Politicians From Italy

"The real struggle for Italian women today is to work on the “contents” and no longer just on the “containers” of equality, striving to change male attitudes and mentalities. The emancipation of women has not yet led to the hoped-for balance because the vast majority of men do not want to give up their privileges."

"The possibility of breaking the “glass ceiling” is linked to the need for women to learn to “network”. We must gradually build a system of female relationships that becomes a resource for all. A system that allows us to break out of the “invisible cage” in which many of us still find ourselves, because the tendency to give in to social pressures is still strong. [...] As long as women accept as a given that they have to work a “double shift” and do not fight, by “networking”, to change the mentality of men, no law will ever be able to rid them of the “glass ceiling” that continues to discriminate against them. The freedom won in the 1960s and 1970s is no longer enough. To make it effective and achieve equality, we need to rediscover the value of solidarity."

"Without prior recognition of the other, motherhood does not exist. Procreation is a relational act, a long and complex process that involves the existence of a dialogue, albeit silent, between the future child and the mother within the maternal body. If recognition does not take place, this silent dialogue does not begin, and it is difficult to imagine that a dialogue that never began could be established later. What is certain, however, is that a woman cannot be forced to continue with a pregnancy on the grounds that “she should have thought about it before”."

"The legalisation of abortion does not oblige any woman to have an abortion if she does not want one. It does not oblige anyone to consider abortion morally legitimate. It only allows all those who cannot or do not want to continue with a pregnancy to do so in the best conditions, without “paying” an excessive price for a choice which, I repeat, is never trivial. On the contrary, those who want to criminalise abortion not only seek to impose their conception of the world and morality on others, but are also “indifferent” to the tragic consequences that a return to clandestine abortion could have for many women."

"The comparison between Yasser Arafat and Giuseppe Mazzini does not hold up. Mazzini was opposed to the terrorist plans of certain factions of the Carbonari. In fact, he generally disapproved of the Carbonari and broke with them. This is one of his historical merits. He wanted an association, the “Giovine Italia”, which would call for open political struggle. This also included the use of arms against absolutist and tyrannical governments that did not allow any freedom. But it was an armed struggle aimed at mobilising public opinion, not at physically suppressing opponents."

"In adult videos, the role of women is extremely codified. Women are there to literally embody the “vulgar Aphrodite” of whom the ancient Greeks spoke, that is, a kind of icon of animal femininity, the corrupt and corrupting woman that men seem to need to satisfy their sexual desires. Unlike the “celestial Aphrodite”, the wife or partner worthy of becoming the mother of his children, the “vulgar Aphrodite” can be treated as a mere trinket."

"The days I have lived are part of my history. The joys I have known have shaped me. Without the past, which is inevitably written on my body, I would not be who I am. Erasing every mark that time leaves on our bodies means, in essence, erasing our memory as well. It means oblivion, not wanting to know, not wanting to show. It means underestimating the importance of experience, deluding ourselves that immediacy is the only value worth recognising. We cannot want to “be” and “have been” at the same time, be seventy years old and behave as if we were forty."

"I have learned to use my body in a certain way because I am immersed in a “sexualised” world, where everything contributes to teaching me what a “man” is and what a woman is. So what? Must I therefore conclude that it is more interesting to “do”, regardless of my identity as a woman, rather than “be” a woman in everything I do? Why, in order to be considered equal to men, should I give up my specificity, what characterises me as a woman?"

"Although the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s, with its culture of equality and rights, is still with us, the view that many Italian men have of women, and which many young women end up internalising, does not correspond at all to the hopes of those years. It is women's achievements themselves that seem to be called into question. Not only because of the commodification of women's bodies, which is staged in advertising images or in contemporary pornography, or because of other degrading representations of the female condition, conveyed by television and in particular by entertainment programmes. But also because of a retrograde ideology that would like to turn back the clock."

"In order to reject subjugation to male power, we must first recognise it as a form of subjugation. [...] Although no human being can be treated as a slave without suffering, it often happens that we voluntarily submit to a form of slavery when we have not had the opportunity to know anything else. Habit makes us accept the unacceptable."

"Too often, philosophers hide behind incomprehensible, technical language. For some of them, it is a way of remaining entrenched in an ivory tower without having to confront life, people's aspirations and frustrations, everyday life, or their own physical existence. [...] When, in the name of scientific rigour, we lose touch with reality, then knowledge becomes sterile. It is no longer useful. Except to take comfort in the idea that “others” cannot understand and... too bad for them!"

"Many of us complain about our men, without realising that very often we are the ones who infantilise them, reproaching them for not growing up, for not being up to the task, for not being able to manage everyday life. (chap. 32)"

"The “right person” is not the one who will be able to calm our anxieties and fulfil our expectations, but the one who will learn to accept us as we are, with our flaws and contradictions. Even when we ourselves find it hard to bear. (chap. 3)"

"With time, we learn: the beginning of joy is right there, when we accept that the past never passes and we begin to live with disorder, after giving up on immutability and permanence. (chap. 31)"

"In love, as in life, you should never have too high expectations. Perhaps you shouldn't expect anything at all, since the most beautiful things always happen unexpectedly. (chap. 4)"

"How can you share your daily life with another person if you don't give them the chance to do things their own way, or even to take responsibility for not doing them? How can you live with another person if you don't accept their otherness? After all, even in love, it is always a question of otherness. He is not like us. He is not us. He is simply “other”. (chap. 32)"

"It used to be easier to be a know-it-all, but now the world is so complex that anyone who claims to be a know-it-all is a poor soul."

"If a party is unable to uphold a basic principle such as equality between children, regardless of their parents' sexual orientation, then it is no longer a party with which one can identify."

"Feelings need privacy. Because when you reveal too much, you empty yourself. And then there is nothing left for yourself. Nothing to hold on to when evening falls and you need to rediscover that hard core that makes you unique, that reassures you. Love for life. Love for ourselves. Love for others. (chap. 12)"

"Who knows if we really make choices in life. Who knows if the freedom we talk so much about today really exists. Or perhaps there is such a thing as destiny. A plan in which everything has already been predicted. And so you don't choose anything, you don't decide anything, you just follow the path that has already been laid out for you. And then you spend your life asking yourself “why?”. And the “whys” always remain unanswered. (chap. 25)"

"The “forever” of love is like the “forever” of the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland: it lasts a second. (chap. 1)"

"Within a few days, I had the feeling that the progressive reduction of women to body-images was accompanied by an even more serious regression, by a heavy counterattack against the equality and freedom for which women had fought so hard in the 1960s and 1970s. It is as if the only alternative to the male-dominated model of women as objects of desire were that defended by a certain reactionary ideology."

"And it is precisely when you are no longer afraid of losing your loved one that love dies. (interlude I)"

"For centuries, rationality has been valued as a distinctive characteristic of human beings. For centuries, it has been argued that women's argumentative abilities are inferior to those of men. For centuries, it has been claimed that, unlike men, who are naturally capable of contributing to the development of public life and the organisation of society, women should be content with the role of wife and mother, to be the obedient and submissive angel of the hearth. It is no coincidence that the main objective of feminism and many intellectuals today is still to deconstruct these stereotypical images of femininity and masculinity, to allow women to finally have access not only to formal equality, but also and above all to substantive equality: men and women must enjoy the same rights; although they are different, men and women have the same value and the same dignity."

"It is not work, however, that kills and destroys; what kills and destroys is the exploitation of labour, the exploitation of poverty, the exploitation of despair, that is, everything that happens when the only thing that matters is the maximisation of economic profit, that absolute selfishness that no longer has anything to do with the well-understood interest that Adam Smith already spoke to us about and that leads to the maximisation of the common good."

"The more women try to assert themselves as equal to men in dignity, value and rights, the more men react violently. The fear of losing even a few crumbs of power makes them vulgar, aggressive and violent. [...] These are men who do not accept female autonomy and who, often out of weakness, want to control women and subjugate them to their will. Sometimes they are insecure and have little self-confidence, but instead of trying to understand what exactly is wrong in their lives, they blame women and hold them responsible for their failures. Gradually, they turn women's lives into a nightmare. And when women try to rebuild their lives with someone else, they seek them out, threaten them, beat them, and sometimes kill them. Paradoxically, many of these crimes of passion are nothing more than a symptom of the “decline of the patriarchal empire”. As if violence were the only way to avert the threat of loss. To continue to maintain control over the woman. To reduce her to a mere object of possession. But when the person you love is nothing more than an object, not only does the relational world become hell, but love also dissolves and disappears."

"Only when we listen to the noise within ourselves can we be ready to welcome the words of others. (interlude III)"

"What matters is not just being heard, but being heard as a woman. Until the only way to be accepted and recognised as equal to men is to deny our difference and pretend that we are all identical, we women will not have won our fight for equality. There will always be someone who denies value and dignity to those who are not “perfectly identical”."

"(About the surrogacy) [...] when we are faced with a pregnancy that is altruistic, when we have clarified the difference between the principle of the non-commercialisation of the human body and its intangibility, we must also recognise, at this point, the principle of female autonomy. When a woman decides clearly, autonomously and altruistically to help a couple become parents, having already been a mother herself, having already carried a pregnancy to term, having no particular financial needs, in the name of what should we victimise her and consider that she is incapable of freely expressing her consent?"

"The more time passes, the more I am convinced that this progressive dematerialisation of women, as the only way to achieve equality, is an impasse. I do not believe that the objective existence of a sexual difference automatically implies the devaluation of women and male supremacy. On the contrary, it is precisely when we renounce difference in order to conform to a single model of humanity that we risk renouncing definitively everything that makes us unique and irreplaceable."

"Everything is much more complicated and problematic, however, when, instead of understanding that human beings are a mixture of good and evil, we grow up with the conviction that the “objects” of the world can be classified as “good objects” and “bad objects”. Because, ultimately, it is this type of mechanism that dominates when, as adults, men feel compelled to believe that there are two categories of women: madonnas and whores."

"Unfortunately, this law is already outdated. It is a law that would have been excellent twenty years ago. It is a law reminiscent of the PACS in France, voted on in 1999. It is a law from which we should have expected more."

"In love, we always clash. And we start over every day. Even when we don't feel like it. Especially when we no longer feel like it. (chap. 19)"

"There are moments of profound misunderstanding that happen just like that, from one moment to the next, sometimes suddenly. Whether it is due to accumulated fatigue, a momentary lapse of attention, or simply because life is often very complicated. But ultimately, the exact reasons for this misunderstanding matter little. Let's just say it happens."

"The problem of insults, so-called “hate speech”, is complex. The phenomenon has been analysed by some American feminists who, by deconstructing the mechanisms of male domination, have pointed the finger at the vicious circle of “hate speech” that assigns women a well-defined role from which they can no longer escape. All those who dare to loudly claim equal civil rights are not taken seriously: their claims are immediately discredited and, instead of arguments, the insidious weapon of insults is used against them to silence them. [...] When you shout at a woman that she is a “slut”, at a homosexual that he is a “faggot” or at a black person that he is a “dirty nigger”, you do so because the other person cannot respond. What matters is not the argument you use. There is no argument, no idea, no rationality in the insult. The aim is always the same: to hurt the other person so that they remain silent."

"As those who identify moral dilemmas and try to resolve them by advancing moral principles, values and norms know well, every dilemma, by definition, is dramatic, desperate and hopeless. When faced with a moral dilemma, one always makes the wrong choice; whatever decision one makes, one always ends up regretting what one has said or done. :*From a speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 9 July 2013, quoted in Chamber of Deputies – XVII Legislature – Stenographic Report of the Assembly – Session No. 49 of Tuesday, 9 July 2013 – Continuation of the discussion of the bill: Conversion into law of Decree-Law No. 61 of 4 June 2013, containing new urgent provisions for the protection of the environment, health and labour in the operation of businesses of national strategic interest (A.C. 1139-A)“”."

"Everyone has their own internal music that prevents them from listening to what others say. We only ever hear what we already know. We only ever listen to what we ourselves think. (chap. 22)"

"[...] I will obviously vote yes to this law because it is a necessary step forward, it is needed. Now those who dare to even imagine that being homosexual means not only being different, but also being inferior to others, will be even more ashamed. [...] I ask for no triumphalism [...] because what I would like to ask on my own behalf of all homosexual people, alas, my gay brothers and lesbian sisters, is to apologise for not having been sufficiently capable of protecting and defending their equal dignity and their complete, equal and full equality."

"They were just idealists. In addition to a political organisation, Arafat administers large financial interests under the banners of petrodollars, sheikhs and, in general, Arab states that are anything but democratic. Israel is much more so."

"When everything becomes the result of a construction, the body ends up becoming “nothing”, a sort of chemical compound that dissolves in the solvent of criticism. The door then opens wide to the very possibility of denying any role to reality. It is no longer enough to denounce male domination – which sees women's bodies as objects at the disposal of men – but we even go so far as to deny that women's bodies are different from men's."

"Sometimes we love the possibility that the other person seems to offer us to be “other” than the roles we play: their gestures suggest a way out of the suffocating “must be” that has allowed us to grow and move forward, but which after so many years of routine ends up being too restrictive, like an old suit that no longer fits. (interlude III)"

"The French anthropologist Claude Lévy-Strauss, in his book “'The Look from Afar”', devoted memorable pages to the theme of racism, explaining the fundamental difference between xenophobia and the legitimate need for anyone to protect themselves. It is one thing to want to protect one's loved ones, one's habits, one's beliefs and, why not, one's job."

"I have no victories in Parliament. I have pushed things forward as far as I could. For example, I was the rapporteur for the law on double surnames, which then stalled in the Senate. I got it voted on in the Chamber of Deputies despite hostility and objections that I didn't think would come from the left. A macho, paternalistic, archaic attitude."

"Per eseguire e fare come gli altri, giostrai in sulla piazza di Santa Croce con grande spesa, e grande sunto; nella quale trovo si spese circa fiorini 10 mila di sugello; e ben che d’armi e di colpi non fussi molto strenuo, mi fu giudicato il primo onore, cioè un elmetto fornito d’ariento, con un Marte per cimiero."

"Le Tem[p]s Revient."

"The Essenes, who are worth discussing briefly due to the connections or links that, according to some, connect them to modern Freemasonry, were already well known as an institution almost two centuries before the spread of Christianity. As Josephus states, the Essenes were direct and legitimate children of the Jewish religion and probably the most select part of Phariseeism, because they did not limit themselves to the dry interpretation of the scriptures, but derived the rules of life from them, so that they were not a school, but an institution intended primarily to bring men together, moralizing them through work."

"It has been said by some that Essenism gave rise to the Kabbalists and the Gnostics: the Essenes, who adapted Christianity to their old doctrines, became Gnostics: The Essenes who remained Jews became Kabbalists: thus Essenism died, giving birth to these two powerful twins: Kabbalah and Gnosticism."

"From Gnosticism sprang the Manichaeans, who had Mani as their founder and teacher. Mani, freed from his servile status by a rich widow from Persia – hence he was also called “son of the widow” and his disciples were called “sons of the widow” – handsome, bold, deeply erudite in Alexandrian philosophy, initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, full of resourcefulness and endowed with an unyielding will, he imagined a system in which pure and simple dualism predominates: Christ is confused with Mithras, the Gospel with the Zendavesta, and the result is a squalid and almost desperate doctrine, because it teaches the perpetuity of evil."

"If the Freemasons had wanted to take a saint of the Catholic Church as their patron, they would have designated exactly who they chose. On the contrary, they remain vague: they call themselves Brothers of St. John, but which St. John, the Precursor or the Apostle Evangelist? They do not care and solemnly commemorate both of these figures, St. John of Winter and St. John of Summer."

"The Masonic year begins in March because the Egyptian mysteries were celebrated at the spring equinox and were related to the cult of the sun: in fact, although the sun is reborn at the winter solstice, it does not begin to exert its fertilizing power on the universe until the spring equinox."