Once again upon a time

Imagine if Beauty and the Beast had a woman playing the Beast and a man playing Beauty, would it work? Probably not. In a world increasingly talking about feminism, the children’s world is heavily divided by ‘blue for boys’ and ‘pink for girls’. Clothes, toys, storybooks and even candies are highly gendered.

But one children’s media space is challenging the norms of what fairy tales should look like. Timbaktu Labs recently made a video named Cinderfella — reimagining Cinderella — that went viral online and stirred a conversation about the need for equality in children’s media space.

Started by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, Timbaktu Labs is constantly reimagining old fairy tales and adding contemporary ones as well. That is when their book, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, was born. “We had been working in the children’s media space for the past five years and witnessed from the inside how gender stereotypes still permeate books for children of all ages. Parents are offered little resources to counter this trend and they are especially concerned about the lack of strong female role models in the books available. That’s why we decided to create these alternative stories,” shares the duo.

Elena and Francesca moved from Italy to California at the end of 2011 to start a company in the children’s media space. Elena had been working as a journalist and Francesca as a stage director and playwright. “We met in Milan and built the first iPad magazine for children in the world, Timbuktu Magazine, in our kitchen,” they share.

Elena and Francesca grew up on classics like Pinocchio, Gulliver, Mowgli and Grimm’s Fairy tales. “Our mothers have always been our strongest role models, and our grandmothers too. We both come from families with strong women,” they say. They believe that apart from stories there can be many other ways to bring about a change in children’s attitude towards gender. “Telling a child to do or not do something because she’s a girl or he’s a boy is a very harmful message, because it places on them expectations that don’t have anything to do with how they personally feel about something. It forces them to think about what is expected by society from them as girls or boys, and this is not the kind of thoughts that we should put in children’s heads,” they explain, adding, “Children are not born thinking girls are inferior to boys. We teach them to think that way, when, for instance, we decide that it is all right to buy a blue T-shirt for a girl but would not consider buying a pink one for a boy.” and when we read books devoid of female protagonists to our girls without even realising it, yet immediately worry that a boy might feel excluded if the protagonist of a story is a female pirate, simply on account of the fact that she is a woman.” They believe household chores should be divided equally between father and mother to make sure that children don’t grow up thinking specific chores are meant for a specific gender.

In their stories they have also tried to find an element of surprise, “We didn’t want this book to be an encyclopedia for kids. It was surprising to find out that Coco Chanel had learned how to sew using black and white scraps of fabric from the nuns’ gowns in the foster home where she grew up, it was surprising to discover the pride of the Mexican activist Eufrosina Cruz, as well as strategies that Ashley Fiolek, a deaf motocross racer, adopted to become a champion. The book is full of surprises,” they add.

The duo wanted to feature women from as many countries as possible, because children’s stories doesn’t just lack diversity in terms of gender, but also in terms of race, sexual orientation and religious background, “We also wanted to feature women in as many careers as possible — we wanted to have trombonists, marine biologists, judges, Presidents, spies, chefs, surfers, poets, rock singers. Finally, we selected women whose personal stories had something that could be particularly interesting for a child, for example the fact that the famous chef, Julia Child, started her career as a spy, cooking shark-repellent cakes during WW2.” In fact, one of the biggest challenges that the duo faced while writing the book was ‘narrowing down the amazing women’.

The book features contemporary stories as well as those inspired from old fairy tales and has started a well-deserved conversation. Talking about the impact of this endeavour, the creators of the book share, “The position of women has significantly improved over time in our society, but there is definitely still lots to do. Especially because no accomplishment, no matter how big, can ever be given for granted.”

While the book has been appreciated a lot, the duo has also faced a lot of backlash and trolling for their projects. They have also received threats on some occasions. “You always get sexist comments when you speak up and face these issues. We’re trying to change the status quo, and changing the status quo makes many people immediately uncomfortable,” they share.

The book features original artworks from 60 female artists commissioned to illustrate stories that reinvent fairy tales to inspire girls and boys. It is being published in 26 languages this year.