Roald Dahl books have been edited to remove the word "female" along with other edits.

[GoChasingWaterfalls]

www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/18/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-to-remove-language-deemed-offensive?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It's literary terrorism.

I presume formidable female was used originally for the alliteration.

DD hated RD books due to the descriptive language used. The characters scared her. Thats the same thing which made them good.

Except Matilda which she loves.

You lose the pleasure of the alliteration, for one.

You also lose the slight othering. She’s not womanly. She’s certainly not motherly. She’s a female. Like a female dog or a female cat.

The nuances - at least as Dahl intended them - are different.

But then they'd never sell, and would be lost to new generations.

For example, Enid Blyton's works were magical to me as a child. When my eldest was born, I picked up my husband's childhood copy of Mr Galliano's Circus saying how much I loved this story, and I read a few pages.

I got as far as Lotta introducing her pack of performing dogs "This one's N----r, this one's Darkie..." and snapped it shut. It's not ok. I can't give that to a child.

But it's a change that could easily be made so that children today can still enjoy the story. A children's book is a commercial publication or it's a historical relic. Sometimes it can't be both.

There is lots of language and many ideas in Dahl books that I find distasteful.

But, I think that bowdlerising books published in a different era to fit current sensibilities is a terrible idea.

Oh. I read it as female being a bit insulting and rude. If a kid started talking about someone as a female rather than as a woman (unless it was in specific context) I would think it rude and dehumanising.

Don't know if this link will work as The Telegraph is normally behind a pay wall but for some reason I can view the article. It lists out all the changes in each of the books at the bottom.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/17/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-offensive-matilda-witches-twits/

I can see why they might have made a couple but most of them seem OTT to me.

www.inclusiveminds.com/apatt-2020-ambassadors

I just think that if these people have something to say to children they should write their own books.

www.inclusiveminds.com/apatt-2020-ambassadors

Personally I think Dahl writes quite unpleasantly in general, I think the changes made are OK. Particularly the language around fat etc.

I don't have an issue with updating literature so long as no one lies and pretends it wasn't updated.

The estate presumably agreed these updates?

The estate sold the rights to Netflix....

In Charlie and the chocolate factory they have edited out the references to the shopkeeper who sold the winming bar of chocolare to Charlie being fat. But that was in a chapter where his family was literally starving so I think it's actually important in terms of context and relevance.

The estate presumably agreed these updates?

Again, the estate is owned by Netflix. I think it reasonable to assume they'd agree to whatever kept the cash rolling in rather than kept the integrity of the work intact.

Its not just that kind of change his father was a farmer is now his parents were farmers, stuff like owch to ugh, her legs were so short she has to have a footstool to it was as if she was shrinking as she had to have a footstool,

Oh do shut up you old hag to oh do shut up you old crow

Ladies and gentlemen to folks

These changes they started before Netflix bought whats next they going to change Shakespeare

It doesn't need changing, IMO. But they have changed it, and personally I prefer the word woman to female, and the meaning of the work is still intact and hasn't changed the story in any fundamental way.

I don’t know what to think about it. Books do date, especially children’s books, and Roald Dahl’s have dated and are not holding the same appeal as they did when I was a kid, so purely from a sales perspective it makes sense to modernise them. With children’s books it is all about having books that children enjoy reading so I’m happy enough that they would change to the extent if more people enjoyed them.

Tangential to this is the issue that in much deeper, less about enjoyment and more about learning something classic literature books that are used in the school curriculum the ‘n’ word appears in some of these texts. Every year that causes significant offence and upset to teenage students of colour. The issues come up again and again I don’t know the answer to that.

Don't know if this link will work as The Telegraph is normally behind a pay wall

Try this for future telegraph browsing: 12ft.io/

The change from female to woman is very odd, I don't know why they would deem female offensive.

The books should be read with the understanding that they're from a bygone era. These groups are free to write original work of their own.

Personally, I think its because of a shift change in how misogyny is being presented.
To be a woman is now acceptable, because male people can be women too, but female? That's far too distasteful to mention in a children's book, it seems.
'Female' is only inappropriate to anyone who thinks there is something inappropriate about being female.
It's all very Victorian imo. It irritates me because it reinforces the age old misogynistic nonsense that anything about being female is inappropriate or gross.

Its not the version written though is it. Its not the words written and intended by the author

I'd be furious if someone did that to my work

It's horrifically arrogant to rewrite someone else's published literature.
That alone makes me furious, and I actually don't like Dahl's works.

Most people don't care about the 'integrity of the work' and I think that's fine tbh. These are just stories and before we wrote stories down they constantly evolved.

The people who do care can access the original work anyway.

The reality is whoever owns the rights has the final say. That's just the way it goes. Always been the same. Why the panic?

I absolutely agree the children should not be given books with the N word in, unless it's to study that literature in the context of the history of that era, looking at how prevalent those attitudes were and why etc.

But the word "female"??? Why are we erasing a word that refers to biological sex?

I do get the point about artistic autonomy but language evolves and some words which were used a few generations ago just aren't acceptable now. Lots of children's classics have had the same treatment. Kipling, Lofthouse to name 2 I have personally come across.
I've spoken at length imy DD about this and we have talked about whether you can still enjoy a book/music/art if you find the attitudes or language used by an artist offensive. At one extreme it is a form of censorship - but equally why do we censor texts or have age restrictions? I think as long as you are open and acknowledge the sanitisation and why and that the unadulterated text is available too, personally I am ok with that.
I recall DH reading some of the 'just so' stories to DD and the word n*er is used as a descriptor for skin colour by a character and she was incredibly shocked, DH had actually used a different word, but the printed version had this now quite taboo word. So we talked about why it was offensive and if it's better to use another word.
Similarly this thread and the examination around female/woman - we're looking critically at this because language around sex and gender is incredibly contentious. As an observation, I have found certain older men (who were also not very feminist in their thinking) use the word 'female' rather than 'woman' to convey a mild contempt.
I do think language is incredibly important, but it does also evolve and change over time.

classic literature books that are used in the school curriculum the ‘n’ word appears in some of these texts. Every year that causes significant offence and upset to teenage students of colour. The issues come up again and again I don’t know the answer to that.

Simple. Teach children that attitudes change over time and texts should be read with a critical eye.

It shouldn't be seen in isolation - it is part of a general effort to make the past conform to the present and regulate the thoughts people are allowed to have. All alternatives must be closed off. The post-transing of historical figures is one part of this.

Leave the past as the past, put a warning sticker on the book if you must.

This is extremely sinister and very upsetting. Literary terrorism is right.

I love Roald Dahl's writing. He was a genius. How disrespectful and insulting to his readers.

Ugh.

I read Dahl with my kids, he’s arguably one of the best children’s authors ever (though I do think that in modern times he likely would have been cancelled for some of his more problematic views, so maybe it’s a blessing we get to keep him at all).

I see no problem with the original use of language, where it becomes less inclusive it offers a teachable moment. I have a problem with losing the word fat - some people are fat and whilst I get the point about not shaming people, if we lose the word altogether then we will just need a different word which will in turn become cancelled.

Formidable female > formidable woman, on the one hand it’s heartening to see the W word, on the other the alliteration was wonderful and I expect deliberate. There is no need for this change. (I wonder if the very masculine Miss T will be claimed as trans at some point though).

The only language that can be removed in my mind is the very worst, eg the N word. To my mind Christie and Blyton are the worst offenders of this kind.