News of November

We dedicate this month to an anniversary that Lunàdigas have at heart: November 25th, international day against violence against women.

Violence does not only involve rape, abuse, harassment. Violence is also a full set of beliefs, stereotypes and prejudices that are centuries old, which pass through the bodies of women taking a huge toll on our experiences, aspirations, personal desires.
Taboos that surround childfree women, who are still considered today – also in the Western world – as an anomaly, deviations from the social norm that all should be mothers, without, among other things, providing adequate policies in support of motherhood (or fatherhood, this great unknown).
In this month’s Live Archive you will find some testimonies that develop around the theme of systemic (and often even normalized) violence against which childfree women find themselves to fight even in everyday life.
The first one comes from Florence’s Cerchio Il Melograno as a polyphonic story of a collective experience of women who express themselves around the theme of motherhood and the controversial label of “dead branch”, a way of defining childfree women that recalls sterility and is still used today, in a derogatory sense, in some parts of Italy. The second testimony is still a choral story: Martina, Francesca and Alice discuss motherhood by addressing various issues including the control of society over women’s bodies, before and after childbirth; homosexuality and gender stereotypes, which discriminate against individuals not only in their daily lives but also with regard to parenting; the relationship between biology and education, for a less deterministic and more responsible society.
The last contribution is that of Elettra Lorini (who, among other things, was mayor of Vicchio, Florence), who tells us about the experiences that left a mark on her life path: a political commitment that she carried out with a maternal sense, caring for her community; a hysterectomy that allowed her to develop her own understsanding of being in this world, and a family history that she tries to pass on with passion.
In the Stories section we offer Claudia Mazzilli‘s excellent review of Sheila Heti’s novel, Motherhood, in which the author tells of her struggle between sense of duty and refusal to procreate.
Let’s liven up this anniversary on November 25th by sharing the voices of women. Let’s make them fly away, so that each and everyone can hear them!