DWF
donnawomanfemme
Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-

Politics. A Difficult Love Story, 1997, n. 34-35

EDITORIAL, Politics. A Difficult Love Story, pp. 2-8

The editorial board reflects on the meaning of politics in Italy today, when the primacy of party and parliamentary politics is undergoing a crisis due to internal and international reasons. Though considering this situation in a positive light, DWF wonders what its consequences may be for women engaged in institutional politics, but also in the professions and in society; if and how these women will be able to retain the sense of their belonging to a "political gender". Perhaps what is needed is a new "narration" of the self in order to safeguard the perception of a political community of women. Four questions regarding these issues are then asked to a number of women who rereading also recounting their experiences.
1. In our editorial, we assess the end of a phase of Italian politics, also in relation with women's politics. We want to discuss this assessment: in general, as it concerns the sense of politics for any woman as a citizen of our country today; more specifically, for women who have a feminist story and culture.
2. Women are "everywhere"; it is an obvious statement reflecting an obvious truth. We are interested in how we are wherever we are, in understanding if and how we can retain and express a significant idea of ourselves in a life dominated by the categories production/reproduction.
3. Looking at the political work of women engaged in institutional politics - as MPs, majors, councillors etc. - we feel the lack of and the need for a "narrative" of the gains (if there are any) and the difficulties (which are certainly present) of such an experience. Would a "narrative" of this kind be important to understand and eventually modify the meaning of politics?
4. We mourn the loss (disappearance) of a political community of women. Do you feel that there is anyway a habit on the part of women to refer to one another, which could somehow point to the existence of a "community"?

RAVERA Lidia, Two addictions, forever, pp. 9-12

Feminism, the author says, has given her two addictions she wants to keep forever: taking herself (her life, experiences, feelings) as a starting point, caring about the world on a grand scale. This is how Ravera (who is a well known writer) looks at today's politics, both as concerns everyday issues and in relation to the great problems besetting humanity. She is confident in the existence of a community of women as women, founded on a conscious or unconscious feeling of belonging. That, in politics and in society at large, there should still be very few women at the top, is in her opinion a pity; only the diffuse and numerous presence of an uncensored and whole female subjectivity could redeem this end of the millennium, so dull and devoid of passion.

TROMBONI Delfina, An Unrequited Passion, pp. 13-24

The author refers to her past story as a Communist Party activist and member of the Unione Donne Italiane, in order to reflect on her recent experience as President (now resigning) of the Consiglio Provinciale of Ferrara. The ways in which a self-aware woman acts in institutional politics - the sort of relationships she maintains and creates - tend to highlight a series of contradictions. First of all that of becoming inscribed - no matter what - in the institutional politics of Equal Opportunities: "whatever her position, whatever her choices, a woman is automatically ascribed the politics of Equal Opportunities; any woman, just because of her sex".

STELLA Rosetta, Misunderstanding and Fetishes, pp. 25-35

The author retraces the misunderstandings which in her opinion have characterised the relationship between the Left and feminism, looking at some key-concepts such as the idea of "movement" in the Italian context. The very concept of "community" takes on a different meaning: "We need a flexible network of women who, though not doing the same things, would nevertheless be the point of reference and the yardstick of judgement on how and how much sexual difference is finding a signification".

SAPEGNO Serena,Political Responsibilities, pp. 36-39

In the light of her political story - which she shares with a generation of Italian feminists - and of her present situation as a University lecturer, the author states her deep agreement with "the idea of narration as political responsibility"; an idea she has been trying to put into practise for a number of years, but always only in an individual and solitary dimension. According to Sapegno, it would be necessary that "those groups of women who have somehow succeeded in getting together and still exist (more or less openly) in Italian universities, had been and were able to experiment freely". Not only different research itineraries, but especially different ways of transmitting a memory of their past and of creating a relationship between generations.

BOSCO TEDESCHINI LALLI Maria, A rare occurrence, pp. 40-44

As Principal of the University of Roma Tre - the first (and until very recently the only) woman in Italy to lead a University - the author is indeed "a rare occurrence". She had also been one of the first women full professors (at the time there were 4 out of 303), while contemporarily building up a family of six children. She recalls her feeling of being one of the "chosen few", her regret for not having taken any active part in the women's movement, her gratitude for those younger women who have; she then explains how (paradoxically) the fact of being a women and its political meaning have become increasingly important for her during her experience as Principal, faced with the problems of her university and in general of the Italian university system.

SERENI Clara, Trespassing, pp. 45-49

The author (who is also a well known writer) has recently resigned her office as vice-major and city-counsellor for Social Affairs in Perugia. She remembers the reasons which made her take that office, and goes on to explain how some of her ways of being and behaviours (such as thinking for herself and having a handicapped son) were seen as annoying signals of unreliability, rather than an opportunity to reconsider and change the meaning of politics.

VANTAGGIATO Iaia, A new freedom, pp.50-53

Retracing her political involvement in the movements of the Seventies - the feminist movement (and especially the Italian feminism of sexual difference) and the '77 student movement - the author reflects on the points of contact as well as the contradictions of these two "political passions". Now that she is experiencing a feeling of emptiness, of a loss of both those "communities", surprisingly enough the outcome is not depression, but the sense of a new freedom, a rebirth where separation and loss are the only possible path to a fuller life.

CIGARINI Lia, An explicit conflict, pp. 54-57

According to the author, today one must re-situate oneself historically (of) reality in relation to sexual difference. For this is a passage in history "having as its protagonist an unknown sex, since sexual difference is still outside the accepted interpretative categories". Sexual difference is experienced by each and every women, and yet it escapes interpretation; besides, there are difficulties in turning it unto a fully political question.

BOCCIA Maria Luisa, Words and practise, pp. 58-68

Reflecting on her decision to leave the Democratic Party of the Left in February 1997, the author reconsiders the meaning of politics for her today. Three fundamental issues are the present poverty of political language, the crisis of the parties' capacity to represent society, and the crisis of political participation. She looks at them retracing her experience as a feminist who was also a Communist Party member (and then of the Democratic Party of the Left) from 1964 to 1997.

MURARO Luisa, A special contradiction, pp. 69-73

This section of the journal, devoted to philosophical questions, is edited by Angela Putino. Here Luisa Muraro enters a dialogue with Putino herself and especially with Laura Boella, who in a previous issue had argued her impossibility to signify the fact of sexual difference. In this paradox - discussing what one maintains cannot be discussed - Muraro sees a more general problem: "lets' try to acknowledge a failure, and not a trite one, of the passage from the fact of sexual difference to thought… To the thought of sexual difference or thought sic et simpliciter? Only little reflection is needed to see that is not really an alternative: it is the case of both one an the other when it is the case - this is the point - of sexual difference; that is to say, the fact of difference, when one must think and think of it, is a problem".

CORSI Rita (introduced by BOCCIA Maria Luisa), From object of thought to thinking thought Carla Lonzi's interlocution with psychoanalysis, pp. 74-91

In this section of the journal, a feminist scholar of some standing [Boccia] introduces a younger scholar. In this article - the introduction of a thesis - Rita Corsi tries to show how Carla Lonzi's position towards the theory and practice of psychoanalysis isn't just a mere refusal: her critique to the central concepts of psychoanalysis moves from "another level", that of a female subjectivity that has complete self-awareness and isn't afraid to measure up against a thought that, when looked at with lucidity, is recognisable as sexed. It is from a preliminary affirmation of non-involvement that it is possible to create the conditions for a dialogue.

BONO Paola - TESSITORE M. Vittoria, Dido Queen of Carthage: Transformations of a Myth, pp. 92-126

With a changing focus and through many means of expression, the story of Dido, princess of Tyre, widow of Sychaeus, unlucky lover of Aeneas, who died of her own choice on a sacrificial pyre, has been told and retold for more than 2000 years. Its transformations have accompanied the very making and transformations of European culture. The authors partially retrace this multiform narration in its historical-geographical journeys and in its passages from one to another genre, thus inquiring into a play of variants and invariants linked to different aesthetical-literary, as well as political-ideological contexts.