"I’ve been asked in interviews, in classrooms and by audiences, if I think fairy tales are feminist. I think they are, but not by our modern definition of feminism. Traditional fairy tales were created long before any such notion existed, and I’d say they help women, rather than lift up women. They warn, rather than extol. They’re useful, which is a much older kind of feminism.That said, there are many modern writers who’ve taken traditional fairy tales and made something more explicitly feminist of them, in part by simply subverting expectations. Angela Carter and Kelly Link come to mind, as does Helen Oyeyemi, Molly Gaudry, Kate Bernheimer, and Matt Bell. These writers aren’t creating explicitly feminist fairy tales in the way that, for example, the film Frozen does. Instead, they take a hard look at the problematic nature of the stories they’ve laid open, and give us new perspectives, new ways to see. Often their retellings are even darker than the originals, in part because they invite a modern, feminist gaze, while pulling back the curtain to reveal the appalling lack of options our protagonists are faced with. There are no levers or buttons; just modern readers, seeing clearly (and uncomfortably) the parallels between the lives of these protagonists and women in our own time."
Full essay from Amber Sparks: The Useful Wisdom of Fairy Tales: Because Sometimes the Wolf Shows Up Uninvited
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