One of the latest femicides to hit the headlines is that of Pamela
Gerini, killed by her ex-partner in Milan before the eyes of her
neighbors, with the police on the landing. I was deeply shocked, not so
much by the victim's young age as by the dynamics of this latest
tragedy. Pamela Gerini had already filed a complaint at two emergency
rooms in two different regions, where in theory the red code should have
been automatically triggered, given that she apparently answered
positively to the central questions used to identify cases of this type;
she had also changed regions to get away from him. But nothing was
enough, not even the police on the landing.
That same day, a bill was introduced that bans sex education in
preschool and elementary school-against all WHO recommendations-and that
makes such education subject to parental consent in middle and high school.
Saying that patriarchy is a structural element of society, just as
racism, classism, ableism, etc., means acknowledging that the problem is
not limited to the current government of the Tricolor Flame, but
concerns all of us, including myself. Freeing oneself from gender
discrimination, having grown up within a society structurally based on
it, is an arduous and daily task of humility and recognition, of
acknowledgement and deconstruction. It is a constant struggle in which
we must engage everyone around us, starting with ourselves.
Patriarchy helps shape the people who populate the world we live in and
regenerates itself, confirming itself generation after generation.
Patriarchy identifies two genders-male and female-based on an anatomical
difference that is usually associated with a specific physiological
function: people socialized as female at birth are presumed to have the
ability to procreate. In this worldview, people socialized as female are
perceived as fragile vessels, to be protected and cherished precisely
because of their reproductive potential; They must therefore be trained,
guided, and directed so that their "gift" can contribute to an orderly
social and political framework.
The two genders are then assigned political and social aspects on a
hierarchical scale: the masculine comes first, establishing what is
right and normal, while the feminine follows and submits to the norm, in
a position of difference, but above all of inferiority. Individual
characteristics and behaviors will also be attributed greater value-and
power-the more they are perceived as belonging to the hegemonic masculine.
Cutting with an axe: if you show up dressed in a miniskirt and stiletto
heels, you will seduce, but almost certainly you will not be taken too
seriously; the secretary must be sexy and welcoming, the boss strong and
confident. In a framework that always remains heteronormative.
Socialized women also have different values depending on their stage of
life: when they are no longer fertile, their political value drops
sharply; however, the social value related to the caring role assigned
to them, functional to compensating for the structural deficiencies of
care, remains unchanged. The numerous femicides of elderly, sick and/or
disabled women left to be cared for by their partners or family members
speak to governments' unwillingness to invest in and provide care; but
they also speak to gender differences in care, a phenomenon we still
struggle to recognize.
Those who evade the patriarchal vision incur sanctions that can be
clearly identified depending on the historical period or geography: from
the control of women's bodies in general, to the stigmatization of
non-conforming subjectivities, to the repression of non-heterosexual
sexuality associated with this binary vision, to the control of
procreation. The history and stories of various territories tell us how
patriarchal violence strikes and acts, ordering, punishing, and
reprogramming; a stubborn reproduction of death, in an attempt to
harness the wills and lives of those who become aware of themselves
and/or of the structure within which we are forced to live and dream.
The rainbow or queer cleansing attempts implemented by capitalism, or by
a certain democratic statism, are not enough.
This violence is not episodic or marginal, but constitutive and
constructive; not lace, but the fabric of the social fabric we are
forced to live in, that social fabric sewn onto us from an early age and
forced to walk around in.
True, in a certain part of the world today, it's being talked about.
Today, almost everyone knows what "gender violence" means; we know what
we're talking about when we say we live immersed in a "rape culture"; we
know that gender violence is a pyramid of which femicide is just the tip
of the iceberg, which in reality consists of "minor" and much more
frequent episodes of violence. We know that for every person who suffers
sexual violence, there are hundreds, thousands, who endure sexist or
homophobic jokes, unwanted groping, denigrating and sexualized
requests-or denigrating because they are sexualized.
To male violence against women, the notorious tip of the iceberg, the
Meloni government is reacting with yet another show of force,
demonstrating the iron fist of the Father's power, which strikes down on
the perpetrator to bring justice.
On March 8th, Minister Rocella introduced-not coincidentally on
International Women's Day-a bill against femicide, which was then
unanimously approved by the Senate on July 23rd. This bill introduces
life imprisonment for those who commit this type of homicide.
This bill was strongly opposed by many jurists and lawyers for its
burdensome nature, the futility of introducing existing punitive
measures, and, above all, its complete lack of prevention.
Bill 2528/2025 introduces the crime of femicide-limiting it to a wording
that excludes a whole series of situations with the same underlying
hatred and discrimination-and aims to impose life sentences that appeal
so much to the hearts of angry and frustrated people. A strong hand in
extremely precarious situations: a dynamic that has always given the
illusion of stability, the illusion of meting out small-scale justice by
compensating for widespread injustices.
Nothing is truly resolved because nothing is truly prevented, but the
master's axe intervenes and strikes, wiping the drool from the mouths of
those who indignantly cry out for the gallows-an axe with a well-aimed
blade, inscribed in the right-wing patriarchy, centered on God, country,
and family.
We continue to make the same mistake, the mistake of those who don't
feel responsible, the mistake of those who think such an event will
never affect them. Yet, it would be enough to read the numbers to
understand how to proceed. The numbers collected and analyzed, for
example, by the Observatory against Femicide, Lesbian Crime, and
Transcide, activated by NonUnaDiMeno, show us how these murders cut
across geography, origin, and class, and how they are closely linked to
phenomena of emancipation from the partner. The femicide has the keys to
the house: it's the husband or partner in 49% of cases, and the ex in
29%. Likewise, the rapist is often someone known to the victim: rapes
were committed in 62.7% of cases by partners, in 3.6% by relatives, and
in 9.4% by friends (ISTAT 2024 data).
It was once said that prevention is better than cure, but now it seems
that even healthcare cuts are telling us a different truth. Prevention
has, first and foremost, an economic cost that no one seems willing to
pay, but it also has a moral, educational, and transformative cost that
we seem far from realizing. Prevention would mean acting early, working
towards the zero or potentially zero sum of these "social
errors/horrors," these painful acts of violence.
Today, however, the term patriarchy is no longer uttered half-heartedly
and with a sneer, as it was only twenty years ago in Italy, even in
certain movement circles, when we all felt free from a state of
domination now surpassed by history.
Fortunately, our comrades have opened our eyes.
Patriarchy exists. It still exists-even here-this old lace that we
thought we'd torn away. It survives also because it serves the
maintenance of the entire system. It serves capitalism to continue
fueling profit, both in its traditional version and in its "anti"
guise-the market, ultimately, is interested in selling and
(un)discovering ever new market segments-it serves politicians to
continue proposing moralistic and security-based policies; it serves the
state to avoid adequate investment in social/healthcare and to control
bodies and their sexual-emotional organization; it serves the
"fatherland" to swell armies, control borders, and perpetuate a colonial
mentality.
The only solution, the only definitive perspective, is therefore a
radical change in the existing order, a comprehensive transformation of
all relationships, from economic to social. This is the perspective of
social revolution, of anarchist revolution; but one that is transfeminist.
Argenide
https://umanitanova.org/liber3-dalla-violenza-patriarcale/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Gerini, killed by her ex-partner in Milan before the eyes of her
neighbors, with the police on the landing. I was deeply shocked, not so
much by the victim's young age as by the dynamics of this latest
tragedy. Pamela Gerini had already filed a complaint at two emergency
rooms in two different regions, where in theory the red code should have
been automatically triggered, given that she apparently answered
positively to the central questions used to identify cases of this type;
she had also changed regions to get away from him. But nothing was
enough, not even the police on the landing.
That same day, a bill was introduced that bans sex education in
preschool and elementary school-against all WHO recommendations-and that
makes such education subject to parental consent in middle and high school.
Saying that patriarchy is a structural element of society, just as
racism, classism, ableism, etc., means acknowledging that the problem is
not limited to the current government of the Tricolor Flame, but
concerns all of us, including myself. Freeing oneself from gender
discrimination, having grown up within a society structurally based on
it, is an arduous and daily task of humility and recognition, of
acknowledgement and deconstruction. It is a constant struggle in which
we must engage everyone around us, starting with ourselves.
Patriarchy helps shape the people who populate the world we live in and
regenerates itself, confirming itself generation after generation.
Patriarchy identifies two genders-male and female-based on an anatomical
difference that is usually associated with a specific physiological
function: people socialized as female at birth are presumed to have the
ability to procreate. In this worldview, people socialized as female are
perceived as fragile vessels, to be protected and cherished precisely
because of their reproductive potential; They must therefore be trained,
guided, and directed so that their "gift" can contribute to an orderly
social and political framework.
The two genders are then assigned political and social aspects on a
hierarchical scale: the masculine comes first, establishing what is
right and normal, while the feminine follows and submits to the norm, in
a position of difference, but above all of inferiority. Individual
characteristics and behaviors will also be attributed greater value-and
power-the more they are perceived as belonging to the hegemonic masculine.
Cutting with an axe: if you show up dressed in a miniskirt and stiletto
heels, you will seduce, but almost certainly you will not be taken too
seriously; the secretary must be sexy and welcoming, the boss strong and
confident. In a framework that always remains heteronormative.
Socialized women also have different values depending on their stage of
life: when they are no longer fertile, their political value drops
sharply; however, the social value related to the caring role assigned
to them, functional to compensating for the structural deficiencies of
care, remains unchanged. The numerous femicides of elderly, sick and/or
disabled women left to be cared for by their partners or family members
speak to governments' unwillingness to invest in and provide care; but
they also speak to gender differences in care, a phenomenon we still
struggle to recognize.
Those who evade the patriarchal vision incur sanctions that can be
clearly identified depending on the historical period or geography: from
the control of women's bodies in general, to the stigmatization of
non-conforming subjectivities, to the repression of non-heterosexual
sexuality associated with this binary vision, to the control of
procreation. The history and stories of various territories tell us how
patriarchal violence strikes and acts, ordering, punishing, and
reprogramming; a stubborn reproduction of death, in an attempt to
harness the wills and lives of those who become aware of themselves
and/or of the structure within which we are forced to live and dream.
The rainbow or queer cleansing attempts implemented by capitalism, or by
a certain democratic statism, are not enough.
This violence is not episodic or marginal, but constitutive and
constructive; not lace, but the fabric of the social fabric we are
forced to live in, that social fabric sewn onto us from an early age and
forced to walk around in.
True, in a certain part of the world today, it's being talked about.
Today, almost everyone knows what "gender violence" means; we know what
we're talking about when we say we live immersed in a "rape culture"; we
know that gender violence is a pyramid of which femicide is just the tip
of the iceberg, which in reality consists of "minor" and much more
frequent episodes of violence. We know that for every person who suffers
sexual violence, there are hundreds, thousands, who endure sexist or
homophobic jokes, unwanted groping, denigrating and sexualized
requests-or denigrating because they are sexualized.
To male violence against women, the notorious tip of the iceberg, the
Meloni government is reacting with yet another show of force,
demonstrating the iron fist of the Father's power, which strikes down on
the perpetrator to bring justice.
On March 8th, Minister Rocella introduced-not coincidentally on
International Women's Day-a bill against femicide, which was then
unanimously approved by the Senate on July 23rd. This bill introduces
life imprisonment for those who commit this type of homicide.
This bill was strongly opposed by many jurists and lawyers for its
burdensome nature, the futility of introducing existing punitive
measures, and, above all, its complete lack of prevention.
Bill 2528/2025 introduces the crime of femicide-limiting it to a wording
that excludes a whole series of situations with the same underlying
hatred and discrimination-and aims to impose life sentences that appeal
so much to the hearts of angry and frustrated people. A strong hand in
extremely precarious situations: a dynamic that has always given the
illusion of stability, the illusion of meting out small-scale justice by
compensating for widespread injustices.
Nothing is truly resolved because nothing is truly prevented, but the
master's axe intervenes and strikes, wiping the drool from the mouths of
those who indignantly cry out for the gallows-an axe with a well-aimed
blade, inscribed in the right-wing patriarchy, centered on God, country,
and family.
We continue to make the same mistake, the mistake of those who don't
feel responsible, the mistake of those who think such an event will
never affect them. Yet, it would be enough to read the numbers to
understand how to proceed. The numbers collected and analyzed, for
example, by the Observatory against Femicide, Lesbian Crime, and
Transcide, activated by NonUnaDiMeno, show us how these murders cut
across geography, origin, and class, and how they are closely linked to
phenomena of emancipation from the partner. The femicide has the keys to
the house: it's the husband or partner in 49% of cases, and the ex in
29%. Likewise, the rapist is often someone known to the victim: rapes
were committed in 62.7% of cases by partners, in 3.6% by relatives, and
in 9.4% by friends (ISTAT 2024 data).
It was once said that prevention is better than cure, but now it seems
that even healthcare cuts are telling us a different truth. Prevention
has, first and foremost, an economic cost that no one seems willing to
pay, but it also has a moral, educational, and transformative cost that
we seem far from realizing. Prevention would mean acting early, working
towards the zero or potentially zero sum of these "social
errors/horrors," these painful acts of violence.
Today, however, the term patriarchy is no longer uttered half-heartedly
and with a sneer, as it was only twenty years ago in Italy, even in
certain movement circles, when we all felt free from a state of
domination now surpassed by history.
Fortunately, our comrades have opened our eyes.
Patriarchy exists. It still exists-even here-this old lace that we
thought we'd torn away. It survives also because it serves the
maintenance of the entire system. It serves capitalism to continue
fueling profit, both in its traditional version and in its "anti"
guise-the market, ultimately, is interested in selling and
(un)discovering ever new market segments-it serves politicians to
continue proposing moralistic and security-based policies; it serves the
state to avoid adequate investment in social/healthcare and to control
bodies and their sexual-emotional organization; it serves the
"fatherland" to swell armies, control borders, and perpetuate a colonial
mentality.
The only solution, the only definitive perspective, is therefore a
radical change in the existing order, a comprehensive transformation of
all relationships, from economic to social. This is the perspective of
social revolution, of anarchist revolution; but one that is transfeminist.
Argenide
https://umanitanova.org/liber3-dalla-violenza-patriarcale/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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