Mulheres, Esquecimento e (In)Justiça

Abstract

The article examines how the mechanisms of memory and forgetting operate in the construction of a discriminatory collective memory regarding women, emphasizing its ethical, epistemological, and political dimensions. The central objective is to demonstrate that the official history of philosophy, functioning as a canon, has produced and perpetuated biased representations of the feminine, sustaining centuries of invisibility, ontological fragility, and symbolic devaluation of women. The methodology is hermeneutic, grounded especially in Paul Ricoeur’s theory of memory, forgetting, and narrative, and articulated with feminist critique and authors such as Simone de Beauvoir, Axel Honneth, and Ivone Gebara. The epistemological framework focuses on three axes: 1) the relationship between history and memory; 2) the analysis of the androcentric philosophical canon; and 3) the archetypal roots of discrimination—particularly Aristotle and traditional interpretations of Genesis 2–3. The results indicate that discrimination against women is supported by persistent symbolic structures that have shaped collective memory, legitimizing inequalities through the institutionalized repetitionof selective narratives.