"I returned home with the pain of seeing the patriarchy ever more alive and strong, ever more determined not to move from its throne". The words entrusted to social media by Vanessa Aroff Podda, writer, actress and theater director are words between angry and embittered. Thoughts written the day after a party in her town, Lunamatrona , born out of a vulgar episode: the music had just been turned off, she was at the till, in the space of the former Three Bells cinema, when two young men of around 30 years old, drunk, they offered her to have sex for a fee. Using vulgar terms.
«We who grew up in villages know well that when the alcohol level rises», is the premise, «it's not always very safe to stay, because men degenerate. And if at first male privilege is hidden by an artificial fog of apparent calm, afterwards, the masks fall and misogyny, the predatory and rape culture flares up without censorship».
Then the story of the episode, with the obscene and vulgar proposal. And anger: «If two 30-year-olds allow themselves to address themselves in this way, it means that they feel entitled to be able to do so», is Podda's thesis, «they feel defended by the society to which they belong (which would make as an act of goliardia, a drunken joke). The respectable sons, the well-dressed ones, the famous good boys.'
An experience unfortunately not new, the one that dates back to two days ago: "Like all women and people who do not conform to patriarchal logic, from when I was a child to today", she says, "I have suffered harassment, abuse, offenses, criticism, about my body, about my sexuality, about the freedom to manage my body as and when I see fit."
Podda is convinced: « The female body is the greatest battleground there is, because it is precisely sexuality that is being questioned. If it's practiced to make the male feel pleasure, when and how he says, then it's fine, but the moment it's practiced as an act of self-determination of one's pleasure, it's no longer good».
An appeal follows, addressed to the fellow villagers: « Girls and non-compliant people from my country, raise your voice, use your hands, unite, write me if something happens to you, let's unite. Let's not let these things go quietly, they're not jokes, it's not a game if you're only having fun».
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)
