I had one daughter in 2016. She was 2, and wore her “Future President” shirt with me to the polls. I took a photograph of her trying up on the sky proper earlier than I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton as president, after which I captioned the picture “hope personified.” I put her to mattress, absolutely assured in our nation, believing she’d get up in an America that valued girls.
As a substitute, I cried all night time.
That was an actual curler coaster of a 12 months, stuffed with dizzying hope and monumental letdowns. However within the grief of that 12 months, there’s a small glimmer of pleasure for me, and I usually assume again on it and miss that bizarre bruise of a time. As a result of 2016 additionally felt like a renaissance of woman energy.
It jogged my memory of my very own childhood, when Take Our Daughters to Work Day turned an empowering vacation and the Spice Girls were on stage encouraging us to be ourselves. In 2016, we had been dressing infants in Infamous RBG shirts, shopping for Barbie dolls that represented girls in historical past, taking part in Moana on repeat — and, in our home, we had been studying Good Night time Tales for Insurgent Ladies.
The ebook was a balm for my soul. Launched in November 2016, simply after we wanted it most, the ebook featured one-page tales with beautiful illustrations of ladies and women who’ve performed extraordinary issues in historical past. Some everybody is aware of about — Amelia Earhart, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth — and a few I had by no means heard of earlier than, like Alek Wek, Sylvia Earle, and Ashley Fiolek. My daughter liked it. She referred to as it “the woman ebook” and most well-liked to learn straight by means of, generally getting 5 or 6 historical past classes an evening earlier than I might persuade her we had to avoid wasting for tomorrow.
In a post-election haze the place it felt like I used to be scrambling to get my ft again beneath me, studying Good Night time Tales for Insurgent Ladies to my woman felt like one thing useful to do. Perhaps I couldn’t management what the remainder of the nation was doing. Perhaps I couldn’t preserve her secure from misogyny endlessly. However by studying her these tales, I might give her the protecting barrier that might make her really feel robust and assured and courageous, it doesn’t matter what anybody stated to her.
Now, practically a decade after that first ebook, Good Night time Tales for Insurgent Ladies is getting an replace. The model has grow to be large since that first publication in 2016, with extra volumes of Good Night time Tales, recommendation books, chapter books, and a lot extra empowering media for ladies (and girls, truthfully). However this re-creation, releasing on March 4, 2025, consists of 22 new tales to the unique tales, with a foreword by Melinda French Gates.
And I really feel like we want it much more now than we did in 2016.
The 2024 election was much more painful than the 2016 election for our household. For one, we all know what a Trump presidency seems to be like (goodbye, Roe v. Wade), and for an additional, we’ve now gone from one daughter to a few daughters. Defending one little woman from all of the horrible issues on this planet felt onerous sufficient, however defending three when their very own nation is attempting to dismantle their rights and well-being piece by piece? It’s an excessive amount of to bear. In 2016, pushing for extra feminist books and educating my daughter how empowering it’s to be a lady felt necessary, but additionally enjoyable.
Now I really feel like I’m within the combat of my life to verify all three of my women have the boldness, braveness, and compassion to be the perfect model of themselves, all the time.
This time, there are extra darkish forces at play. There’s DOGE, there’s Elon Musk, there’s RFK Jr. From one nook of the nation to the opposite, issues are unraveling. Because the Department of Education is threatened to be dismantled and “jokes” about women losing the right to vote are made by folks in energy and science is ignored to the purpose of endangering folks’s lives (particularly girls and kids), it feels crucial to deliver Good Night time Tales for Insurgent Ladies again into my daughters’ lives.
I hope they by no means know what it means to not get the training they deserve or to not have the identical alternatives as males. I hope they by no means relate to a few of the extra intense tales of ladies and women who needed to combat like hell to only be handled like a citizen, not to mention an equal one.
However the state of America worries me. And I want them to know what it means to persevere. I want them to know these girls’s tales not only for historical past’s sake, however for his or her future’s sake.
I want them to know what it means to be a Insurgent Lady.
The brand new version of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is ready to launch on March 4, 2025.
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