám and Princess Liễu Hạnh (Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales Volume 1, 2025).

This blog appears as part of our Folklore Reimagined season.