printer
friendly version
DWF
donnawomanfemme
Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-
Tired of war, 2000, n. 47
Editorial note, pp. 2-3
MASI Paola
"Balena" in DWF, pp. 4-6
MASCIA Hela
Broken solitude, pp. 7-11
"Balena" through the notes, pp. 12-17
CUTRUFELLI Maria Rosa
Dear Susan, pp. 18-22
BONACCHI Gabriella - MASI Paola
A dialogue on care, pp. 23-29
PITCH Tamar
Humanitarian war and citizenship, pp. 30-33
GRAZIOSI Marina
The war and the frailty of right, pp. 34-38
FRAIRE Manuela
At the margins of the war, pp. 39-46
POMERANZI Bianca M.
Before geopolitics: note for a feminism of global living,
pp. 47-53
GALLUCCI Laura
The houses and the faces, pp. 54-63
NICCOLAI Silvia
I am a scholar, pp. 64-69
BOCCIA Maria Luisa - LATTARULO Simona
Simone De Beauvoir: a philosopher of the existence, pp.
70-82
CAPUANI Monica
Assia Djebar: the intransigent, pp. 83-89
COPPOLA Maria Micaela
Mary Dorcey: the language of desire, pp. 90-96
NICOLODI Mara
An Interview with Mary Dorcey, pp. 96-107
This issue is the result of collaboration with <Balena>, a group of women with different political experiences who, starting from their opposition to the war in Kosovo, discussed from a feminist perspective the political meaning of the Italian military intervention.
MASI Paola, "Balena" in DWF, pp. 4-6
The author, who is both in the editorial board of "DWF" and in <Balena>, briefly tells the reasons for an issue of "DWF" in co-operation with the group. The name of the group - the Italian word for "whale" - is derived in contrast from "Arcobaleno" (rainbow), the name of the humanitarian mission organised by the Italian government to help the refugees on the other side of the Adriatic.
MASCIA Hela, Broken solitude, pp. 7-11
A passionate report of the political practice of <Balena>, based on the original experiences of feminism: before and after the meetings; conflicts between different political visions; the search for meanings of the Kosovo warfare and of war, in general. The author tells us the different phases of Balena's political experience, stressing the new features of feminist thinking.
"Balena" through the notes, pp. 12-17
Sentences, aphorisms, fragments from the meetings of <Balena> as they were recorded by the editors through their notes. This "rough material" is organised in three main areas, as they were identified during the meetings: care humanitarian intervention, conflict/conflicts, nights/needs. A final section is devoted to several snapshots of the group's political discussion and practice.
CUTRUFELLI Maria Rosa, Dear Susan, pp. 18-22
The author answers an article by Susan Sontag in favour of the war in Kosovo. Through a thoughtful analysis, the authors underlines similarities and differences with Sontag's argument on the meaning of "just war", of the US as the world peacekeeper, of a war to stop the horror of "ethnic cleansing".
Drawing upon her personal experiences, the author argues that a military conflict among national states can never be a "war of liberation", like the struggles of African peoples against colonialism. The differences among them cannot be eliminated by the rhetoric of freedom and of human rights.
BONACCHI Gabriella - MASI Paola, A dialogue on care, pp. 23-29
During the war, the Italian government used the "humanitarian argument" to justify its military intervention in Kosovo. The construction of consensus was based also on the official involvement of some feminist groups in helping the refugees.
Although the political work with Yugoslavian women pre-existed the Kosovo war, and despite its original intentions, the feminist emphasis on care was paradoxically helpful in shifting public attention from the war to the humanitarian help to refugees.
Through the political analysis of some weak points of the concept of care, the authors try to disentangle the feminist approach from the dominant male approach and to give elements for a broader political discussion.
PITCH Tamar, Humanitarian war and citizenship, pp. 30-33
The way the rhetoric of human rights has been used to legitimise the war, and the emphasis on Italian intervention as fundamentally consisting in helping the refugees on the other side of the Adriatic, reveals a shift from rights to needs consistent with the demolition of the welfare state in many Western countries.
The Marshallian notion of citizenship as rights entitlement gives way to a neo-liberal model resembling the old one which distinguished between worthy and unworthy poor. The emphasis on voluntary care work betrays the feminist critique of rights insofar as it transforms help recipients in passive objects of care, rather than giving way to a fuller subject and citizen.
GRAZIOSI Marina, The war and the frailty of right, pp. 34-38
In front of the war, the appeal to human rights and to international treatises appears inadequate and disproportionate. Any appeal to reason looks dramatically helpless. War is a time without rights which suspends all previous social contracts and endangers future human cohabitation.
Historically, women have been aware of the false promises of right and rights and are well suited to underline their failures and limits; women can effectively criticise their language and forms. Hence, through their personal experiences, women can explain the mechanisms employed for the symbolic creation of a weak person - a woman, a refugee, a persecuted - who must be helped even at the price of her/his autonomous choice.
FRAIRE Manuela, At the margins of the war, pp. 39-46
Starting from a one-year discussion on and around the war inside <Balena>, the author underlines the uselessness of war and, on the contrary, the relevance of conflict. The latter exists only when there is a relationship between two separate and distinct agents (subjects). Her reasoning around the idea of conflict is built on the concept of "other" and, more generally, of "otherness".
POMERANZI Bianca M., Before geopolitics: note for a feminism of global living,
pp. 47-53
The article reads the NATO war in Kosovo and the Seattle protest against the World Trade Organisation in 1999 as part of a new "global politics" in which women are not immediately visible as political subjects.
The author examines the reasons why many feminist experiences, scattered all over the world, are not successful in the political arena, even though some outstanding male authors underline in their essays the role women could play in the society for the next future.
The article ends proposing a new political feminist practice, which is named "diversity at the government". This practice should be based on negotiating from a women's point of view structures and processes at all level of governance: from local to global, in public and private spheres.
GALLUCCI Laura, The houses and the faces, pp. 54-63
The story of <Balena> through the portrait of each woman of the group and of their houses.
NICCOLAI Silvia, I am a scholar, pp. 64-69
A new column - "Return" - in our journal. It is devoted to dialogues with our readers mainly for the discussion of previous issues. Silvia Niccolai answers some questions raised by the editorial of "DWF" n. 44.
BOCCIA Maria Luisa - LATTARULO Simona, Simone De Beauvoir: a philosopher
of the existence, pp. 70-82
Boccia introduces Lattarulo. The philosophical theses of Simone De Beauvoir are commonly associated to her partner, the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. The author suggests that this is not the proper way to understand her work; on the contrary, reading her writings inside "existentialism" means ignoring her autonomous philosophical experience.
Not by chance, the missing element in these
interpretations is her consciousness of being a woman. The author demonstrates
that the experience of her sexual difference is deeply anchored in De Beauvoir's
writings and that it can not be ignored if one wants to fully understand her
philosophical approach.
CAPUANI Monica, Assia Djebar: the intransigent, pp. 83-89
Assia Djebar, Algerian writer, first woman from her country to be admitted by the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, tells about her childhood, the relationships with women of her family, and her father's choice to send her to a French school, thus changing her life and destiny for good. And then Paris, back and forth with Algeria through years of violence and death, her career as a writer and film-maker. And then again her "second exile" in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she is Head of a Department of French and Francophone Studies.
COPPOLA Maria Micaela, Mary Dorcey: the language of desire, pp. 90-96
The author analyses the work of Mary Dorcey, Irish novelist and poet, and presents a selection of her poems, translated into Italian. Dorcey shows new ways of being in the world as woman; thus, while representing ordinary women, she does no less than extend the accepted definitions of ordinariness.
The author discusses Dorcey's use of language, showing how the Irish writer can expand the semantic possibilities of familiar and concrete language. Ultimately, Dorcey is shown to engage her readers in a revision of their own reading processes.
NICOLODI Mara, An Interview with Mary Dorcey, pp. 96-107
In an interview conducted by Mara Nicolodi, the Irish writer Mary Dorcey focuses on the present state of feminism in Ireland, and on issues of women's language and literary tradition. In particular, she describes her artistic struggle in order to find her own style, and a language of female desire.