Freedom for all, freedom for few

The current political climate, the culture of gender violence, and how we are doing: in Italy

A year ago, Giulia Cecchettin was killed. She was a 22-year-old woman who was about to graduate in biomedical engineering. She disappeared first, and everyone—at least every woman—in their gut knew: she was killed by a man. And she was: killed by her ex-boyfriend who couldn’t accept that she had broken up with him. The body was found a few days later; the killer, also 22, was caught. Good middle-class families. Bravo ragazzo. Many reasons why this particular femicide (one every three days happens in Italy) “shook the nation” so much, and I wrote about it at the time, in the Italian newspaper Domani. The article is free, and you can translate it automatically if interested. What I’ll write here is a reckoning of what happened in Italy since then.

I wrote in Domani about emotional education—essentially, teaching people to separate love from possession—and how much we lack it: “Almost by definition, the family is somewhat toxic. But schools remain silent, absent, whether due to top-down orders (from the ministry), at times laziness, or the exhaustion and overwork of teachers. And so, that space is occupied by social media, full of conservative values and rewarding repetition.”

There was a lot of talk, a year ago, about emotional and sexual education programs in schools. Currently, there is no national sex ed program in Italian schools, so it varies from one institute to another. There are no guidelines. Religion teachers are sometimes involved. More often, it is the science teacher. Last November, there were talks of creating a commission, a cross-party effort to improve the cultural aspects of gender violence. Of course, this failed—it will soon be clear how this project was doomed to fail in the current international cultural and political climate.

In that essay a year ago, I explored the backlash—the conservative reaction—against the latest wave of feminism. I hinted at the manosphere, which is the term used for the collection of social media channels in which young men radicalize others into hating women. It’s not what directly killed Giulia, clearly, and the manosphere isn’t the only thing on social media. But it’s a contemporary problem, this desire to undo progress, to go back to “saying anything”—a free-for-all claim that only means freedom for the same people. Those who’ve always been free to say and do as they please.

This is the same neo-retrograde push that, combined with other factors, led—one year later—to Trump’s return to power. The headline for my piece, written by Beppe Cottafavi (a brilliant editor of books and magazines), read: “Filippo Turetta was a total loser. And Giulia Cecchettin deserved to be free.”

Because of this title, some young men wrote to me: “Calling someone a loser is bullying. Aren’t you ashamed? It can lead to extreme actions.” So they took offense with the word loser.

This is a common pattern today: mixing up the levels. Muddying the waters. Throwing everything into the same pot, and any other tired metaphor for just being intellectually dishonest. It happens both on the liberal side (where pronouns are seen as equally important as the right to abortion) and the conservative side: “If you protest vehemently, then you’re violent, you’re authoritarian.” (So you become the authoritarian, you the oppressed, not those who oppress you.)

Violence is necessarily a part of every protest, even those that call themselves nonviolent. Denying this element of violence means silencing dissent itself. Dissent stems from a profound sense of justice and carries an intense drive to push back.

This sense of justice is something some women and men share, born either from experiencing injustice or observing it. Part of it is innate. Some adapt to unjust situations; others struggle. Those who struggle usually find themselves on the margins, and being on the margins is also part of the protest. Radical positions advance the conversation, expanding what we thought possible.

But then, mediation is needed. Or is it?

This is a classic feminist dilemma: should we stay outside institutions, as they need complete overturning, or work from within to influence discourse? My friend and philosopher Chiara Bottici, who is a professor at The New School in New York, helped me understand something: while American feminism has historically entered institutions, Italian feminism—despite its more advanced theoretical and philosophical development (my view)—has stayed outside and thus hasn’t influenced society as much.

So, what’s changed in a year? Little to nothing.
How do we change things? From inside or outside?

A new friend wrote to me a few days ago: “Why aren’t you more present in these spaces, at these festivals, on these stages where feminism is discussed? You’re so good at speaking.”

I don’t know why my voice doesn’t reach those who organize those stages. I don’t like being on the margins, I want to be heard. But I also don’t like writing on social media, which is today’s quickest path to being heard by more people. I prefer long reasoning, taking the time to observe, understand, write. I also avoid social media because I fear shitstorms. It’s true: for many years, there was only one “right” and one “wrong” way to be a feminist, a liberal, or progressive. And debate wasn’t always allowed within this vision of feminism.

I’m grateful to write for outlets that aren’t on social media (Il Foglio Review is eventually published online but doesn’t have social media, Domani is subscription-based, and Elle Italy is print-only, I mean I write for the print magazine). I sought them out. For years, I’ve felt that only in such spaces can one think freely, exploring the murkier areas of one’s thoughts and theories.

A younger friend told me: “You’re the only one self-censoring on social media.”

I don’t think so, it seems to me that we all write the same things because we need to make someone nod in agreement within 30 seconds. Someone who already has clear-cut ideas. But as someone ten years younger, she might have forgotten what it’s like to think freely without any online repercussions? Forgotten that we used to think differently, more daringly maybe? It sounds extreme, I know. The past wasn’t better than today. Everything was more difficult, not less. The horizons were smaller, not larger.

But social media gave us very clear-cut ready made ideas about everything. And ideas that are too clear-cut about everything have brought us to a point where everything can potentially get questioned again. It’s like with Trump: when they say we can’t say certain things, the response is to say something even worse. Even the basic concepts of human decency are being questioned. There is a small book fair in Italy in December, dedicated to the memory of Giulia Cecchettin. At the same fair, a man who is awaiting trial for domestic violence has been invited to give a lecture, based on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty." This is a valid principle, surely, but why give him a stage and a voice, of all people? Why not simply wait for the trial before asking him to lecture us?

I feel like most liberals are now quickly repositioning themselves as anti-woke. In doing so, they are making some wild logic mistakes, confusing for “wokeness” what is in fact common sense and basic civilty. Will I make similar mistakes? Can I trust my judgment? Was I ever even woke, or just someone with a strong sense of justice?

This is where we are today: questioning common sense, logical principles, basic civility. We’re at the return of violence as a trend, the coolification of violence.

Here in Italy, in good colonial fashion, we’re already at Trumpism 2.0 even before his inauguration.

Welcome to what lies ahead: difficult years.

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