News of October
It is with great joy that we finally open the doors of the Lunàdigas International Fund within our Live Archive, the result of a huge work of collecting, archiving and subtitling the testimonies of Italian lunàdigas living abroad and of lunàdigas born and raised in different parts of the world. Those we managed to reach thanks to the screenings of the film “Lunàdigas – or Concerning Childfree Women ” in various Festivals and international events and those we met thanks to the wonderful cases of life – sometimes unexpected and sometimes daringly pursued – which took the project out of Italy.
From all this movement a strong network of women has developed and continues to grow, people and associations that work for the cause and support it, with the ultimate goal of promoting greater awareness of reproductive issues resulting from a global dialogue, which, taking into account objective cultural differences, wishes to build (and sow!) a common ground.
This is how we meet Kim, Antonella, Malik and Chiara.
Kim, a Malaysian who’s been living in Vienna for several years, tells the personal and professional reasons that led her not to want children. In her testimony she delves deeper into the condition of women in Asia around motherhood, she focuses on the judgements towards women without children, and talks about inheritance issues.
Antonella, an Ecuadorian with an Italian father, tells of her condition as a thirty-two-year-old woman without children and without a partner, and reasons about the pressures she perceives at a social level and on the issue of inheritance. She recounts the experience of an aunt of hers who had no children and reflects on the lack of a word in Spanish or in the indigenous Kichwa language to indicate women without children. She very warmly welcomes and adopts the word “Lunàdigas”, which is thus confirmed as a commonly used term to refer to women without children all over the world.
Malik, originally from Burkina Faso, following the screening of the film “Lunàdigas, or Concerning Childfree women” in Essen, Germany, tells of the condition of childless women in the country where he was born and raised: considered as witches or prostitutes, women are marginalized even if they cannot, rather than do not want to, have children. In this case, families push the man to separate from his wife.
Chiara, a young Tuscan researcher, whom we met at the University of Vienna where she had organized a screening of the film after watching it during the Women’s dinner in Florence. Already an activist in Italy, in this testimony she tells of her position as a thirty-year-old towards motherhood, an experience which could potentially prevent her to dedicate herself to issues of greater social impact. She outlines her criticism towards the experience of raising children in the family unit, talks about the problem around motherhood in academic careers and focuses on the differences she has found between Austria and Italy in terms of women’s rights and motherhood.
Four very important testimonies, which already offer a snapshot of the different problems, prejudices – but also of the demands and claims – that the Lunàdigas are experiencing or carrying forward on the international scene.
We conclude this first tour around the world with the Impossible Monologue Christina of Sweden who, through the voice of Monica Trettel, tells us about her life at court and her affinities with another Swedish lunàdiga woman, albeit from another era: the divine Greta Garbo.
The monologue is taken from “Impossible Monologues. The exclusive revelations of 35 mythical Lunàdigas” by Carlo A. Borghi (Arkadia editions).
You can discover all the new Impossible Monologues also by visiting the virtual gallery prendo pArte!, as always we will be very pleased if you’d like to share with us your impressions, opinions and reflections on all the news of the Lunàdigas world!
