“The Consequences of the Feminist Movement": The Unravelling of a One-Sided Historical Revisionism in Brasil Paralelo’s Text

Resumo

This article was first written as an activity of studies during the Critical Language Awareness course by undergraduate students of English Language at the Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL). This is an analysis of the text “Consequences of the Feminist Movement — Understanding How Feminism Reversed Western Culture” [our translation], published by the website Brasil Paralelo in 2022. The analysis used the studied and discussed categories of Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic-Functional Linguistics, and Representation of Social Actors. The authors throughout the article reveal their choice of text, followed by a brief conceptualization of the procedures and categories employed in the analysis. After that, we unravel the text in parts, disavowing the fake information spread on it and explaining what the truth behind the material is, utilizing researched references and evidence to base our arguments. The objectives of the analysis, besides utilizing methodologies learned in the classroom to explain the influence of a text, are to make visible how the media can be biased and manipulative to benefit their interests. In the end, we understood that the text chose language resources, euphemisms, and the exclusion of facts to “control” their readers’ minds.