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| From Rachel's doll collection: River Dance Barbie |
Note: Not really for kids. Once upon a time, in a wheel-chair accessible location with barrier-free facilities, "there once lived a young wommon named Cinderella, whose natural birth-mother had died" when her daughter was pre-adolescent. A few years later her father became life-partners with another woman, with two female dependents of her own. "Cinderella's mother-of-step treated her very cruelly, and her sisters-of-step made her work very hard, as if she were their own personal, unpaid laborer." One day, the blended family received an invitation. "The prince was celebrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy-dress ball." Of course, her step-sibs told Cinderella that she would not be attending. They guilt-tripped her into helping THEM get ready to go, and left her home, " with her Holly Near records. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood a man, dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. At first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer or a bandleader, but he soon put her straight. ' Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson or individual deity proxy, if you prefer." When she told him that she hoped to emulate the strict gender-specific role for women which her three step-siblings were pursuing at the royal celebration, he was not impressed with her capacity to think outside the box. But he sighed " and decided to put off her political education till another day." Then he did some magic and made her some lovely clothes, (magically produced in a cruelty-free environment) "enveloped her in a beautiful, bright light, and whisked her away to the palace." She went inside, only slightly hampered by her elaborate hairdo of coils "festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenseless oysters. And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal." (The King winced when he saw them and asked his royal attorney to double check the palace's slip-and-fall policy.) All of the males present "stared at and lusted after this wommon who had captured perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine desirability." As for the prince, he thought to himself that he had finally found " a wommon that I could make my princess and impregnate with the progeny of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy of every other prince for miles around. And she's blonde, too!" Physical sensations of arousal affected "every man younger than 70 and not serving drinks." Soon an entirely inappropriate display of physical aggression was in progress. A young duke grabbed hold of Cinderella, pulling her away from her social equal, the son of the ruler of her kingdom. " The prince's response was a swift kick to the groin, which left the duke temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other sex-crazed males, and he disappeared into a pile of human animals. The womyn were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone," and moved to the other side of the room. Chaos ensued, and the decibel level rose so high that when the time-keeping tone sounded an even dozen number of peals, nobody heard it. But Cinderella's garments reverted to their pre-magical state, and she "was dressed once again in her peasant's rags. Her mother and sisters-of-step recognized her now, but kept quiet to avoid embarrassment. The womyn grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the confinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched and scratched her ribs. All of the other females who were present now 'stripped off their bodices, corsets, shoes and every other confining garment. They danced and jumped and screeched in sheer joy, comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet." The men beat each other into a pulp rich in blood serum, and the womyn decided to take a hands-off approach to this behavior. They left the castle and formed a female-centric community and "set up a clothing co-op that produced only comfortable, practical clothes for womyn." They called it "Cinder-Wear" and "through self-determination and clever marketing they all — even the mother and sisters-of-step—lived happily ever after."
From Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life and Times (1994) by Garner, J.F. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company
Notes: For good or for bad, there is nothing to add!
