Why is publishing suddenly obsessed with “rebel” women?

Italians Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, who are romantic partners as well as co-founders of their own company based in California, longed to correct the gender imbalance they saw in the world of children's media. In 2016, the idea of a children's book with the word "rebel" in its title came to them. As Favilli explained to the Bookseller magazine, "Rebel is usually considered a negative word... especially when it's associated with women." Within months of starting a crowd-funding campaign for the project on Kickstarter, they had raised $1m. Rebel Girls became the most funded original book in the history of crowd-funding.