The Feminist Smile and Patriarchal Dismemory: Using Female Irony and Humor to Historicize Violence Against Women

Abstract

The article is an academic essay whose objective is to understand the patriarchy as a political order of unequal power relations that naturalizes the domination, punishment and violence against women. This structural configuration which normalizes violence, eliminates the perception that such actions are historical cultural constructions that can be transformed. In contrast, feminist movements confront the naturalization of violence. In doing that, they elaborate other forms of making and tell the story from women’s perspective, not with the parameters established by the patriarchal structure. These feminist expressions are colored with humor, irony and celebratory practices, as well as with an appropriation of the body that women set forth in public spaces.