The Virangana in North Indian History Myth and Popular Culture

Abstract

In the persons of the fairly tale—the wicked witch, the beautiful princess, the heroic prince—we find what the culture would have us know about who we are. The point is that we have not formed that ancient world—it has formed us. We ingested it as children whole, had its values and consciousness imprinted on our minds as cultural absolutes long before we were in fact men and women. We have taken the fairy tales of childhood with us into maturity, chewed but still lying in the stomach, as real identity.5 For Dworkin, the woman-hating stance