Full Storify of the tweets here.

My Twitter feed was all abuzz yesterday after young adult author Melissa Grey (@meligrey) posted a series of tweets about re-imagining the classic story of Cinderella as the triumph of a child abuse survivor. She challenged the idea that the story is "antifeminist dreck," all about a woman who "waited around" for her prince (a man, naturally) to rescue her. Instead, she sees Cinderella as a woman who overcame impossible circumstances to find her own happiness. Sure, it might be the old trope of "finding love," but as Grey says, "Do you have any idea how hard it is for survivors to believe they're worth loving?"

As someone who grew up in an unstable home and went on to have an awful first romantic and sexual relationship, Grey's tweets really hit home for me. To say that a person is simply letting his or her family treat them a certain way is invalidating the fear and feelings of powerlessness experienced by those who suffer from abuse. This holds especially true when you're talking about children being mistreated by their families. When your fundamental model of what loving and caring for another person looks like is warped, is it any surprise that you may go on to have trouble with relationships later in life? Maintaining a supportive, loving relationship—romantic, platonic, or otherwise—is an enormous achievement.

Sure, this analogy isn't perfect. We don't find out how happy Cinderella's "ever after" really is, falling in insta-love might not be the best strategy for cultivating an enduring, healthy romance, and, as my boyfriend pointed out, Prince Charming definitely gets cast more as "the rescuer" than "the partner." I still think that Grey gives us plenty of food for thought.

Source: This article from The Artifice.

To switch gears here, I want to address Grey's refutation of the idea that seeking love is inherently antifeminist. I always find it hard to put my thoughts into words about questions like these, but I'll try my best. It's true that our literary tradition is full of women who see marriage or romance as the key to everlasting happiness, and this indeed is a woefully limiting message for girls and young women to hear. But does this mean that a woman who sees a romantic relationship as a worthwhile component of a happy life is automatically "part of the problem," or somehow not worth talking about?

Ana of Things Mean A Lot has a favorite motto when it comes to writing about women: all the stories, please. I take this to mean stories about women seeking love, stories about women not seeking love, and stories about women that have nothing to do with love at all. The idea that a woman's life (or story, as it were) is only meaningful if she's shattering stereotypes strikes me as extremely antifeminist. Women (like men, like all people) are multifaceted, and just because one aspect of a woman's life strikes you as "cliché" doesn't invalidate her worth as a human being. Still, this does raise a very important question: how do we successfully get the message across that whatever makes a woman happy is worthwhile without unintentionally reinforcing harmful tropes?