WHAT WOMEN SHOULD ASK OF THE LAW:

ITALIAN FEMINIST DEBATE ON THE LEGAL SYSTEM

AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE
by Elisabetta Addis
University of Abruzzi, Italy
Working Paper Series #18
In this paper the author examines the two theories and agendas of feminism which surfaced in the
debate over the new Italian law on sexual violence. Ten years ago, facing an archaic patriarchal law on
sexual violence, Italian feminists asked for a new law in which rape, like murder and assault, would be
counted as a "crime against the person." A raped woman would then be obliged to testify in a trial
against her rapist if the prosecutor decided to press charges. Now, as the new law is about to be
approved, other feminists and women of the left are arguing in favor of the old alternative, revealing a
political and generational shift. For them, the decision to press charges and to testify should be left to
the victim, even at the risk that some rapes might go unpunished, and that trial would be more difficult
for women who press charges.
This division has its roots in two different feminist intellectual traditions which coexist in the Italian
feminist movement. One is the cultural tradition of the socialist and communist left, which borrows from
the concept of class struggle and considers changes in the legal system as material advances and as a
prerequisite for further theoretical developments. The other descends from a French philosophical and
psychoanalytic tradition, and holds that only that which a free woman is willing to say to other women
is an advance for feminism. This paper examines the pitfalls and strengths of both traditions, and also
their contributions to recent feminist growth. It assesses the political consequences of the present
divisions for the feminist movement, and the likely developments of feminist politics in Italy.
INTRODUCTION
For fifteen years the Italian women's movement appeared to outside observers to be
united around an agenda for change that began with winning the right to divorce, continued
with abortion rights and a new family law, grew through the campaigns against sexual
violence, and slowly moved to new issues like economic opportunity and peace. Suddenly it is
severely split. Women who have worked together for more than a decade are now on opposite
sides of an extremely heated debate over the law on sexual violence.
On one side are leaders of the women's movement, who presented a draft bill to the
Italian Parliament as if on behalf of the women's movement, after collecting 300,000 signatures,
and who have campaigned for the bill in the last ten years. On the other side are other women's
movement leaders, members of groups that had a fundamental role in the movement's growth
since the seventies. These women, who are influential feminist scholars, intellectuals, and
activists, have now launched a campaign against the draft bill. The split is not just a
disagreement over an issue but a deep division over the nature of feminism and over the feminist
agenda in Italy.
I will argue here that the important advances of the seventies and eighties were due to
a temporary alliance between two main currents of feminist thought, each of which grew
through the years along different lines. For the last fifteen years, these two strands have been
mutually reinforcing each other, and the women's movement advanced and grew due to the
existence of both. The current debate has had the positive effect of showing how much the
movement has grown intellectually. It has also pointed to the movement's weaknesses,
however, and has raised serious questions for the future of Italian feminism.
From now on, it will be impossible to think and to talk of the women's movement as a
single political actor with a single agenda, or of "representing" the women's movement in the
political process. This may constitute a serious setback.
Italian women, victims of rapists and of a political system that is widely acknowledged
to be incapable of delivering much needed reforms, remain subject to an anachronistic and bad
law on sexual violence passed during Fascism.
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The first part of this article the history of attempts to c h a n g ~ t h ~ law on
sexual violence and characterizes the legal aspects of the different proposals. The second part
describes the central aspects of the intellectual debate, compares the competing positions, tracks
their origins, and forecasts future developments.
THE LAW ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE, OLD AND NEW
Since this wave of the women's movement emerged in Italy in the 1970s, the law on
sexual violence has been under attack. The present law is part of the Fascist code, the Codice
Rocco approved in 1930, which was never abolished by the Republic. There have been only
minor modifications of the law on sexual violence since 1930 and it reflects, therefore, the mores
of those times.
Italian legislation divides crimes into large categories, or "titles." Any law is filed
under a title and thereby deSignated as a "crime against the person," as a "crime against
property," as a "crime against the state," etc. For all laws falling under each title some common
provisions apply with regard to procedures and penalties. The Codice Rocco listed sexual
violence under the title, "crimes against public morality and right living." Such a designation
leads to obvious incongruities. As a young woman said to a male friend: "How is it that if I
punch you in the nose-which is an immoral act and hurts you-it is a crime against your person,
but if you rape me-which is an immoral act and hurts me-it is not a crime against my person but
against our morals?"
The title under which any crime falls is a matter of paramount importance because it
determines the procedures prosecutors must follow. In Italy all "crimes against the person"
require mandatory prosecution. The police and the prosecutor are obliged to investigate and to
press charges if they know that such a crime has been committed, whether or not the victim files
a complaint and is willing to press charges. Moreover, everyone involved is obliged to testify.
But, because sexual violence is a "crime against morality"--like and pornography--sexual
assaults can be prosecuted only if the victim signs a complaint. If a victim is not willing to sign a
complaint, there cannot be a trial, even if the police catch the rapist in the act and/or there are
other witnesses.
Clearly, if they come from a culture in which rape is considered at least partly the fault
of the woman herself, some women will choose not to press charges in order to avoid publicizing
2
the event. As long as there are people who believe that "she brought it on herself' by her dress,
her "loose" behavior, or her being out in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victim may fear
the shame and risk of losing friends and potential partners. Moreover, since the families of
rapists often side with the offenders, the victim, if she does press charges, can be made to feel
guilty for ruining the lives of the "poor kids," who are portrayed as good workers and very
affectionate to their sisters.
To make matters worse, the law designates two different crimes, stupro (rape) and afti
di libidine violenta (acts of libidinous violence), with rape carrying the greater penalty. Such a
distinction dearly reveals the origin of the law in the most patriarchal concepts of womanhood,
manhood, honor, and virtue. This difference means that only women can be raped, because rape
must-- by definition-involve vaginal intercourse. An assault on a man, for example, cannot be
stupro and can only be atti di libidine violenta, the lesser crime, because the assault against the
man did not steal anything (as a woman's virginity can be "stolen") or infringe on anyone's
exclusive rights to her body. Thus, if a woman is assaulted in Italy and the attack takes any
form but vaginal intercourse, then no rape has occurred. No doubt some attackers think that
vaginal intercourse is not worth two extra years in jail.
The existence of two different crimes, plus subsequent judicial interpretations} have
turned rape trials into trials of the victim. This occurs in part because the prosecutor is obliged
to ascertain whether it was "rape" or only "acts," and therefore to ask where, how, and how
many inches. Moreover, the victim must be able to demonstrate that she resisted; to ascertain
this the prosecutor will inquire about exactly what the woman was doing during the rape. For
example, in the rape trial of Cristina Simeoni-a young woman gang-raped after being
discovered making love with her boyfriend-the victim was questioned about whether her legs
were in the same position during the rape as when she made love to her boyfriend, and if so,
why they were. Given the provisions of the law and the requirements for prosecution, the trial
centers on the morality of the woman.
2
Under these conditions, only a few very determined
1 In 1961 the Corte di Cassazione, which gives opinions about legal interpretations, clarified
that "any carnal interpenetration of one's sexual organs into any part of the other person's
body" will constitute rape, if it can be shown that there was "active and persistent physical
resistance" by the victim. "An act that does not involve carnal interpenetration can not
constitute rape even if it results in the same pleasure as the act of coitus." Sentences of
Cassazione 3/28/61 and 2/20/67.
2In the 1987 case of a woman raped in the Piazza Navona, in the center of Rome, in which
police discovered the rapists in the act, the penalty was reduced on appeal because the woman
was a prostitute and a heroin addict, and therefore could'not be expected to offer true resistance.
3
women tile complaints of rape.
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therefore, rape has prosecuted systematically
only when it has involved kidnapping or death.
In the 19705, the feminist movement quickly made the connection between rape, sexual
violence, and women's liberation. It became clear that the 1930 law did not defend women
against rape but instead reflected old "morals," according to which women were objects valued
only if men could have exclusive access to their reproductive capabilities. Women could not
enjoy personal freedom and independence if they were free game for rape any time they were
outside of what men considered women's proper place. Thus, the existing legal treatment of rape
helped to perpetuate men's power over women.
In several important trials in the 1970s, women mobilized on the side of rape victims.
Support groups formed. Feminist groups produced articles showing the link between sexual
violence and women's oppression. Female lawyers argued cases in which they refused to allow
the raped woman to be the one effectively on trial.
The first such landmark trial was in 1975 at Circeo, near Rome. Four handsome and
educated young men from very wealthy Roman families, members of neo-fascist organizations
and of martial arts clubs, picked up two teenaged secretaries who were hitchhiking to the
beach. The men took them instead to a luxury villa in an exclusive resort. After three days, the
naked and tortured bodies of the women were found by chance in the trunk of one of the young
men's cars. One was dead, but the other recovered and accused the men of rape and incredible
torture. This trial evoked the same fascination that the American public displayed in 1988 for
Joel Steinberg's trial for child abuse and murder. This attention came partially because of the
horrors committed and partially because the events lent themselves to a clear political
interpretation. The male rapists were rich fascists and military fanatics who talked with
indifference of their "use" of the working-class girls, as if such behavior were fully within their
rights. This aspect of the case helped, for the first time, to put rape and sexual violence clearly
on the agenda not only of women, who felt directly touched by the issue, but of the entire Left,
which was increasing its strength at that time.
As women began to organize rape crisis centers and to offer support to raped women, the
level of violence seemed to escalate.
3
Nevertheless, feminists continued to push for change. The
3In 1976 Oaudia Caputi was raped by a gang of seventeen. When, with the support of a
feminist group, she decided to press charges, she was raped again by a group which included
some of the original attackers. The second assault was intended explicitly as punishment.
4
1977 trial of Cristina Simeoni was very important in many respects. The victim's lawyers,
Maria Magnani Noya and Tina Lagostena Bassi, were prominent left-wing women who took an
unprecedented step in a rape trial by rejecting the prosecutor on the grounds that he had shown
malicious bias against the woman who pressed charges.
4
Moreover, they asked--but were
refused-that women's associations be permitted to become parte civile to the trial. In an
Italian trial, taking parte civile means that a third party may, if the judge allows it, name its
own lawyer, present its own witnesses, and ask for restitution of damages. In the past trade
unions and environmental organizations have been parte civile in trials related to labor or
pollution issues.
In this trial and others like it, women who pressed charges were supported by other
women, and a level of awareness of rape developed in the movement. The need to alter the law
became evident to the women's movement and to the parties in Parliament that supported it.
THE LAW OF THE WOMEN: TEN YEARS OF PARUAMENTARY FAILURE
A bill can be introduced into the Italian Parliament either by an elected deputy or by a
petition of 50,000 signatures certified by a notary. The second route has rarely been used, because
any initiative which cannot find at least one representative willing to introduce it will
probably be rejected by Parliament as well. This time was different, however.
On April 18, 1979, the MLD (Movimento di Liberazione della Donna) a women's group
that began as a branch of the small Radical Party but then seceded in 1978, and that had had a
prominent role in the earlier campaigns for divorce and abortion reform, announced its intention
to organize a campaign to collect signatures for a draft bill on sexual violence. This decision was
not taken for lack of representatives willing to introduce a bill more favorable to women.
Rather, the women's movement claimed that no party could adequately represent women's
position on this matter. The movement wished to present an independent bill which did not
require compromise with the existing position of any party. Such a strategy would present the
4In this trial it also became evident that the issue of rape could not be treated as an issue of
Right versus Left, and that membership in Left parties-as was the case for Cristina Simeoni's
assailants-was no guarantee that men would not rape. Again in 1979 in Rome at the Casa deUo
studente, the dormitory for low-income male students, and traditionally a haven of leftists, a
handicapped woman was sequestered for four days and passed around among the men.
demands of women forcefully,
movement as a political actor.
simultaneously underline the existence of the women's
The UDI (Unione Donne Italiane, Italian Women's Union), formerly the Communist
Party women's organization but now operating as a separatist group independent from the PO,
immediately agreed to cooperate with the MLD in this initiative, to make the proposed law on
sexual violence "the law of the women."
A National Committee was formed in Rome to launch the campaign for the women's
movement bill. It induded the MLD, the women of the Collettivo Via Pompeo Magno (the most
prominent separatist feminist group in Rome since the early 1970s); Noi Donne (the monthly
magazine published by VDI); Effe (an independent feminist journal very much like Ms.
Magazine); Quotidiano Donna (a daily newspaper published by women formerly belonging to
Communist groups to the left of the Pel); and Radio Lilith (a feminist radio station). Given this
composition,the National Committee ran the gamut of positions in the women's movement, from
the quite moderate to the much more radical. There was no unanimity behind this initiative,
however. A few voices of dissent expressed unease about the movement's demand that women be
defended by the police, judges, and courts-that is, by all the repressive apparatus of a state
that remained male-dominated and the enemy of women in many respects.
On March 29, the National Committee organized a large demonstration and presented
Parliament with 300,000 signatures in favor of "the law of the women."
The bill contained five central principles:
(1) to make rape a crime against the person, thereby making prosecution mandatory;
(2) to eliminate any distinction between rape and acts of libidinous violence;
(3) to recognize and prosecute rape within marriage (a legal notion which had not
existed in the 1930 law);
(4) to lower the minimum but increase the maximum sentences (two to ten years instead of
three to five);
(5) to permit women's associations to be parte civile in trials for sexual violence.
The first point, mandatory prosecution, completely alters the position of the actors in a
rape trial. Under the 1930 law, the victim who presses charges is on an equal footing with the
defendant. The role of the prosecutor is to ascertain what happened by asking questions in a
way that permits the judge to decide. Disbelief expressed by the (male) prosecutor and the
6
malicious bias showed by some of them during earlier rape trials must change under the
proposed bill. The prosecutor must press charges against the defendant. The woman can simply
be a witness. Even if a woman does not press charges herself, the prosecutor's job is to prove the
woman's case once an investigation independently establishes that there is enough evidence for
a trial.
s
This procedure would eliminate the practice of trying the victim and would also make
a conviction much more likely. Moreover, there is important symbolic value in having the law
state that rape is a "crime against the person," with the obvious implication that women are
fully "persons," not objects, nor the property of their men, nor less entitled to personhood than
men are.
By designating all kinds of sexual assaults as rape, the proposed bill eliminated the
need for detailed inquiries which could embarrass or shame the victim. The third point,
recognizing rape inside marriage, was obviously a consequence of women's discovery in Italy and
abroad that widespread sexual violence exists within marriage. Henceforth, such violence
would be subject to prosecution.
In the same months, the political parties introduced their own bills.
6
While the
women's, the Socialists', and the Republicans' bills all called for mandatory prosecution, the
Communists' and the Christian Democrats' bills prescribed that a victim file a complaint in
order for a trial to take place. The arguments against mandatory prosecution varied widely. For
instance, in the debate in the Chamber (reported in Addis Saba, 1985), some claimed that
maintaining the voluntary complaint requirement would protect women who were ashamed to
press charges or who would pay a price if it were known that they had been raped. Others
feared that mandatory prosecution of violence within marriage would deprive a wife raped by
her husband of the livelihood that he provided. Still others argued that the very "personal"
characteristic of the marriage relation made it impossible to involve the state. In the feminist
movement, some argued that if women were still so weak as to be silent about rape, it was
necessary to change the culture first and then the law. Some women also expressed the fear that
women would be subject to violence twice: first by the rapist, and then by being forced to to be a
witness in a trial they might not have wanted.
SOf course, such a law could never e l i m i ~ a t e the possibility that some rapes might go
unpunished because the prosecutor did not have enough evidence and the victim did not press
charges.
6The PCI introduced its bill immediately on June 26,1979, then the PSI on October 30, the
Christian Democrats on November 28, the PRI (Partito Repubblicano) on February 20, 1980, and
the MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano) on March 12.
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The most prominent
group in Milan, the bookstore Libreria delle
Donne, voiced its opposition to "the law of the women" in a conference organized at
I'Umanitaria in Milan on October 27 and 28, 1979. Recognizing that the women who supported
the new law wanted to eliminate women's inferiority in and before the law, the group criticized
the political strategy and argued instead that "the liberation for which we struggle does not
consist in seeking parity with men, but in recognizing our supposed 'inferior' as 'outsider,' and
making it the basis of a project for an alternative society." Despite this critique, in 1979-80 the
Libreria delle Donne did not mount militant opposition to the "law of the women"; they simply
pursued other activities.
It took four years for the rape law to pass through the Parliamentary Commission and
get to the floor.
The blockage in the legislature was overcome when the PCI changed its position and
came out in favor of mandatory prosecution, thus creating the possibility of a majority on the
floor. Thanks to Angela Bottari, a Sicilian Communist deputy in the Justice Commission? a
compromise bill combining features of all parties' bills but respecting the main points of the
"law of the women,"s was introduced and was expected to pass.
9
Nonetheless, in a parliamentary ambush, a Christian Democratic deputy presented an
amendment to the first article which would have returned sexual violence to the title, "crimes
against morality," and woald have thereby annulled the mandatory prosecution aspect of the
new law.
7Bottari invited the National Committee to meet with the Parliamentary Commission. The
Committee refused, however, because it recognized that it did not have a mandate to represent
women or to act in such a parliamentary body "in the name of women."
81t should be noted here that the PCI first adopted its position on sexual violence at the time of
the so-called "National Solidarity" (the practical form taken by the theory of "historical
compromise"), when the PCI had agreed to accept and not oppose governments led by the
Christian Democrats. This national strategy was dropped in 1979. By 1983 a cartel of the Left
for the law on sexual violence was politically more viable for the PCI.
9Provisions for sentencing were somewhat altered, setting out three to eight years for rape,
although five to twelve years for gang rape, which was officially recognized for the first time.
Moreover, the text accepted the Christian Democratic proposal to define statutory rape as
sexual acts with any person under fourteen. Nevertheless, the provision on statutory rape
would not be applicable if there were less than three years between the persons involved,
thereby allowing sex between teenagers.
8
The women's movement protested this parliamentary maneuvering in demonstrations
and public pronouncements, and supported Bottari's decision to boycott further discussion on the
floor. Then, for totally unrelated reasons, Parliament was dissolved and new elections were
called.
Angela Bottari presented basically the same compromise text in the new Parliament but,
facing a barrage of amendments which might have again stalled the law for months, a further
compromise was worked out, and the law was passed in the Chamber of Deputies in October 1984
under a "double regime": mandatory prosecution for rape outside of marriage, voluntary
complaint by the woman for rape in marriage.
The "double regime" was extremely peculiar. It says that what is a "crime against the
person" tonight will not be the same crime tomorrow night if, in the meantime, the two people
get married. The Christian Democrats presented this measure as a way to protect family unity
against intrusion from outside. However, the provision implies that marriage is
institutionalized rape, a position so extreme that only a few radical feminists would agree.
Before the law could be passed by the Senate, however, Parliament was dissolved
again, meaning that the discussion in the lower chamber is also void, and the legal process must
start all over again.
As a result of the important new decision taken to feminize its Parliamentary
delegation, 30% of the Communists elected were women. The other parties of the Left felt
compelled to guarantee women some parliamentary seats. In a coalition government led by the
Christian Democrats after the election, there was a woman Minister of Cultural Affairs (even
though she is the wife of a deceased Social Democratic boss and no feminist), a Christian
Democratic woman Minister for Social and Women's Affairs (albeit with no independent budget
to her Ministry), and a prominent Socialist woman, Elena Marinucci, who had played a role in
the women's movement, as undersecretary of health.
In the opposition, women elected in Parliament on the PCI lists built the
Interparlamentare Donne (lnterparliamentary Women's Group) to coordinate their efforts in the
two chambers and to maintain contact with women elected in the Socialist and other parties.
In Italy, the early eighties have been called the age of femminismo diffuso (widespread
feminism), meaning that, even if the high peaks and mobilization of the women's rights battles
9
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were over, women had. acquired. an increased consciousness of against them and an
increased assertiveness in pressing for acknowledgement of their rights. The Italian political
system began to acknowledge the need for women's self-representation in the political process.
Although the parties' willingness to appoint women could be interpreted as tokenism or as an
effort to win votes, women are able to gain political space and the parties are willing to give
financial and organizational support to women's journals, and to organize conferences on issues of
concern to women.
While these changes are evident in all parties, they are even greater on the Left. The
initial step in this direction had been taken by those women in the PO and in the PSI who were
also active in the women's movement of the seventies and who, in party politics, present
themselves as women and as part of the feminist movement. They ask other women to support
them because they are women, because of their feminism, and because of their link to the
movement.
Political representation for women means not only direct election to representative
bodies, but also new responsibilities as women's organizers in the party apparatus, in affiliated
cultural organizations, and in the trade unions, as well as more women journalists writing on
women's issues. These are women who speak as women and for women, are listened to by other
women and increasingly by men, exactly because they have given women a political voice .

When the rape law went back to Parliament after the elections, it came up first in the
Senate. On June 30, 1988, the new Senate again amended the proposal of the Committee and
excluded rape within marriage from mandatory prosecution. The law therefore went back to the
deputies for final approval. It became clear that the women deputies would have to choose
between accepting the compromise or fighting in order to obtain mandatory prosecution within
marriage.
10
THE POSITION OF LlBRERIA DELLE DONNE AND THE SPLIT IN THE WOMEN'S
MOVEMENT
It is at this point that the unexpected happened. An open letter circulated by the
Libreria delle Donne in the summer of 1988 broke the hitherto solid support of the women's
movement for mandate prosecution.
In the editorial pages of the national newspapers, in meetings and conferences, not only
Catholics and defenders of tradition and families, but women who defined themselves and have
been recognized as feminists and as belonging to the women's movement voiced their opposition
to mandatory prosecution. The question was no longer whether to accept the compromise on the
double regime (mandatory prosecution outside marriage; voluntary prosecution within
marriage), but whether to support prosecution only on voluntary complaint for both marital and
non-marital rape.
The opposition to mandatory prosecution has not come from the generation of women who
have agitated for "the law of the women" for the past ten years, but from younger women, now in
their thirties and forties. These women have contributed to the growth of feminism in Italian
society in the last ten years, and they hold prominent positions in academia, in their
professions, or in politics. This time the opposition was vocal and active, not like years earlier.
Women who have worked together and who have helped each other advance politically and
professionally now stand on opposite sides of the issue.
If I may be allowed to introduce a personal note, I feel particularly confused by the fact
that I have not been able to locate a predictor, a common element in the personal or political
history of these friends and colleagues, that would identify which position they have taken.
Women with very similar histories disagree; women with very different approaches on other
rna tters agree.
The Libreria delle Donne's letter that started this debate presents positions that are
different from those this group advanced ten years ago. Since most women who oppose
mandatory prosecution refer to them, it is worthwhile examining these new positions, and the
reasons why so many women embrace them.
The Libreria presented the letter in an attempt to influence the parliamentary outcome:
11
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If we wish our thought to be understood, it is convenient t ~ use the opportunity of this
intennission [between the debate in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies]. Now
women in Parliament are still open to our words; later, the game will be over, and the
official line of the parties to which they belong will have won out.
10
The letter describes the draft law as old and obsolete:
It does not take into account the new and great fact of these twenty years-the birth of
women's freedom.... We are against mandatory prosecution for many reasons that can be
summarized in one; voluntary complaint respects women's freedom more. Customs have
changed and today voluntary complaints permit women's self-detennination.
Self-determination has been a fundamental principle of Italian women's politics. In
defending women's right to decide on abortion without interference from judges or physicians as
the parties advocated; in demanding that only women could represent women inside the parties
and the electoral process, women called for self-determination.
The Libreria's opposition to mandatory prosecution is not based on the notion of women's
weakness in the face of a trial. It opposes the bill on the grounds that "the law of the women"
actually declares that women are weak and require state protection against rape. In the
Libreria's opinion, women now have become strong because of their newly acquired powers over
their own lives. Moreover, those women who remain weak will not gain from a law that forces
them to be strong.
This argument follows from a theoretical position:
A woman's demands for herself and other women must always begin by asking about
herself.... For example, on mandatory prosecution, we ask: do I want to decide by myself
whether to seek justice through a trial, or do I prefer that the decision is already taken
by the law? We have always answered that we want to decide ourselves ... no tribunal
can mete out justice when a woman's body has been raped. For us justice, as everything
else which is essential to our human identity, has value only if it comes from a feminine
10 All references to the letter are from Libreria delle donne di Milano, "Lettera aperta sulla
legge contro la violenza sessuale," mimeo, 1988.
12
source. A rape trial has value, it is just, only if its justice is based on the strength of
women.
Thus they in practice proposed that rape be prosecuted only when the victim was
willing to endure a trial. Only then would one woman be talking to other women.
on it:
The letter closed with a fierce attack on the women who presented the law and worked
We never recognized ourselves in the law presented to Parliament yet it passes for the
law of all feminists, even of all women. Many such simplifications indicate ignorance or
ill faith.... Can political representation really end women's silence and interpretation
by others? We believe it cannot.
The split among women runs deep. Most of the women elected by the PCI still support
mandatory prosecution. Many were former party organizers who were recently elected to
Parliament. Some younger Communist women supported mandatory prosecution tOO.ll But many
of the younger Communist women who are now doing organizational work for the party or are
employed by the party p[press, the left-wing press, or party related cultural organizations,
publicly endorsed self-determination and opposition to mandatory prosecution.
12
Women in the
Socialist Party, which is allied with the Christian Democrats in government, and which now
opposes cooperation with the Communists, tended to stick with "the law of the women."13
However, prominent female journalists who had been in political groups to the left of the PCI
declared themselves for self-determination,14 as did the most prominent woman elected by the
11 Livia Turco, who at thirty-two is the highest ranking woman in the PCI, a member of the
six-person Secretariat, continued to advocate mandatory prosecution. so too did Carol Beebe
Tarantelli, an American-born woman and wife of an economist murdered by the Red Brigades,
who was elected to Parliament by the PCI. She wrote an excellent editorial in the major daily,
La Repubblica in the fall of 1988.
12Among these are, for example, Luisa Boccia, editor of Reti, the Communist women's journal;
Claudia Mancina, a member of the Central Committee who was in charge of drafting the
Theses for the March 1989 Party Congress; and Franca Chiaromonte, a journalist for Rinascita,
the Communist weekly.
13Elena Marinucci, the Socialist Undersecretary of Health, wrote an article in La Repubblica in
favor of the law.
14This group included Franca Fossati, formerly of Lotta Continua and now editor of Noi Donne,
the only surviving feminist magazine.
13
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newly formed Green Party.15 The LNIUI\.CU representation of women, directly in elected bodies or
in other institutions, is split.
I must at this point declare my position. In my view, the position of the Libreria delle
Donne on the rape law is untenable. My first objection is to their refusal to admit that there is a
political representation of women. The letter was received with such wide interest precisely
because elected women do represent women, and such a debate was a way to inform those
representatives about what women wanted. Second, women's freedom was not born in the last
twenty years; either it was born the first time a woman thought of herself as free or it will be
born when all women do so. Third, freedom from rape is a requisite of women's freedom.
Without mandatory prosecution, this cannot be achieved, because all the rapists against whom
no one presses charges will remain at large and free to rape again. Moreover, if we accept the
Libreria's point that justice for women can only come from women, the proposed law already
reflects women's strength, not their weakness. If the women's movement had not supported the
draft law for the last ten years it would not exist. Indeed, its existence is the first mark of
women's strength in the law.
The choice is not between the same trial chosen or imposed; the advantage of the draft
bill is that it expands the range of available options for women. Without mandatory
prosecution, women can only choose between a trial rigged against them or no trial. In order to
have the possibility of a trial that does not make the victim the culprit by questioning her
motives and her personhood, we meed mandatory prosecution.
16
If I start from myself, as is feminist practice, I cannot imagine a condition under which I
would use the freedom of not pressing charges if raped. Therefore it does not make sense for me to
defend this freedom when, by doing that, I have to give up the benefits of having a better trial.
All this and much more has been said in the debate. But we still have to understand the
roots of the opposition to the draft bill. Why do many women and feminists, who do not act in
ignorance or bad faith, oppose mandatory prosecution today? If it is true, as I believe, that the
15Rosa Filippini opposed mandatory prosecution, but Nicoletta Tiliacos, a prominent
environmental journalist, signed a statement supporting it.
160f course, there will be no trial if the woman says there was no rape. Even under mandatory
prosecution, a woman is free to say this in the trial, any time she feels her freedom has been
violated by the prosecution.
14
roots of this position lie deep within the culture of the feminist movement, what does this split
suggest for the future of the Italian women's movement?
THE TWO SOULS OF THE ITAUAN FEMINIST MOVEMENT
The history of the Italian women's movement reveals that important theoretical
differences have existed from the movement's beginning. In 1987 feminists of the Libreria delle
Don ne published a book, with the striking title Non credere di avere del diritti {Do Not Believe
You Have Any Rights, hereafter abbreviated as NCAD] ,in which they recounted their
version of the history of the Italian women's movement. This history differs significantly from
that described elsewhere by women who have taken the PCI or the traditional Left as their
reference point [Adler Hellman, 1987; Addis Saba, 1985; Michetti et al., 1984]. The names of the
actors are different, the events are different, the ideas and the aims are different. These works
read as if two parallel histories had unfolded, and as if two parallel traditions had been
established.
What needs to be explained is why younger feminists who are active today in the
parties and press of the Left seem drawn to the tradition of Libreria delle Donne, even though
they remain active on the Left and therefore still reject strict separatism (while nevertheless
maintaining a degree of autonomy from the male apparatus). One may think that they would
have been the natural heirs of the older leftist women's feminist tradition. In order to answer
this question, I will first briefly summarize the essential features of the two approaches, even
at the risk of oversimplifying schemes of thought which are more subtle.
The tradition of the women in the PCI, PSI, UOI, and MLD is a tradition which seeks
parity between women and men. The starting point is the assertion of a fundamental equality in
abilities between women and men. But in everyday life, the realm of the human is split in two.
Women are made the custodians of feminine virtues like kindness, patience, ability to listen,
and they are confined to the realm of the "private," "personal emotions," "family," and
"silence." Men are forced into the male role of conquering, being strong, owning. Women are
oppressed because their abilities are not valued outside of the home. Women are discriminated
against because their equality is denied; they are denied "personhood," "rationality," "voice."
The extreme and pathological enforcement of this division of roles is rape.
i I ~ '

!. i . '
I
I
i
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'i
In this view,women's """.""",,,,,,,,' ... is partially an outdated remnant of the old patriarchal
division of labor between the sexes, kept alive by men who prefer to eschew their share of
domestic work and child rearing. By overcoming the gender division of roles, by revaluing
feminine virtues and acquiring masculine ones as well, women will restore human unity and
liberate themselves, and men.
These women argue that to overcome oppression and liberate both men and women, it is
necessary to change the material conditions of women's lives. They ask for contraception, child
care, divorce, abortion, egalitarian family legislation, better job opportunities, better salaries,
hiring quotas if needed, state intervention to redress disparities, and political representation in
order to obtain all this. A law which protects women against rape is a fundamental part of this
agenda.
In this tradition, consciousness raising is important because only when women become
conscious of their common oppression will they struggle to eliminate it. Once women achieve
parity with men, the traditional division of roles will collapse and a new culture, built with
the full contribution of women, will grow. Only then will rape be extinct and no laws needed.
In the implied causal links--cultural change will follow from change in material
conditions--and in assigning a primary role to gender consciousness and organization, this
theory's origins can be easily traced to Marxism, materialism, and class theory [Menapace,
1987].
In this tradition, the history of the Italian feminist movement begins with women in the
Socialist and Communist parties fighting fascism, participating in the Resistance, and then
falling back into the shadows. In this story, the new wave of feminism followed from the New
Left women's rejection of the secondary roles which had confined them to being angeli del
ciclostile (angels of the mimeograph machine) within a movement which called for an anti-
authoritarian liberation for all. They were turned off by the hierarchical, belligerent, totally
unfeminine that followed as the movement fragmented into little organizations. They
initiated an autonomous women's movement whose progress was measured by the large
demonstrations of the seventies, by important conferences, by legislative victories, by freedom
from old sexual taboos, by acceptance of women's paid work, by the new positions of
independence, responsibility, and power gained by women in all manner of activities. The
campaign to collect 300,000 signatures, the mobilization of women deputies, and the near
passage of the law on sexual violence were all marks of this progress.
16
History according to the Libreria delle Donne is different. It starts with the small
separatist groups of women, Dem-au [Demystification of Authoritarianism] and Rivolta
femminista [Feminist Revolt], active at the end of the sixties. It evolves through consciousness
raising and the so-called "practice of the unconscious," which was the Milan group's attempt at
an alternative use of psychoanalysis.
The book recalls with great annoyance the great demonstrations of the seventies in
which women dressed in pink, and sang and danced in circles. For the women who did those
things, they were a way to affirm women's pride in being women. For the women of the Libreria,
this was "an exaggerated caricature of femininity." The feminine characteristics and virtues
thus paraded had no positive value by themselves because they only reflected the femininity
men projected onto women. Similarly, the great battle for women's right to choose on abortion is
interpreted as proof of the contradiction into which the women's movement will fall when
dealing with institutions. Libreria delle Donne refused to support any law which regulated
abortion, demanding instead "decriminalization," i.e., simple elimination of any laws which
made abortion illegal.
Instead of recounting achieved reforms, the Libreria recounts intellectual discoveries,
which, they argue, precede everything: "We ourselves, so to speak, invented the social
contradiction that makes our freedom necessary" [NCAD,59].
The first such discovery was the recognition that women are not equal to men, nor to each
other. The problem became how to give a positive value to the difference from men and to the
differences between women.
The difference from men is not a biological difference nor one of values. The values that
women have are not peculiarly "feminine"; they have been projected onto women by men. This
thinking reflects the theoretical positions of the French philosopher Luce lrigaray, who argues
that the female sex is not a sex and it is not one. There is only one sex, the male, and its
projection, the female. What is truly female has to be built by constructing the image of women
by women through cultural mediation lmediazionel. "What makes women suffer, in essence, is
never saying by themselves what they want, but always speaking to themselves in the words of
others" [NCAD, 35]. Women suffer because of their nonexistence in the symbolic order.
f, !!
From this perspective
ra\sing is important not to build a bond against
common oppression, but to begin a discourse among women in which one reflects the other's image
[rispecchiamento: mirroring). The recognition of differences among women is the precondition for
women to talk to one another in a cultural exchange; only women who recognize that they are
different and admire each other for their differences may begin an exchange, giving what one
has and taking what one does not.
For the Libreria the existence of this difference between women implies, among other
things, that no political representation of the women's movement as a whole is possible. Women
can exchange words among themselves, but they do not want to be listened to by men and their
institutions, to whom they have nothing to say. Any attempt to talk to men gets in the way of
building an independent women's mediation.
An important step in this intellectual process was rediscovering "the mothers," Le., the
women, mostly in literature, who first conceptualized women's independent existence: Virginia
Woolf, Elsa Morante, Sylvia Plath, and others. This rediscovery is not just a matter of giving
them due recognition because men had ignored them. The mothers talked to each other and they
talk to us; to listen to them and recognize their authority is a step in building the mediation, in
establishing a feminine cultural tradition. Thus, the lack of a free social existence is not a
material condition as much as it is one of the symbolic order. Building a medium of
communication among women-a language-that does not bear men's imprint is the first step to
building a new symbolic order.
In the existing symbolic order, the only relation available to women is one of mutual
help. Consciousness of a common oppression and struggles for new rights are only mutual help.
Practicing them does not alter the symbolic order. Rather, only the practice of affidamento
[trusting] can give women value in and of themselves. This act of ascribing value to what
another woman-or other women-says and thinks results in allegiance only to other women and
their interests. Affidamento implies taking other women as intellectual mothers and
daughters, and establishing relations not permitted in the male symbolic order.
All this may sound highly metaphysical and irrelevant to the day to day politics of
the women's movement, but it is not. Indeed, the Italian feminist movement of the seventies
depended on women eclectically picking pieces from both traditions and cross-fertilizing them,b
y acting upon both and not caring too much when they contradicted each other. For example, in
the tradition of the Libreria, separate organization is not only a useful tool to advance an
18
agenda; it is essential. UDI existed for years as a semi-autonomous body because men did not
care to intervene on "the woman question." It was not until the tradition of the women of the left
mingled with the other tradition that autonomy became a matter of principle, and of pride.
The positions of the Libreria delle Donne made the women's movement much more
powerful than it would have ever been through sheer mobilization. Women were strong not only
because they were together in large numbers, but because they were able to give value only to
what other women thought and did, to the exclusion of what men said. This made both men's
open criticism or their veiled irony ineffective in diverting women from their pursuits. Such
notions also made women more powerful in their lives, especially when dealing with male
colleagues or bosses. It made them more powerful in intellectual enterprises, because no
comparison with the products of male culture was deemed valid, and the standards of male
culture and research were rejected as a measure of one's worth. It made them politically
powerful because, if a woman's primary allegiance was to women, all of one's energies could be
devoted to women's concerns and not diverted towards other causes like workers' struggles or
environmental problems, worthy as they may be.
The position of the Libreria delle Donne,moreover, looks like a genuine feminist theory.
The Left's theory, in contrast, looks rather like an adaptation of class theory or thinking about
minorities applied to the case of gender. The theory of the Libreria, even though it would not be
difficult to track its masculine philosophical ancestors-Barthes, Foucault, Lacan [see Tavor
Bannet, 1989]-does not apply to classes or other groups. In that respect it appears more original.
Moreover, cultural mediation requires that great care be given to the production of
words, according to the Libreria delle Donne. This means that their texts are elaborate,
exhibiting solid training in psychoanalysis, philosophy, and other existing forms of cultural
mediation. Their style is far distant from the somewhat rough and polemical texts that left-
wing women used to produce, and is therefore more attractive.
To these reasons explaining the success of the Libreria delle Donne, one must add the
failure of the other tradition to generate new intellectual materials, in gender analysis as well
as class analysis. The world view that lay behind the struggles of the late sixties and seventies
did not hold; the New Left dissolved, and the PCI has had its Bad Godesberg.
The point at which the two traditions met for a short embrace, which is recalled as a
crucial moment in the history of both traditions, was a meeting at Pinarelli di Cervia in
19
1- I (
November 1975. The young women who had been active in the PCI or in the New Left since 1968-
69 for the first time came in contact with the approach of the Milan women (then called the
Collettivo di Via Cherubini) who organized the meeting. All those who were not at Pinarella-
and I was not-have lived to regret it. Whereas the older left-wing women had proposed the
struggle for parity, i.e., to struggle finally also for women, as they had struggled for the rights
of other oppressed people before, the Libreria offered the younger left-wing women,those who
were at Pinarella and those who waited for their friends at home, a struggle that was, first and
foremost, for women, that was for us.
This encounter occurred at a point in the history of the Left when it was not at all clear
what was required to advance the cause of workers and oppressed people. Although the young
women of the Left had deep roots in that tradition--belonging as a result of family ties,
friendships, former militancy, and cultural formation-some of them temporarily withdrew
from activism in mixed organizations and dedicated themselves only to women's politics. They
nevertheless remained "of the Left," being journalists or union activists, or otherwise
maintaining links through studies and/or work. Others did not withdraw but practiced doppia
militanza, a double militancy in Left organizations and in autonomous women's groups, albeit at
the risk of being criticized by the purists, who conducted their lives exclusively according to the
tenets of the Libreria. The women who practiced doppia militanza closely followed the
activities of the Libreria delle Donne after Pinarella. Each issue of Sottosopra, published by
the Libreria every few years, produced a debate.
The activities and positions of the Libreria would have remained an elitist elaboration
known only to a few adepts if doppia militanza had not created a larger pool of women willing
to receive it, albeit in vulgarized form. The young women of the Left derived from the Libreria's
poSition strength that they did not find in the traditions of the women who had preceded them
in left-wing politics They lent this strength to the struggle for parity. Thus, the tenets of the
Libreria were like a crutch that helped Left women gain recognition, space, status, and the very
political representation that the Libreria delle Donne spurned.
In an ironic way the demonstrations of women dressed in pink and flowers who
demanded abortion rights were fueled by the intellectual excitement that young left-wing
women felt for a watered down version of the Libreria's notions of difference. Therefore, while
the young women of the women's movement did not recognize their "mothers" in the older women
of the Left, the Libreria delle Donne did not recognize its "daughters" in the flower-bedecked
women dancing in the demonstration for legislative reform.
20
The women who at the time of Pinarella were in their twenties are now in their late
thirties or early forties. The influence of the Libreria has been growing among them, due to the
fact that the old Left approach in the eighties has slowed down, producing very few results,
either on the law on sexual violence or in pushing forward an agenda of reforms in favor of
women. The deadlock follows from the general stalemate of the political situation and
budgetary conditions. The younger women, in the meantime, continued practicing the eclecticism
of doppia militllnza directly in the parties and press of the Left, in cultural organizations, and
in peace and environmental movements.
The fact that there was a contradiction between the theories of the Libreria that they
used, and their daily practice of doppia militanza , may have created an intellectual problem
for some, but then we are all, to some extent, walking contradictions. For many years there was
little choice but to live with the contradiction as long as possible. However, the open letter
distributed by the Libreria delle Donne in the summer of 1988 tore open this contradiction and
radically divided women.
When the women who have acted as representatives of women-be it in the party, in the
press, or in the cultural organizations-faced the difficult decision of what to do about the
parliamentary compromise on "the double regime," they could not remain silent without making
a mockery of their representative responsibilities. Therefore, all spoke out on the issue and
some adopted the position of the Libreria.
Whereas in the past the contradictions of double militancy had been a -source of
strength, it is now no longer clear that they will continue to be so in the future. The space to
practice an eclectic approach to feminism, if not closed, has certainly been reduced. From now on,
women who claim to speak about or for women will be asked to clarify their position on the
debate. No elected representative or organizational activist will be simply a woman and a
feminist. No voting support can be solicited from women without specifying from which women
to which women.
The entire process of representing women qua women-which had gone so far in Italy-
has been disrupted. Ironically, at the very moment that feminists spoke out against mandatory
prosecution, they raised for the first time the question of why anyone should listen to them.
i
I
II
II
21
. .k."
i I
I
Of COUf:le, the Ubreria delle Donne assumes exactly this position. If no woman can
represent anyone but herself, no one can represent the movement. This wing of the feminist
movement has succeeded in transmitting its position on representational practices to the
movement as a whole. The practices on which so much of the Italian women's movement's
political strength had depended are no longer legitimate. As a result, the Libreria's
intervention on the issue of sexual violence has consequences far beyond that issue.
Yet another ironic result may be that the audience of the Libreria delle Donne among
young women of the Left may be restricted too. After all, the injunction to tum to our "mothers"
to build a cultural tradition means that if younger left-wing women embrace the Libreria's
theory, they cannot disown all the tradition of the older women of the Left. It was our
"mothers" who struggled for "the law of the women" and its mandatory prosecution. Precisely
because young women have carefully read Sottosopra for a decade, they cannot easily tum their
backs on those "mothers'" support for mandatory prosecution. They must carefully reassess a
theory which demands that they do so.
Rather than empowering women in a male-dominated world, the position of the
Libreria now appears as a further bond, restricting the space for women. The Libreria demands
that women cease any efforts to speak with men in order to make changes in women's lives. If
the contradiction at the heart of Italian women's doppia militanza is forced, so that the
practice becomes impossible, it may very well be that the final outcome of this debate will be to
weaken left-wing women without strengthening the position of the Libreria delle Donne.
This need not occur, however. This is an important political debate in which feminists
have been talking to feminists. It is, of course, rhetorical to say that a debate which clarifies
positions is always a good thing; sometimes such an argument leaves behind only bitter
opponents, and does not lead anywhere. However, a debate in which the limitations of each
position emerge clearly may help to overcome those limitations.
This debate could be used by women of the Left to overcome the limitations of their own
tradition. Thus far that tradition has not given women and their movement enough sense of
their uniqueness and purpose. It has not escaped the same impediments that other theories with
a similar theoretical structure-class theories, oppression theories-have faced. Yet left-wing
women, including those who have practiced doppia militanza, have also clearly expressed the
need for practical changes to improve the conditions of their daily lives. They have continued
to set common goals, struggled to achieve them, and in doing so demanded laws which recognize
22
them. To do that they have needed political representation of women and the women's
movement. Overcoming the limitations of the tradition means thinking of ways to combine the
need for such political practice with a new kind of feminist thinking.
But the theoretical positions of the Libreria by itself are insufficient. Cultural
exchange is not a practical political agenda. It does teach a code for women to relate to each
other and to themselves, but it leaves totally undefined what may and should be done as women
relate to men in all spheres of life, other than to ignore them. More women than ever must live-
not entirely by their choice-like men among men. The Libreria chose to ignore the problem of
our relation to men. But this we cannot afford to do, especially when they are raping us.
Women are still raped and rape victims are still put on trial, and the culprit of this is
not the debate among women. It is the rapists, and it is the Italian political system which, in
its collusion with them and in its incredible baroque inertia, has shown its worst male face.
CONCLUSION
While this paper was being written, in March 1989, the rape bill was passed by the
Chamber of Deputies, with mandatory prosecution within marriage. Therefore the bill now
goes to another, and one hopes, last, round in the Senate.
Whatever the parliamentary outcome on the rape law, the debate must continue among
feminists. It has shown us both our strengths and our remaining weakness, our need for new
theory and new practices. The worst outcome for us all would be a breakdown in communication
among women of the two traditions in Italian feminism. We can grow only if the two roots keep
nourishing one strong plant.
REFERENCES
Addis Saba, M. 10 donna, io persona: appunti per une storia della legge contra La violenza
sessuale. Roma: Edizioni Felina, 1985.
Adler Hellman, J. Journeys Among Women. London and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Adler Hellman, J. "The Italian Communists, the Women's Question and the Challenge of
Feminism," Studies in Political Economy, 13 (Winter 1984).
23
,
~
Beckwith, K. "Response to
in the Italian Parliament: Divorce, Abortion and Sexual
Violence Legislation," in Fainsod and McClurg, OOs., The Women's Movements of the u.s. and
Europe. Philadelphia: Temple, 1987.
Iragaray, L. Questo sesso ehe non e' un sesso. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1978.
Libreria delle Donne di Milano. Non credere di avere del diritti. Firenze: Rosenberg & Sellier,
1987.
____ . "Lettera aperta sulla legge contro la violenza sessuale," mimeo, Iuglio, 1988.
Menapace, L. Eeonomia Politica della DifferenZil sessuale. Roma: Edizione Felina, 1987.
Michetti, M., Repetto, M., and L. Viviani. UDI, laboratorio di politica delle donne. Roma:
Cooperativa Libera Stampa, 1984.
Tavor Bannet, E. Structuralism and the Logic of Dissent. Indianapolis: University of Illinois
Press, 1989.
Sottosopra, Milano, no. 1 (1973); no. 2 (1974); no. 3 (1976); special issue, "PiiI donne che uomini"
(1983).
24
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