
Culture writer Georgia Husselbee praises the novel Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett for breaking through the sexist stereotypes of fairy tales, and calls for more to be done to make children’s literature representative of our society and values
Fairy tales and folklore have been around for so long that we have become accustomed to their often sexist nature. The female is described as a damsel-in-distress, whilst the male is a knight in shining armour. This narrative is now expected when it comes to fairy tales. The original stories have language portraying women as weak and men as strong, but they never allow it to be the other way around. Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett is so powerful because it directly swaps the roles, nothing else of the story is changed. ‘He’ becomes ‘she’, ‘daughter’ becomes ‘son.’ By not changing any other aspects of the story, this book is very eye-opening as it highlights the outrageous gender stereotypes that are still permeating society through these stories.
Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes
Fairy tales are often the first stories a child hears and remembers, so I think it is important that they are told stories filled with equality, presenting neither the female nor the male as weak
Gender swapping is important as it reveals the harmful stereotypes that are ingrained within society. The ugly step-sisters become the ugly step-brothers; instead of the male being described for his strength and ferocity, his descriptions are reduced to what he’s wearing and what he looks like. This book is great for breaking women out of the sexist stereotype, of needing a man to save them, only being good if they are beautiful, but I do not think it should be the only fairy tale book on a child’s shelf. I think this book could impact the way children’s fiction is written as it illustrates that young children need to be able to see decent representations of themselves in literature from a young age. These depictions need to be positive as, at the end of the day, fairy tales are some of the most accessible and interesting stories for young children and their impact can be everlasting.
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