© Anne Else; 23 June 1999

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1999, we've been listening to the fairytales of the global marketplace for fifteen years. For some of us, they are the only tales we know. Young women now entering university started school the year New Zealand's first big global storyteller became Minister of Finance.

Of course, like all fairy tales, these tales change shape as they move around the world. But the basic outlines stay the same.

The global marketplace is a thoroughly Western concept, so these tales are of course based on Western myths and traditions. What are these tales are trying to teach us about how to run our lives and our countries?

1. Mothers and stepmothers are to blame for everything bad that happens to poor children. If they run out of bread, lose their way in the woods or get hooked on candy, it's never the father's or the king's fault.
2. Poor boys with big bullying older brothers can make it to the top and marry a wealthy princess. All they have to do is work hard enough, travel far enough away from home, and do exactly what they're told without arguing.
3. Poor girls with nasty rich older sisters will get to go to a ball and marry a wealthy prince. All they have to do is work all day and all night, be sweet and kind to everyone who orders them around, always try to look their best, and do exactly what they're told without complaining.
4. Shaggy beasts and slimy frogs are really kings and princes in disguise. They may look ugly, sound stupid, and act like cruel tyrants, but they know what they're doing. They're just testing you. Love and obey them and their true worth will be revealed.
5. Old women are really evil witches who have the power to blight the land. If you are too kind to them, they will hold the peasants to ransom, steal the bread from children's mouths, and keep the country poor. They must be made to stand on their own two feet and not bludge off the rest of us.
6. If a strange man suddenly wakes you up and tells you he is a brave prince who has just rescued you from a spell cast by a wicked witch disguised as a kindly old granny, believe him - and help him chop down all those old roses. He knows what's good for you and your garden.
7. If an ugly old woman builds you a high tower to live in and says it's to keep you safe from greedy foreign raiders, don't believe her. She's really a wicked witch. When a charming foreigner comes along, let him climb up your hair. It may hurt at the time, but once he's inside you'll be much better off. He will set you free and bring you lots of wonderful overseas gifts.
8. Witches are always bad, but wizards are always good. They have awesome and unlimited powers. Not only can they turn frogs into princes. They can turn one old sheep into hundreds of young sheep. They can turn cow's milk into medicine and toads into potatoes. But never try to ask them any questions about what they're doing. Ordinary people are much too stupid to understand the answers. Besides, they might get angry and turn you into a homeless beggar.
9. Look around your town or village. If you find that where there were once many ordinary people living in ordinary houses, there are now a few wealthy people living in palaces and lots of poor people living in hovels, it's a sure sign that everything is going according to plan. A happy ending is just around the corner.
    

These fairy tales were part of a paper given by Anne Else at the Women's Conference Against Apec, "Beware the Miss-Leaders", Wellington, 19-20 June 1999. You can see the complete paper on this site at:
  www.geocities.com/nzwomen/AnneElse/19990620againstAPEC.html

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