Fairy tales of Western hegemony as a technology of gender domination and for the reproduction of gender violence

Abstract

The purpose of this essay was to demonstrate how control over women has been perpetuated through time by means of stories that reproduce gender stigmas and stereotypes, which are installed in the social imaginary as social models worthy of imitation; thus, coining the archetype of the guilty or provocative victim. From a feminist critical method, an analysis of the most widespread fairy tales up to the present day was elaborated.  Where it was shown that women are caged in social structures, inside representations that arise from the colonizing patriarchal society but are successfully collectivized through fairy tales. This analysis integrated the tools of this method, i.e. decolonial critique, deconstruction, post-structuralism and gender perspective. The conclusions mention the analytical categories that were found and how they are explained through the feminist critical methodology; throwing findings on the types of domination that weigh on women since fairy tales were written, becoming a technology of domination, they became popular, extending to the whole western society, surviving until now in the colonized society.