Pippi - A Modern Day Role Model

Pippi Longstocking is not everyone's favorite. My older sister remembers her being banned in our household and neither my younger sister nor I knew who she was by the time we reached adulthood.

A few years ago we were watching the Swedish version (compliments of my daughter) and we talked about how controversial she must have been in her day, and how much of a role model she is here in Sweden, even if Astrid never intended it to be that way.


Without doubt you could write an entire paper (or two) about Pippi, about the chicken and the egg theory - did she influence or reflect earlier Swedish attitudes? You could write about her character traits and her attitudes, about her presence in every Swedish child's mind, about women (and men) in Sweden today and their position in the world, in the work place, in society, and in the home. I wonder how many papers out there have been written on Pippi.

And although we have had the 60th Anniversary of Pippi she still continues to influence and to be a role model. Swedish newspaper SvD reported recently on the Swedish Attorney General's letter to her French colleague Rachida Dati. Beatrice Ask's empathy must have been strong for this single mother who refused to name the father of her child and subsequently returned to work just 5 days after giving birth to her daughter. Ask was Minister of Education when she, as a single woman, gave birth to a son, returning to work immediately afterwards.

In her support amidst the controversy and rumors, Ask supposedly wrote: Pippi was an unusually strong and adventuresome girl with a warm heart. I think applies to you both.

Long live Pippi!!