As a part of the BBC’s 100 Women season, author Jeanette Winterson has been to a Cotswold primary school to help the pupils there rewrite the sexist Cinderella Fairy Tale and give it a modern day twist.
The 100 Women Season is a series of programmes that showcases the groundbreaking moments of defiance, debates on the inclusivity of feminism and conversations with world famous leaders in music, sport and politics, alongside other less well-known yet equally important voices ad is being shown over the next three weeks on BBC and BBC iPlayer.
In the original Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper as it was first called follows the classic folk- fairy tale premise of the maiden in distress, (kept in dismal conditions and in servitude to her stepmother’s foul family) being rescued by her knight in shining armour (or in this case the delectable prince Charming and after a single dance and a lost shoe) then consents to be his wife forever more. Now while that may have been every little girl’s dream back in the 17th century modern day girls are no longer happy playing the helpless woman whose life is lived at the whim of whatever or whoever happens to have possession of her and would much rather their literary heroines took things into their own hands.
In this clip the children discuss how they think a modern day Cinderella should read.
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