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Little Red Riding Hood

There once was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother’s house—not because this was womyn’s work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of community. Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket through the woods. Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident enough in her own budding sexuality that such obvious Freudian imagery did not intimidate her.

On the way to Grandma’s house, Red Riding Hood was accosted by a wolf. who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, “Some healthful snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.”

The wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

Red Riding Hood said, “I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”

Red Riding Hood walked on along the main path. But, because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the wolf knew a quicker route to Grandma’s house. He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid course of action for a carnivore such as himself. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he put on Grandma’s nightclothes and crawled into bed.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, “Grandma, I have brought you some fatfree, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a wise and nurturing matriarch.”

From the bed, the wolf said softly, “Come closer, child, so that I might see you.”

Red Riding Hood said, “Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as a bat. Grandma, what big eyes you have!”

“They have seen much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what a big nose you have, only relatively, of course, and certainly attractive in its own way.”

“It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what big teeth you have!”

The wolf said, “I am happy with who I am and what I am,” and leaped out of bed. He grabbed Red Riding Hood in his claws, intent on devouring her. Red Riding Hood screamed, not out of alarm at the wolf’s apparent tendency toward crossdressing, but because of his willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing woodchopperperson (or log-fuel technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the cottage, he saw the melee and tried to intervene. But as he raised his ax, Red Riding Hood and the wolf both stopped.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” asked Red Riding Hood.

The woodchopper-person blinked and tried to answer, but no words came to him.

“Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your thinking for you!” she exclaimed. “Sexist! Speciesist! How dare you assume that womyn and wolves can’t solve their own problems without a man’s help!”

When she heard Red Riding Hood’s impassioned speech, Grandma jumped out of the wolf’s mouth, seized the woodchopperperson’s ax, and cut his head off. After this ordeal, Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the wolf felt a certain commonality of purpose. They decided to set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, and they lived together in the woods happily ever after.

CINDERELLA

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, lived a noble gentleman and his (without denoting any real possession) dear daughter. She was very beautiful – her breasts were centrally located and she was cosmetically gifted.

He loved her very much, and he was worried that she was lonely, as her mother was metabolically challenged, and dwelled 6 feet underground. So the gentleman conjoined in a purely egalitarian partnership with a lady who had (without denoting any real possession) two daughters of her own, figuring that they’d be kind and sweet to his own lovely offspring.

Instead, they made her do all the domestic labour, and made her wear the clothes a financially disadvantaged person (or perdaughter) would. Both girls were aesthetically different and had a more challenging odour than would be normal, as well as having their own unique, rather liberal, moral codes, allowing them to bully and taunt the poor girl and make her do all the chores. The poor child would spend her days in the cellar, peeling potatoes, sat in a hunch in the corner by the chimney, and for this reason the sisters nicknamed her ‘Cinderella’.
One day, it was announced that one of the most financially advantaged people in the town, the King’s son, was going to throw a big ball. The sisters were asked to go, and they were so excited they ran around for days, laughing hysterically. They bought themselves fancy dresses that were so stuffed with jewels they stood up by themselves, and spent days and days talking about all the people of important social status that they planned to meet.

The great day arrived, and Cinderella found herself in the cellar by herself. “I wish I could go to the ball,” she said to herself. “I bet I could pull that prince – I’m far prettier than those two unconventional-looking, loved-by-spots, 300-pound dinosaurs. I’m far more preferable to men.” The two sisters departed, and Cinderella stayed at home and moaned to the silence.

It was not long until there was a big puff of blue smoke and a rather festively-formed, full-figured, gravitationally-powerful woman appeared. It was her fairy godmother. Cinderella recognised her at once.

“I really want…”Cinderella started.

“To go to the ball,” finished the godmother. Cinderella nodded. “Despite how much I support your freedom to be emotional, since I’m considering your own success here I would ask you politely to cease crying, lest it hinder you. Now go to the garden and get me a pumpkin.”

Cinderella could not imagine how a pumpkin could help her to get to the ball – unfortunately she was rather intellectually impaired and did not yet appreciate that the fat woman who had appeared out of thin air was magic.

Nonetheless, she took herself to the garden and took the biggest pumpkin she could carry back to the fairy godmother, who tapped it with her wand, turning it into a golden coach lined with white satin.
The godmother tapped Cinderella on the head and turned her shabby clothes into a stunning white silk dress.

Cinderella was concerned for the fate of the silkworms, but considered how the dress was made – using magic – and decided to forget about it. She looked at herself in the full length mirror, and remarked on her slippers, which were made of glass.
“Now go and get me 6 mice from the luxury mouse-trap with fitted mouse-furniture and a mouse television with specific mouse programming in the kitchen, and a big juicy rat.”

With a touch of the wand, each mouse turned into a horse, and the rat turned into a coach driver. Cinderella grew more concerned.

“Fairy godmother,” Cinderella said, “I am concerned for the wellbeing of these horses and this coach driver. One day they were vermin – not that vermin are lesser life forms, of course, and the next thing you know they’re horses and people, and I don’t plan to pay or feed any of them. Considering they’re working for nothing, exactly where should my morals lie in using them?”

“Shut up and get in the carriage, you selfish brat,” the godmother replied. “Oh, and, if you stay in the palace for one second after midnight, all my magic will vanish and you’ll be cosmetically challenged and in your monetarily inexpensive clothes.”

A few moments later, the coach was rolling down towards the ball with the excited Cinderella inside. She arrived and strode up to the prince, slamming her lips into his and they embraced. For the rest of the night, Cinderella and the prince were constantly in each other’s arms, and the two sisters, who did not recognise their own stepsister, were rather flattered when she spoke some words to them.

The hours flew by so happily that Cinderella did not even notice the time until it the clock began to strike midnight. With a cry of alarm she fled from the room. One of the glass slippers flew from her foot and landed on a crate of beer as she struggled to leave the ball before one second past midnight. The prince hurried after her, but, when he reached the entrance hall, she couldn’t find the beautiful girl – just a cinder-maid in a ragged grey dress.

Cinderella hurried home through the dark streets, overwhelmed with shame.

The next day, there was a great procession of trumpets and drums as a regal possession went through the town, going from place to place, at the head of which sat the king’s son. He held a glass slipper on a red pillow, as a herald announced that any lady in the land who could fit the slipper on her foot and could produce the pair would be to marry the prince, if both parties agreed and if the housework was shared equally. Both sisters tried, but their feet were too spacious to squeeze in. Cinderella begged to try, and, to the scorn of her sisters, the prince agreed.

The slipper slipped easily on, and Cinderella pulled the second glass slipper from her pocket. The prince was overjoyed, and wrapped his arms warmly around the pretty cinder maid.

Cinderella spoke up. “Despite the romantic ending of this story, emotionally I feel a little flat. You have fallen in love with me because the fairy godmother made me look pretty, and I’m not convinced that that is a satisfactory basis for a marriage – you don’t even know me. We have only met on one occasion, and, like in this story, I haven’t even established my true character or personality to you – you have no real idea of how well we’d get along.

I know you think you have noble and chivalrous intentions but in the context of this story they just reinforce negative notions about male dominance – you’re a prince, I’m a cinder maid, and I have no real interest in you to be honest – at least, no interest further than a purely financial one. It might be a happy ending because I’ll be royalty, but I want so much more!”

“I know,” the prince replied. “I’m completely loaded. I’ve got big palaces and we wouldn’t even have to see each other really, except when we’re having sex or ‘Deal or No Deal’ is on. I don’t need a woman with personality – just human contact.”

“So there’d be no love in our marriage? You’re really only interested in me because I’m an attractive female? Just a sex object? You Neanderthal!”

“Alas, yes, but trust me, you’ll enjoy it. It’s a massive social step up and you’ll have loads of money. You bloody feminists – Jesus – you’re just as human as I am when it comes down to it. Your life will be fantastic if we get married, and I don’t even care if you go off hunting for other men – so long as we still have sex and watch ‘Deal or No Deal’. I’m really easy to live with. If you marry me right now, you will definitely live happily ever after.

It’s your choice though, of course.”

Cinderella told the prince she didn’t want to be objectified by a man, and refused point-blank. She carried on being treated like a source of free labour by her morally challenged step-sisters and died in a home for the mentally impaired.