Teresa inquired of her mother, Sonia John, about the inherent gender disparity in books during the family’s routine bedtime ritual.
Teresa Manimala, six, became a viral sensation when she used her routine bedtime storey hour to call out sexism and gender disparities.
As she indignantly inquires why books use the term artificial’ rather than the gender-neutral ‘people made or ‘human-made,’ her mother, Sonia John, can be heard outside the frame explaining that the term ‘man’ implies women as well.
“Are women not allowed to build?
Then why don’t they say manufactured by humans?” she asks. Before returning to her book, she shakes her head and says to her mother, “It’s not nice, is it?”
That straightforward statement elevated her voice above the confines of her home and family.