A Celebration of Diversity in Women's Literature Pt 4

This is the fourth piece in this weekly series.

Enjoy!

*********************************************************************************************************************************************
How Literature Shaped the Woman I Would Become - by Christina Sanders Ring

I was a shy little girl. I didn’t have fun playing with other children because I wasn’t as fleet-footed or quick-tongued. I learned early that questions were a disruption, and my thoughts and ideas were weird. 

I had also been an early reader, and childhood was made bearable by the fact that my kindergarten self was able to read pictureless books with chapters and long passages. I was allowed to read during recess, and, at home, I was quiet and occupied, so nobody ever hollered at me to “go outside and play.” Library Day was the best day of the week while I was in elementary school. I borrowed my limit each time and finished up before it was time to go back. I read the Little House on the Prairie series, all the Oz books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and all twelve of Andrew Lang’s Coloured Fairy Books. Towards and throughout high school, I was into Grimm’s, Greek mythology, witchy folk tales, and V.C. Andrews (no shame). These days, I like a mixed-genre mess: give me a dystopian magical sci-fi time-travel mystery…actually, make it a trilogy. 

I’ve read at least broadly enough to have earned an English degree, but I like what I like. I can’t pick a single book that’s been influential to me or my conception of feminism, but now that I’ve put all these stories together on the same figurative bookshelf, I know I have a favorite theme.

It’s a little girl, or a young lady, or a woman of indeterminate age, whose hair is blonde or brown or red or made of snakes, and whose curiosity, strengths, wishes, and gut feelings are too often dismissed. 

It’s a girl who sits at the table full of boys, takes a stand against status quo, and false nobility, discovers the villain’s secret, and channels her fear into action and learns how to wield her own kind of magic.

It’s a girl who stops asking for permission and hoping to be seen, because she is able to see and empower herself. 

It’s a girl, or a young lady, or a woman of indeterminate age, who goes over the rainbow and down the rabbit hole, through the big woods and into the caves, across the sea and off to the uncertain future.

I’m an assertive woman. I have fun spending time with other people, and although I’m still not fleet-footed, I’m fairly quick-witted. Questions are a disruption, but I ask them anyway. My weird thoughts and ideas combine with compassion, sorority, and study to create the mixed-genre mess that is my own kind of magic.

And I know how to wield it.