Awake Not Sleeping: The Power of Storytelling to Activate Gender Equality and Respectful Relationships in Our Minds, Homes and Communities

Abstract

During the emerging COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, UN Women Europe and Central Asia engaged a team of writers and gender equity consultants to support the process for reimagining fairy tales for a new generation of young readers. Over a two-year period the UN Women team, Donna-Jo Napoli, Angela Walsh and Kalina Maleska collaborated with care with over 120 feminist writers to reflect on fairy tales from across Europe and Central Asia with ‘affectionate scepticism’ (Carter, 2005) and to create our first, powerful Awake Not Sleeping collection of 28 fairy tales to spark young readers’ curiosity about gender equality.