Tad mentions that grandmothers told this story to their grandchildren. I think he’s trying to imply that therefore it can’t be sexist/ patriarchal and/or that the grandmothers endorsed the patriarchal norms. I have some thoughts on that claim:
1)Women are just as responsible for perpetuating patriarchy as men. That doesn’t mean we can’t or don’t want to or shouldn’t try to change it now. No matter our gender.
2)Coaching a child on how to survive within patriarchy is not the same as endorsing it.
3)The belief that the grandmothers were simply passing on the culture as they found it underestimates the ability of grandmothers to subvert.
Also,Tad insists on retaining every detail in the story as necessary. At the same time, he offers us multiple versions of the story, that vary not only in detail but in major plot lines. So the story whose canonical integrity he is defending was told at a very particular place in a very particular time. That’s interesting, and valuable, and there is much in that particular telling that is useful for us now. At the same time, we won’t be able to make full use of it if we don’t put it into context and include in our thinking the fact that we are living in a different place in a different time. Clearly the story changes with every telling. It is our responsibility, not just our right, to retell it in the context of now, again and again. Otherwise the story becomes a dead idol.
