Little actions, mass destruction: displacement-oriented narrative amplification of women’s range of action in Western Patriarchies through Folk

The present proposal aims to analyse the utilisation of urban legends, folk ideological narratives, by the male chauvinist collective, which leads contemporary Western patriarchal establishments, for the alterity-based portrayal of women as diverging social agents from the norm incarnated by the male with socio and political structuring purposes.

As analysed, the sensation of veracity summoned in urban legend narratives would play a quintessential role in the persuasion of the audience to adhere to the system of values and precepts subliminally encoded; and the subsequent massive vectorisation of the verisimilar warning account with the purpose of preventing any potential damage to their relatives.

Upon the selective exploration of Brunvald’s (1999) anthology, urban legends would exhibit a potential to endure the male supremacist establishments by conveying a conveniently-designed depiction of women, as social agents with specific political attributions who would originate chaos and destruction when attempting to subvert the community structuration by participating in public sphere settings without the custody of their referential man, either father or husband.

Specifically, “chain reaction” urban legend account will be explored as a hyperbolic, and yet feasible, warning account where the woman’s supposedly natural inclination to violate of basic civic rules -the etiquette of the public sphere, which may seem innocuous but are represented to trigger a destructive butterfly effect with community outreach, compromises the holistic stability of the status quo and the physical integrity of its members. The manipulative presentation of verisimilar events where any potential narratee may be accidentally involved would motivate the viralisation of the warning account and justify the male chauvinist relegation of women to the private sphere of the house, where the custody of the referential man would minimise the impact of women’s behavioural trends in Western contemporary patriarchies.