“We are not born women: we become.”
Simone de Beauvoir
Every year, every month, every day the number of women victim of violence raises up. In Italy, a woman is killed every two days and for the 80% is by the hand of their family or close friends. The 35% endure daily violence and the 30% is by their partner. The real problem is that these behaviors are recognized and perceived from young people as something normal. These young people are the same that now disrespect their girlfriend, that use psychological violence and that “because they have nothing to do” arrive as well to harass girls during the evenings with friends.
The declaration of United Nations against the violence on women of 1993 defines it as “any act of gender based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life”. It states, then, in different kinds: sexual violence, mutilation or female genital cut, female infanticide, preborn selection, feminicide, teasing, violence in workplaces, in schools and in the sport.
The 25th of November is the International Day against Women’s Violence. T
Il 25 Novembre è la Giornata Internazionale della Lotta contro la Violenza sulle Donne. Un’iniziativa nata per sensibilizzare a un problema radicato nella storia, ma da risolvere.
: the idea of the woman as property. We do not know where this gender disparity actually came from, but what it is sure is that since many years the value of a woman has been measured according to the fidelity to her “owner”, who was father, brother or husband.
In the art, in the history, one of the most salient examples is Il ratto delle Sabine (the abduction of the sabines) by Jacques-Louis David. A mass rape painted in all its drama and at the time told proudly by the Latins as it was seen as a successful expansion technic. Many other artworks describe the violence characterized by using women as a strategic pawn.
However, the most know history and the symbolically stronger is the one of Lucrezia, roman patrician, to which we owe the birth of the Res Publica. Menaced and raped by Sesto Tarquinio, after the prophetic night she called her father and her brother asking them for vengeance and, in order to save her honor, she decided to commit suicide. The extreme sacrifice is the only way in which, not so rarely, a raped woman finds a “solution” to hush up the shame and the humiliation endured. In the rape, in fact, the victim feels often bad and guilty, as if not be able to face an assailant could be a shame, a responsibility of her own. How many times we listen to women finding justifications for the violence endured? “It’s my fault, I was drunk” – no, “It’s my fault, I should dress differently” – no, “It’s my fault, I should not speak with other people” – no or again “It’s my fault, I should not have this behavior” – no. No means no in every part of the world.
Eight women on ten do not report the endured violence. “I bumped into the corner of the night table.”… Does someone really still believe that? And go on with many other useless excuses in order to justify the unjustifiable. Maybe for shame, maybe for fear, maybe for incredulity. The only fault, instead, is the one to do not speak about it, to do not report something that is not normal. It can happen to each one of us at any time, maybe it is already happening without we realize it, because this happens when we continue to be helpless and silent.
The AbanoRitz is a family business with matriarchal tradition since already four generations. Women are neither superior nor inferior to men: we are equal, we are just different from men. We support then the cause and, in our way, we celebrate women, but not only today: always!
“There is a time in which you have to decide: either you are the princess waiting to be saved or you are the warrior saving yourself. I think I have already make a choice: I saved me by myself.”
Marylin Monroe
