President Difference Donna
“The patriarchy is no longer there, sexual violence is increasing due to immigration.” The words of the Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara during the presentation of the Giulia Cecchettin Foundation one year after her death they resonated on social media and on the internet, causing dismay. We talk about it with Elisa Ercoli, president of Differenza Donna, an association that has been 1989 works to highlight, understand, fight, prevent and overcome gender violence.
How did you react to Valditara’s words?
«We reacted with dismay and with a great desire to call them all to make them aware of the damage they are doing to our country and to the women and men of this country. Those sentences are a re-proposal of patriarchal stereotypes and prejudices that we are trying with so much effort to overcome and this effort to overcome is indispensable because without overcoming them the male violence against women will not be affected, which is passed completely undisturbed from generation to generation without even realizing it. The stereotype is that violence against women does not concern our lives but only that of sick, disadvantaged men and therefore foreigners, that is, distant from our culture. The reality and the scientific study of the phenomenon tells us that violence is our problem, it is in our families and it is carried out by normal men with jobs that are also at a high cultural, social and economic level.”
Moreover, in a totally wrong context such as that of the presentation of the Giulia Cecchettin Foundation, killed at the hands of her former Italian partner.
«Giulia Cecchettin’s femicide was so symbolic and significant precisely because it swept away every possible stereotype that distances violence from our lives and society to the point of denying it and confining it to environments close to us. The issue is really important because, until we understand that it concerns each and every one of us, we will not break the chain that continues to transmit to the new generations ancient horrid manifestations of violence, the most widespread is that in which we must instead experience solidarity, love, reciprocity, desire for affirmation and fulfillment of loved ones close to us.”
What are the real data on violence against women?
«Istat in its investigations, as well as the data from the 1522 national anti-violence and stalking number of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers which we manage as Differenza Donna, but also the data from the Ministry of the Interior obviously unanimously say that violence occurs in intimate relationships in the family in a transversal way, that is, in all professional economic social classes, that is, we are talking about men who are lawyers, magistrates, workers, artisans, doctors, parliamentarians, who act violence against their partners or ex-partners and therefore also towards their children who certainly witnessed the mistreatment at home. Family violence is the vast majority of violence, the other forms are a residual part.”
Let’s go back to the denial of patriarchy… in a society like ours which is so blatantly chauvinist, even in school textbooks…
«In elementary, middle and high school textbooks we still have a presentation of the subject with a patriarchal perspective, that is, with the exclusion of the protagonism of women and an affirmation of the universal masculine. This means that the texts used are a tool for maintaining the disparity of power between men and women which is the basis of violence and discrimination as the Istanbul Convention tells us.”
Where do we start for real change? Could education in affectivity, for example, as dad Cecchettin asks, be decisive?
«Prevention must be stratified and contain many different levels».
