Back

Cinderella is not a story about a sweet kind sunshine girl who smiled no matter what and went about her daily skulduggery with a song on her lip. It is about being an unapologetic gold digger with dignity.

Cinderella is the everywoman with her strengths and weaknesses. She is single-minded about what she wants, works hard for it, and gets it, and hence is belittled for it because women think she doesn't deserve it and men think she got it too easy.

As a dependent women in a feudal society with little to recommend her excepts her looks and skills, she hones both to perfection to marry a man with the power to get her away from her situation.

She sings as she works. Not because she necessarily has a good voice but to drown other voices that attempt to convince her about her powerlessness and worthlessness.

She recognises the power of allies (remember the mice and the birds) and isn't afraid to be kind.

She knows her shit, can whip up smart solutions, and execute them with panache. Remember the dress she created for the ball.

And when everything went belly-up, she wasn't afraid to accept help -- something a lot of women including myself find extremely hard to do even today.

And finally, when the prince or whoever comes looking for the girl in the glass slipper, she saves herself with help from her allies.

It is important to remember that fairy tales were cautionary tales and were remembered and passed on by women as much as men. Not all these women were the enforcers of patriarchy.
The tales hold a lot of collective wisdom in them that mothers & daughters need to explore together.

Stories are important. So long as there are gender-based gaps in access, opportunities, support networks, & more in education, healthcare, employment, & at the dining table, we need Cinderella to remind us to drown out the voices. And, of course, to seize the means of production.