Joaquin's "The Summer Solstice" and Garner's "The Little Mer-Persun" effectively expose the biases of our society and resolve the conflict between genders by over-emphasizing reversals. Using symbols to represent male and female of society, Joaquin finally determines the triumphant gender at the end of his story. While Garner's work, which is adapted from The Little Mermaid, emphasizes anti-sexist attitude by changing some vocabulary as well as the ending of the story.
             "The Summer Solstice" is set on a patriarchal society. Summer solstice is the time of the year when the days exceed the nights. This represents the time when men are in power over women. Celebrating the feast of St. John, Joaquin implies celebration of men for a male-dominated world. Set during the summer solstice, celebrated at the light of the day, and dominated by male horde, St. John, a male figure, Lord of Summer and Light, is truly supreme over the female, which is, as said in the story, the earth they walk on (80).
             Don Paeng, which represents the men in his society, is determined on keeping this order. He thinks that to talk about events where men adore women is an improper topic for his boys to hear (80) and even embarrassing for himself as a man (84). He also disallows his wife at first to go to the Tadtarin ritual. Even Dona Lupeng does not approve herself by thinking that women are better than men (81).
             The reversal starts when Guido explains the Tadtarin ritual to Dona Lupeng. He tells that it is a female-dominated ritual done at the light of the moon, the Lord of women (82-83). Guido is the one who caused the interest on Dona Lupeng to go to this ritual and is the first man in the story to admit that he adores women. Women, desperate to escape patriarchy, are eager to go to this ritual and they celebrate it carrying a grotesque figure of St. John who actually looks like it was protesting agai...