In Italy, every year millions of mimosas are donated for women‘s Day and many beautiful words are said to celebrate this day; the media shows female soldiers, female airliners pilots, female managers of important companies, ministers, presidents, etc. demonstrating the progress made in gender equality.
Certainly right! But the numbers that emerge from the various surveys give another picture of the situation, bringing to light thoughts and attitudes that conflict with a society that should be modern and emancipated, without barriers and without inequalities. And so, the surveys show that for many people it is normal, for a man to slap sometimes his partner, if “she deserves it”. Just as it is right,, for many people, that man routinely check the woman’s cell phone and her social media.
When it comes to sexual violences, there is a very strong belief that many times they are false, invented by women for different purposes. Another widespread belief is that ‘serious women’ are not raped; this concept is even stronger if we refer to the woman’s way of dressing: many people are convinced that by wearing too short skirts or other ‘provocative’ clothes, the woman is somehow responsible for the violence she suffers. And the same concept can be found even in the Courts where rape trial is carried out; in fact, among the most frequent questions asked to the woman (the victim) are: “do you realise that the miniskirt is a provocation?”; “were you wearing underwear that night?”; “do you realise that if you dress sexy, you instigate violence?”.
The crime news shows a hidden reality, often lurking within the walls of the home, with more or less serious violence carried out within the family, in the place that should be the safest, violence that is only made known when it degenerates with extreme consequences that are impossible to hide within one’s own home.
In order for there to be a substantial change, it is clear that we must start by educating the new generations to abandon these prejudices. Probably the real achievement will not be how many women fly airliners or manage companies or sit in parliament; the real breakthrough, the real change, will be when no one will judge a woman by the length of the skirt she wears and when in a rape trial no one will ask the victim how she was dressed or whether she was wearing underwear.
Special thanks to Klaudija Ever for participating in the photo essay.
