Sexism, misogyny and heteronormativity in Italian legal and media language. The case of “Stupro della fortezza da Basso.” (original) (raw)
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Honorary president of MIT – Movimento identità trans – Porpora Marcasciano is a witness to the growing Italian trans community's growing changes and language. Her first published volume, "AntoloGaia," is a description of, as Porpora Marcasciano writes, the trip which refers to the journey that started in 1973, as well as the discovery of the social lies (26). Through an honest and objective description of events, Porpora is able to walk us through social changes in Italy and the challenges faced by the Italian trans community. From the initial struggles through the first meetings of the MIT to the approval of Law 164 – which officially gave the courts the power to recognize the new sexual identity of individuals that undergo sex reassignment – in 1982. Porpora recalls her life with a very objective perspective, using a delicate touch when confronting even the more dramatic moments, like the beginnings of the spread of HIV in the trans community, the lack of information, the shame, and the fear that it brought with it. Even if she hides away her feelings behind the facts, we can still see her. She is there, her life, her hopes, and through her language, we can perceive her will in giving voice to the Italian trans community. This paper will focus on the book’s structure which, due to its uniqueness, requires a more careful examination; the historical importance of AntoloGaia; and lastly, its linguistic value.
Gender violence: redressing intersectionality, 2015
This article describes the development of the Italian feminist political lexicon on gender-b a s e d v i o l e n c e w i t h i n t h e s e c u r i t y f r a m e i n t h e l a s t y e a r s. A f t e r t h e description of the historical main issues developed by feminism during the Seventies about the relation between gender-based violence, women's self-determination and criminal law, this paper describes the new framework of feminist and queer movements against the security policies on gender-based violence adopted by the Italian government since 2007. On the one hand, feminist movements criticized the processes of criminalization and victimization produced by the security frame and denounced the underlying nexus between sexism and racism. On the other hand, they addressed the essentialism deriving from these processes. Despite the mainstream vocabulary used the term " feminicide " in order to focus on its victimizing and alarmist aspects, contemporary feminist and queer movements thus addressed gender-based violence as a problem related to the gender stereotypes and sexist prejudices by deconstructing concepts such as gender, sexuality, and (hetero)patriarchy. In this perspective, gender-based violence is not only a form of dominion by men of women, but it also takes the s h a p e o f d i f f e r e n t i a l f o r m s o f i n c l u s i o n a n d e x c l u s i o n o f L G B T Q I p e r s o n s i n t h e neoliberal system, as in the case of homo-and trans-phobia. Resumen Este artículo describe el desarrollo en los últimos años del léxico político feminista italiano sobre violencia de género en el marco de la seguridad. Después de describir los principales hitos históricos desarrollados por el feminismo en los años setenta, sobre la relación entre la violencia de género, la autodeterminación de las mujeres * PhD in Sociology of Law and member of the Interdipartimental Center of Research on Gender Studies Scientific Committee at the University of Padua. Member of the Critical Criminology Master staff at the same University, her interests are related to Gender Studies, in particular focused on gender-based violence, sex work and p r e c a r i t y i n a c a d e m i c r e s e a r c h. S h e i s a l s o a n a c t i v i s t o f t h e Q u e e r c o l l e c t i v e Fuxia Block. Her recent publications include: " Gender violence and sexism in Italy. Norms, control and sexuality. " La camera blu. Rivista di studi di genere 10.10 (2014). caterina.peroni@gmail.com
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This thesis explores linguistic gender both fundamentally and with specific regard to the Italian language. Grammatical, lexical and connotative gender exist within thousands of languages across nearly all language families and work in unison with our cognitive frameworks to inculcate all speakers a rigid gender binary. Starting with an analysis of linguistic gender and then looking at Italian as a case study, my thesis aims to define the use of linguistic gender within the Italian language and how that system may or may not be changing to accommodate a more fluid understanding of gender. In order to track possible changes to Italian, I examine both textual and media representations of transgender and non binary persons, as well as regulations established by the European Union and other governmental agencies with regard to gender neutral language used for official purposes. Such regulations are examples of verbal hygiene which is the driving force for prescriptive language change, and it is through the process of verbal hygiene that linguistic accommodation can occur for those who do not fit within the existing gender binary.
Semantics of Sexual Violence: The "Imperfect Victims" in the Italian Media
Sociology Study, 2022
Starting from an etymological analysis of rape in the Indo-European language family, we want to trace the historical and semantic roots of this lexeme, in order to review its semantic and pragmatic development in the perception of Italian speakers. Our aim is to read and understand the rape victim socio-cultural stigma in collective imagination. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the lexical, socio-semiotic, and narrative domain anticipating the phenomenology of victim blaming, which characterizes the media narratives of sexual violence. The victimological profile, socially expected and culturally accepted, seems to support the original semantic connotation of the Latin word stuprum, that is "corruption of virginity", "contamination of purity". Many typical mainstream discourses examined, through special "gender lenses", provide portraits of imperfect, ambiguous, unreliable victims because they are deemed guilty of not being holy enough.
2015
English Abstract: This article describes the development of the Italian feminist political lexicon on gender-based violence within the security frame in the last years. After the description of the historical main issues developed by feminism during the Seventies about the relation between gender-based violence, women’s self-determination and criminal law, this paper describes the new framework of feminist and queer movements against the security policies on gender-based violence adopted by the Italian government since 2007. On the one hand, feminist movements criticized the processes of criminalization and victimization produced by the security frame and denounced the underlying nexus between sexism and racism. On the other hand, they addressed the essentialism deriving from these processes. Despite the mainstream vocabulary used the term “feminicide” in order to focus on its victimizing and alarmist aspects, contemporary feminist and queer movements thus addressed gender-based vio...
"A View on Queer and Feminism in Italy: Conflicts and Alliances". Gender/sexuality/Italy 6 (2019)
Gender/sexuality/Italy 6, 2019
This article explores some aspects of the relationship between feminism and queer in Italy today. There are significant areas where these two discursive and political paradigms have established and continue to establish productive, mutually reinforcing conversations and alliances. In other contexts, however, a sheer tension has emerged between the two, rooted in diverging views of the pivotal notion of "sexual difference." The article sets out to investigate and compare queer and feminist approaches to difference, reflecting critically on a number of scholarly, newspaper and blog articles that inform the current queer-feminist debate in Italy. On the one hand, it asks whether queer theory and activism have been misrepresented in these contexts, and how queer studies have responded to the critiques that have been addressed to queer theory and political practice. On the other hand, it points out how queer discourses have also partly misconstrued the positions and motivations of "sexual difference" feminism, at times relying on a form of linear temporality whereby queer fluidity would replace an "outdated" feminism. The article then looks at instances where a fruitful relationship between queer and feminism is established in academia and activism, especially in the recent development of transfeminism and the national network of Non una di meno.
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In exploring the development of critical debates on gender and sexuality in contemporary Italian culture, this article focuses on three issues that, it is argued, have shaped this evolution, at times limiting its scope: the interdisciplinary character of these fields; the varying levels of attention devoted to different modalities of gender and sexuality, which have seen more attention devoted to women/femininity than to men/masculinities; evolving theoretical discourses on gender and sexuality and arising tensions, particularly between Anglophone poststructuralist conceptions of gender and Italian sexual difference thought. I suggest that while perceived or actual failures to engage with Anglophone critical discourses provoke frustration, some recent scholarship in Italian offers productive critical innovation, interweaving Anglophone theories with Italian thought. This and other recent work goes some way towards addressing persistent gaps in critical analyses of sexuality and gender in an Italian context.
The Challenge of the Italian 'Thought of Sexual Difference' within Gender Mainstreaming
Beykent University Social Science Review, 2016
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