Reddit reviews Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World

Not superheroes, but if you read her stories, she might enjoy these folk tale collections: 1, 2. My daughter likes them a lot.

Again not superheroes, but the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has lots of excellent cartoons with female leads who don’t exist just to be rescued by males.

Irigaray did some work on mythological and religious representations of mother-daughter relationships. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

>According to Irigaray, while it is necessary to alter cultural norms, it is equally as important to address the problematic nature of individual relationships between women-especially the mother/daughter relationship. To emphasize how mother/daughter relationships are sundered in contemporary Western culture, Irigaray turns to Greek mythology. For example, she discusses the myth of Demeter, the goddess of the earth (agriculture), and her daughter Persephone. In the myth, Zeus, Persephone's father, aids his brother Hades, king of the underworld, to abduct the young Perspephone. Hades has fallen in love with Persephone and wants her to be queen of the underworld. When Demeter learns that her daughter is missing, she is devastated and abandons her role as goddess of the earth. The earth becomes barren. To reestablish harmony in the world, Zeus needs Demeter to return to her divine responsibilities. Zeus orders Hades to return Persephone. However, Persephone is tricked into eating a pomegranate seed that binds her to Hades forever. Under the persuasion of Zeus, Hades agrees to release Persephone from the underworld for half of each year. Irigaray reads this myth as an example of both a positive mother/daughter relationship, and the success of men at breaking it apart. Demeter and Persephone love each other and Demeter strives to protect her daughter. However, in this myth they are ultimately at the mercy of the more powerful males. The myth is also an example of men exchanging women as if they were commodities. Zeus conspires with his brother and, in effect, gives his daughter away without consulting either Persephone or Demeter. Irigaray believes that myths tell us something about the deterioration of the mother/daughter relationship and the manner in which men have traditionally controlled the fate of women-whether they are wives, daughters, sisters, or mothers. Irigaray utilizes myth to suggest that mothers and daughters need to protect their relationships and strengthen their bonds to one another.

>The need to alter the mother/daughter relationship is a constant theme in Irigaray's work. While she believes that women's social and political situation has to be addressed on a global level, she also thinks that change begins in individual relationships between women. Thus she stresses the need for mothers to represent themselves differently to their daughters, and to emphasize their daughter's subjectivity. For example, in je, tu, nous, Irigaray offers suggestions for developing mother-daughter relationships such as displaying images of the mother-daughter couple, or consciously emphasizing that the daughter and the mother are both subjects in their own right.

I remember reading Irigaray on encountering a representation of Mary and her mother Anne, and lamenting how rare such representations (Mother-Daughter) are compared to representations of Mary and Christ (Mother-Son). Here's the image as well as some analysis of her religious work.

As an elementary school teacher, I really value Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World as a resource for legends and myths that feature female protagonists.

Some possibilities,

Fearless Girls, Wise Women

Wise Women

Not one damsel in distress

Women's mythology is taking off in really great ways right now, so I recommend you follow this thread. I expect it will prove to be very important in the coming years and there's a lot out there. The problem is a lot of these women's stories especially coming out of Hollywood aren't women's mythology, but instead a form of men's stories with women characters shoehorned in.

So for example, many men's myths particularly those involving quests can be understood as an inflated version of hunting. Whereas when you read older folktales involving women, they seem to involve much more of the ideas of gathering (various objects to later help on the journey). Of course these two things are not mutually exclusive and so you get a lot of hybrids where there are both quests but side stories where you're gathering components. Harry Potter is an good example of this. But the problem I find with a lot of these news stories, especially applying Campbell's idea of the hero which is very masculine, to feminine characters is it demonstrates most people haven't read enough folktales, especially not ones with women in them.

Another example might be that women in myths and folktales rarely have mentors, instead they usually depend on a smaller animal character helper who acts as a personification of internal guidance or intuition. So you might look at Toto in the Wizard of Oz this way. I find that the new Star Wars completely ignored these forms of things, and while the cornerstone of the original trilogy is the being force sensitive or an intuitive, this means listening to yourself. So you actually have a pivot point known as the internal mentor as opposed to the external mentor, the new stories lack any mention of intuition of this almost entirely.

All that said, I'd highly highly recommend you try your hand at formulating some of your own mythic theories by reading a lot of original folktales. Kathleen Ragan's book Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World is a wonderful resource beyond Women who Run with the Wolves.

Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters?
https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Girls-Women-Beloved-Sisters/dp/0393320464/ref=asc_df_0393320464/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312065522531&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5436919316565481038&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029145&hvtargid=pla-431994358942&psc=1

When my mom was in college, she gave me Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. I was approximately your sister's age and found it to be helpful during my adolescence.

Additionally, my mom gave me a collection of feminist fairy tales (Don't Bet on the Prince) when I was around 9. Another good book would be Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World.

Finally, I would suggest The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. THG has a strong female lead and HP features several incredibly intelligent, strong female characters.

PS: You are an amazing sister!

When I was little kid I loved Diamonds and Toads, although I think it may have been because of my early obsession with reptiles and the idea that live snakes could fall from my mouth was pretty neat.

When I was ~11 my mom gave me a copy of Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters and I love, Love, LOVE this book. It has a bunch of folktales from around the world in it and my favorite really depends on my mood. Though I have to say that the Story of the Princess and the Mountain Dweller (Pacific Northwest) and Yousif Al-Saffani (Sudan) are among my favs.

Both involve women getting shit done, which I have always appreciated.

I'd say you could give them books by Dianna Wynne Jones Vivian Van Verde, Ursula LeGuin, or Jane Yolen.

but there's all kinds of folktakes and fairytales they might like with legitimately strong women and girls.

Not a real life example but as they are in year 4 there's a book called 'Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters' it's a collection of fairy tales and folklore from around the world featuring women. There may even be some from Kuwait or around the region. My dad read it to me when I was young and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393320464