Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
“NoThey are not sick, they are healthy children of rape culture.” It’s a slogan, forgive me, excessive. Rape culture in Italy existed. They called it a shotgun weddingwas foreseen by the Rocco code, the Duce’s Minister of Justice – the Duce today greatly regretted even by many women -, but it also existed before: whoever raped a woman and married her saw the crime extinguished.
In short, whoever wanted a woman took her, and she was obliged by law to spend her whole life with the man who had raped her, often with the consent or acceptance of the community.
Until a young Sicilian woman, Franca Viola, refused – with the support of her father – to marry the man who had raped hersaying: “Honor is lost by those who do these things, not by those who suffer them”.
That example was followed by many women, not just from the South. Almost sixty years have passed since then. A blink of an eye, in the history of human beings. A life, in our dimension so ephemeral and temporary.
Then of course sexual violence isn’t over. There is still too much violence against women, much of which goes unreported. Many women courageously called the police into question, who did not always take their complaint; but here too many steps forward have been made, when I was a boy there were no women in uniform, there were no departments specialized in dealing with victims of sexual violence and identifying the perpetrators.
We have said it many times over the years: Violence against women is a problem for men, who must change and make the minority that still does not accept women’s freedom change.
The radicalisms of both sides are legitimate, but they don’t always help. It is not true that all men are innocent, nor is it true that they are all guilty, a priori and regardless.
Let’s say that everyone must take on their responsibility: not only not to commit violence, but to prevent it and report it.
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All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.
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