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A review by _askthebookbug
Cinderella Liberator by Rebecca Solnit
5.0
// Cinderella Liberator by Rebecca Solnit
When we were kids, tales were woven exaggeratedly and with much drama about a lonely princess or a lady who waited for her knight in shining armour. Although such books were titled after women like Cinderella, Snow White, The Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid etc., they ultimately needed a man to come rescue them. Ever noticed how in all these books it was constantly mentioned how women were supposed to learn household chores or how they were always made to be painfully feminine? Those big doe like eyes with a pinched waist, flair complexion further nudged in setting up a problematic example for children. In this 32 paged book by Rebecca Solnit, she debunks the entire idea of a woman having to be a damsel in distress.
Cinderella's story is one of those widely loved fairy tales where little girls were told that a prince will eventually come looking for you and until then she must suffer her fate rather submissively. In this short read, Solnit speaks of how defective this story always was and goes on to write her own version of it. It's sweet, practical and empowering. To know that we have been fed such ridiculous tales from a very young age and that it took us decades to finally realise the wrongness of it all, is a very disturbing thought. Please read this one. You may or may not appreciate Solnit's version but you'll certainly understand why we need books that focuses on women who can make their own choices and to even achieve them without any prince having to help them out.
When we were kids, tales were woven exaggeratedly and with much drama about a lonely princess or a lady who waited for her knight in shining armour. Although such books were titled after women like Cinderella, Snow White, The Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid etc., they ultimately needed a man to come rescue them. Ever noticed how in all these books it was constantly mentioned how women were supposed to learn household chores or how they were always made to be painfully feminine? Those big doe like eyes with a pinched waist, flair complexion further nudged in setting up a problematic example for children. In this 32 paged book by Rebecca Solnit, she debunks the entire idea of a woman having to be a damsel in distress.
Cinderella's story is one of those widely loved fairy tales where little girls were told that a prince will eventually come looking for you and until then she must suffer her fate rather submissively. In this short read, Solnit speaks of how defective this story always was and goes on to write her own version of it. It's sweet, practical and empowering. To know that we have been fed such ridiculous tales from a very young age and that it took us decades to finally realise the wrongness of it all, is a very disturbing thought. Please read this one. You may or may not appreciate Solnit's version but you'll certainly understand why we need books that focuses on women who can make their own choices and to even achieve them without any prince having to help them out.