Cinderella Womens role and false moral

The supposed moral of the story for Cinderella is that inner beauty and grace is the most important aspect in a women. While i may find that to be true, I feel that Cinderella did not do a good job correctly identifying that moral. While inner beauty is supposed to be the most important quality, Cinderella is only noticed because she is transformed into a beautiful princess and is allowed to go to the ball. She is then recognized by all of the men who are there, not because of her inner beauty, but because of her actual beauty. She is also described as at her most happy when she is dressed up and admired by everyone at the ball. This contradicts the moral because Cinderella finds her happiness through looking pretty and materialistic values. The entire story is changed due to Cinderella being able to show her beauty, which allows her to marry the prince and also allows her to get her sisters married into the royal family as well. All of this is brought about because of Cinderellas physically beauty which allows her to get noticed by all of the men. I believe that the true moral of the story should be about how beauty can help you to achieve happiness. I also thought it was interesting how women are perceived in the story. The women in the story are often associated with cleaning and do jobs around the house. They are also perceived as being obsessive over material things along with spending hours getting ready for the ball. Another important point is how the women in the novel are shown to achieve happiness through marriage. Making it seem as if the most important thing in a women's life is to look pretty and find a man to marry, hopefully one with money and power. The women characters are also shown to marry not in love but rather as if they marry into a social class or marry simply because it is who they end up getting "assigned to." One exception however is the stepmother. The stepmother is in control of her marriage and is given sometimes manly characteristics and traits in order too establish her as the the dominant figure in the household and her marriage. It is making a statement about women's role in society by having to give the stepmother manly traits in order to label her as the dominant figure in the household. This shows how men are most commonly more respected and taken seriously during this time and throughout the story. I also noticed how the prince is going from house to house trying to find the female who can fit the glass slipper. I felt this was significant because again, men are only focusing on the physical aspects rather than the inner beauty. He is trying to find the women who he is "in love with" and he has only seen her two nights. This is also making a statement about how men view women more by physical standards rather than personality traits.