Against gender-based violence: from Italian debate to intercultural dialogue

As Michael Faucault discusses, the first effect of inhibition is learned helplessness that derives from being externally controlled. The second effect is the predictable fall into victim relationships. Italy is in fact one of the countries where domestic violence and femicide are particularly large problems. In Italy many new initiatives to combat these phenomena are being created. These initiatives are centered on the contention that Italy is a paradoxical Country where on the one hand different cultures are busy constructing a society able to mutually recognize diversity and on the other hand, in spite of the progress guaranteed to women such as equality with men, Italy remains a country that is substantially traditional. In feminist terms, we can say that traditionalism means colonialism or phallogocentrism. This monographic number of Camera Blu discusses the ways in which the Italian paradox may be considered engendering a sensitive framework of meaning linking the background of many Latin and Mediterranean cultures that are still unable to leave behind the old inherited ways that hinder true social development and the right of everyone to be a free and self-determined person. To better illustrate the elements of an effective community response that is able to fight against gender violence, this volume examines what kinds of priorities must be considered in order to change the current situation and create comprehensive and individualized approaches for psychosocial intervention. Indeed, the volume maps a discourse on violence against women considering substantially two kinds of themes: a theoretical discussion and the description of some specific interventions together with the research results in this field, keeping a particular focus on domestic violence and the social factors determining it. Our analysis of the Italian evidence, inherent to a number of difficulties not fully overcome in feminist history, is inevitably limited but at the same time strategic. Indeed, we think that it is worthwhile to underline again various issues that democracy still has to insist on, with stronger determination both in Italy and in other Countries which are in a similar condition. With this perspective, we want to define what has happened in the last few decades in Italy: forced and/or exploitive (immigrant) prostitution has increased and guaranteed profitable gains for the national and international mafias, Italian television celebrates women with degrees only as stupid, boring and trite sexual-things, parliament is filled with escorts and sexy showgirls and kept the percentage of women in politics equal to that in the seventies, female occupation is decreasing, motherhood is celebrated as sacred, but artificial insemination and assisted reproductive technologies are prohibited, no social structures exist to help mothers in their daily care of the children and the number of femicides is increasing faster than in any other European country. Almost every day a woman is murdered by her husband, boyfriend or ex-lover, because he can't accept changes in the relationship including changing roles in the couple. All this is happening at the same time as the field of Italian academic gender studies has achieved increasing International success.