DWF
donnawomanfemme
Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-
Exploring new lands, 2002, n. 1-2
Exploring new lands, pp. 2-4
This issue aims at presenting the experiences of some young women in "exploring new lands", following the suggestions of DWF 2001, n. 2-3. The papers were not looked for but found by the editorial board as an answer to their curiosity towards the ways in which female freedom changes and moves in the researches carried out by a new feminist generation.
CORSI Rita, A soul on sale. Drug addiction and the search for meaning, pp. 5-19
The author reflects
upon and puts to work her awareness of sexual difference in a project which
envisaged the organisation of a course of philosophy in a public structure aimed
at helping drug- addicts (in this case alcoholics) in Tuscany. Examining the
stages and changes undergone by the project and analysing her relation with
the patients, Corsi highlights some relevant differences between the ways in
which experience dependency, also questioning her own presuppositions and convictions.
SOLDANO Cinzia, Sexy Sex Pistols, pp. 20-33
The British Punk
Movement in Julien Temple's movie on the Sex Pistols' story: the tale of the
male desire for social and political change in Europe in the '70s. In the author's
reading, the reflections of Johnny Rotten, the vocalist of the band, meet the
thoughts of the Italian feminist Carla Lonzi, suggesting that they and their
minds could have met. They didn't - but now this film can be a new opportunity
for sharing the changing experiences of women and men.
BUDGEON Shelly, Emergent Feminist (?) Identities. Young Women and the Practice of Micropolitics, pp. 34-62
The article seeks
to examine identities young women are producing within late modern social conditions
with the aim of exploring these identities in relation to the increasingly fragmented
project of second wave feminism. In order to evaluate whether feminism has maintained
intergenerational currency, the article, based upon interviews with 33 young
women aged 16-20, discusses ways in which young women are engaging with choices
available to them. The active negotiation of 123identity(ies) requires an examination
of the discourses available to the subjects and in this study it is apparent
that, while these young women were alienated from second wave feminism, their
identities were indeed informed by intrinsically feminist ideals. This contradiction
begs the question of what place young women occupy within the increasingly diverse
category of "feminism"? The tension between second wave feminism and
postfeminism and their problematic relationship is analysed as a problem deriving
from difference. Analysis of interview material is used to argue that the identities
under construction allow the young women to engage in a resistant fashion with
the choices they have available at the microlevel of everyday life.
MANIA Patrizia, Women, art, art criticism, art history, pp. 63-68
The author, a young
art critic, rereads the work of some women artists who have been fundamental
in her formation, shaping her way of looking. She underlines the importance
of investing the gendered/sexed body in one's art work, the surplus of meaning
that this creates; a fact whose strength shows itself without necessarily being
spelled out in terms of political awareness and choice.
D'IZZIA
Agnès, Continuous movements. Feminity, masculinity, society: conceptions
of sexed/gendered Otherness, pp. 69-84
The article aims
at analysing the continuous transformations undergone by the concepts of "femininity"
and "masculinity", showing how the meaning of such transformations
is related to the changes in society at large; such an analysis is then utilised
in order to rethink sexual difference according to a complex model in accordance
with the ipercomplexity of contemporary society. Retracing
and reconsidering some recurring themes in the reflection on the gendered/sexed
body and on the Otherness of men's and women's thought in the last twenty years,
the author underlines how physical appearences change in time, in a perpetual
transformation. The purpose here is to highlight the complexity of this spectrum's
form, of its social meanings, articulated with the complexities of the 'figures
of woman-being and the man-being', and of sexual Otherness in the 90's.
CERUTTI GIORGI Monica, Food and love, pp. 84-91
Clarice Lispector's
art of writing, with its appealing and misleading simplicity, creates in her
short stories a philosophical dimension, giving access to the very souces of
thought. It is the case of La spartizione dei pani - where the "banal"
event of a meal reveals both the most sacred ritual and the most impersonal
of human-animal gestures. The text creates for the author of this comment associations,
images, new ideas, in a complex play of co-texts and con-texts which shows the
symbolical movement of different and always possible readings.
CIMITILE Anna Maria, Female genealogies, pp. 92-96
The author reflects
on "Genealogies of the present" (DWF 2001, n. 1) in order to question
some issues about the relation between feminists belonging to different generations.
The centrality of the mother-real, metaphorical, symbolic, and often all the
three together - characterises the search and redefinition of a female identity
which subverts the male patriarchal constructions of Woman.
MAJOR Melena,
A discovery, pp. 97-100
In this letter
to the editorial board, the author - a young woman with "little or no knowledge
of feminism" - communicates her emotional reaction to "Without peace"
(DWF 2001, n. 4), a reaction rooted in her own rebellious story as the daughter
of an Italian Jewish mother and an Italo-American father fully integrated in
and identified with the USA. The importance of the words and thoughts of other
women - the women who wrote the articles in that issue, and the women mentioned
in those articles - helped her to clarify her own thoughts regarding both the
attack to the Twin Towers and the ensuing war, and a possible way of positioning
herself.
SERRA Fulvia, Listening, pp. 101-104
Reflecting on the
article "From the voice of other women" by Paola Masi and Federica
Giardini (DWF 2001, n. 4), the author analyses and questions her own reaction
to the events of September 11 th 2001 and of the following months. Concepts
such as belonging, exclusion and inclusion, being an outsider, sexual difference,
take on changeable meanings according to the movement of one's specific experience.
CAPUANI Monica, Ann-Marie MacDonald, pp. 105-112
Ann-Marie MacDonald is a Toronto-based writer and actor. Her play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) won the Governor General's Award for Drama, the Chalmers Award for Outstanding Play and the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Drama. She won a Gemini Award for her role in the film Where the Spirit Lives and was nominated for a Genie for her role in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. Her best-seller, Fall On Your Knees, was published in the New Face of Fiction program in 1996 and translated in the Italian language in 1999.