Italy is ranked amongst the lowest in Europe for freedom and quality of life for women – especially in a context where the government combines the dogmas of unconditional allegiance to Catholic fundamentalism on one hand and unrestrained liberalism on the other. Berlusconi has been the maker of brutal laws that victimise and stigmatise women’s bodies: the law on IVF*, the repealing of the law that made it illegal to “fairly dismiss” pregnant women**, the increase of state pension age. These are just some striking examples of the government’s politics. Other examples are the relentless attacks against the abortion law, the disqualifying and privatisation of the infrastructure (like sexual health centres), the war against the Month-After pill.

All this, in a country that deliberately disowns its youth and therefore its own future, cutting university funds and making work more and more precarious. Women and migrants are the most hard hit by this political system – both are denied fundamental guarantees for a free and dignified existence. Last but not least in this list, the creation of the CIE: proper concentration camps where women are constantly exposed to violence and abuse.***

The recent scandals involving the PM reveal a squalid picture of corruption, in which the woman’s role is defined by the worst possible stereotypes and expressions of an archaic and vulgar sexism. On the other hand though, some of the recent mobilisation address their appeals only to “good” women: mothers, wives, working women. This perspective assumes a separation between respectable and non respectable women, invoking a universal and abstract morality. The danger of this distinction is that it judgementally stigmatises women who “sell their bodies”, but not the sexist discourse and practices that create this twisted dynamic in the first place. Instead of opposing the traditional and regressive vision of sexuality, this kind of divisive morality serves to reinforce it.

We, on the other hand, believe the political questions that need to be asked are of a completely different nature. The redistribution of wealth between profiteers and those who are paying for this crisis, between those who own many buildings and those who don’t even have a house, between those who luxuriate on millionaire wages and those who are jobless: these are the crucial political questions. Above all, we think it’s time for women to speak out for themselves and express their opinions on topics that relate to them. For a long while now, women’s sexuality has been disciplined and controlled, ruled by procreation and male pleasure – in a devious picture where on one hand, prostitutes are being criminalised and marginalised through “security package” laws and moralistic campaigns and on the other, they are being used at men’s leisure in the political palaces.

It’s significant that the most difficult moment of Berlusconi’s government has been caused by a question that has at its heart gender and relationship issues. We have an extraordinary opportunity to incite a women’s revolt – a revolt that calls for a free and aware sexuality, devoid of commodification and imposed rules, and based on the acknowledgment of desires, liberation from sterotypes and self-determination.


* The law restricts the provision of fertility treatments to ‘stable heterosexual couples’ who live together and are of childbearing age, and who are shown to be clinically infertile. A survey carried out by the Reproductive Tourism Observatory in 2006 shows that the number of Italian couples travelling to other countries for such procedures has increased four-fold since the law was passed three years before.
** A common practice that hits pregnant women especially: employees are asked to sign a blank dismissal letter. The employer will then add a date and sack that person whenever they want to, for example, when a female employee gets pregnant. With the repealing of the law against this practice in 2008, women (and employees in general) have one less legal weapon to fight unfair dismissal.
*** Several migrant women locked up in Italian detention centres have denounced the violence, beatings and in some cases, rapes going on inside. For further info check out my previous articles on the blog.


This text was published in the days leading to the women’s demo of 13 February. As I didn’t have time to translate it before I have taken the liberty to adapt it and take out some parts strictly relating to the demo. Original article from Le Malefiche feminist blog.

 http://italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/indecorous-and-free/