Stepmothers have always been witches. Long before the Brothers Grimm gave us Snow White’s usurping queen (and long before Gal Gadot’s toe-curling recent turn in the role), there was Medea, witch of classical myth. Medea is best remembered for killing her own children but, according to Ovid, she went on to acquire a stepson, the hero Theseus, and attempted to kill him too. (Poison, of course, and with an eye on his inheritance: Witchy stepmothering 101.)
Two millennia after Ovid, modern women still let our lives be limited by such stories. A new survey says that 43% of single mothers are deterred from dating other parents by “negative stereotypes of stepmothers portrayed in popular culture”; 37% explicitly cite the fear that their partners’ children will view them as a “wicked stepmother”. One should approach such a survey with caution – it is commissioned by a dating app for parents – but these findings are mirrored in academic studies the world over. A 2018 survey from New Zealand found that stepmothers altered their behaviour, fearful of setting boundaries with their stepchildren, for fear of the “wicked stepmother” tag.
