Once upon a time, an elderly womxn was sitting in her rocking chair thinking how happy she would be if she had a child. It wasn’t that the patriarchal society imposed it on her that a childless womxn was inherently unsuccessful and her life was unfulfilled. Rather, she viewed it as her own choice to bring new life into this world when she was ready.
Suddenly, she heard a knock at the door and opened it. Somebody disturbed her peace and showed up with no notice. A young womxn was standing there and she said, “If you let me in, I will grant you a wish.” How rude it was to appear at someone’s place and manipulate them into letting a complete stranger invade their personal space!
Nevertheless, the elderly womxn let her in, completely forgetting that stranger was danger. She did that, firstly, because she felt pity, secondly, because she was selfish enough to make a wish whatever the cost might be…a child. After she allowed the stranger to take a shower and had dinner with her, she saw that she was really beautiful. She didn’t mean to objectify her, though, and she wanted to acknowledge that that the young womxn had always been beautiful, just probably an elderly womxn didn’t pay attention. The last thing she wanted to do was to judge somebody based on their physical appearance.
The lady had a healthy 9-hour sleep and then right before she left, she said, “Now, about your wish. What do you want?”
Most people, and this judgement was based solely on her experience, wished to be persons of the largest material wealth, influenced by this capitalistic and materialistic society, or be persons of power, abusing less privileged classes all they wanted, or be the most intellectually gifted, or have the physical appearance that would serve to attract male’s attention and satisfy patriarchal standards for female persons.
But the elderly womxn was not so basic. Her wish took the lady aback. She said, “I would like a child.”
“What did you say?” she asked because she was astonished at what the old lady asked for. Was she still pressured into having children at such respectful age? The elderly lady repeated herself, thinking that the womxn she was having a conversation with was hard of hearing. “I would like a child.”
Deciding not to be judgmental, the lady then placed a tiny seed in the old womxn’s hand and politely gave her instructions. “Please, plant this seed, water it carefully, watch over it, and give it your love. If you do all those things, then you will have a child.”
So the elderly womxn did all of those things the lady had told her to, not questioning her sanity. In a week, there was a beautiful yellow flower in place of the seed. The next day, the flower bloomed. Inside the flower was a beautiful little child who was the size of the womxn’s thumb so the womxn inquired the child about pronouns. Once she made sure this child identified herself as a womxn and went by “she/her” pronouns, she a called her Thumbelina. She made her gender-neutral clothes out of golden threads. Thumbelina slept in a walnut shell and brought the elderly womxn joy and happiness, the elderly womxn felt like she finally fulfilled herself.
But, one day when Thumbelina went down for her health-nap, a frog hopped through the open window when they were ventilating their room and said, “You will be a perfect bride for my son,” and she took Thumbelina to a lily pad and hopped off to find her son.
Thumbelina cried. She was shocked that she was abducted for such a stupid, sexist reason. She couldn’t believe that those species did not ask for her consent, nor did they ask her about her sexuality. They rudely assumed that a young lady would want to marry some random man.
Some little guppies heard her loudly expressing her strong feelings and chewed the roots off the lily pad to help her escape. Thumbelina’s lily pad floated away. A few hours later, she finally stopped floating. During the summer, she ate berries and drank the dew off the leaves. But then winter came and she needed shelter. A kindly mouse let her stay with it, but it said, “You’ll have to marry my friend, Mole, because I cannot keep you for another winter.”
Thumbelina sighed in disbelief. All those animals were giving her the weirdest ultimatums and made her feel as if she was not a worthy member of society if she chose to be single.
With no alternative, the next day she went to see Mole. In one of the tunnels, she found a bird who was experiencing certain health problems and said, “Poor thing, I will bury it to honor its life.” Then she found out that it was still alive and felt extremely guilty that she unintentionally thought of that bird as dead. To ease her guilt, she cared for it until it was ready to fly. It flew off not even saying thank you. That fall she nearly had to give up and marry Mole. But then she heard a familiar tweet (not the ones you post on Twitter) and an idea popped up in the bird’s head.
“You can come down to the country with the most suitable climate for you,” said the bird, so Thumbelina hopped on the bird’s back and flew to the warm country. The people there who were like her asked her what her name was. She decided to start anew. “Erin,” she said. She became a self-made womxn and she lived happily ever after.
