Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: SILVIA ALLONE
There's a book, written by the journalist and writer Caitlin Moran,
that hit the shelves a few years ago,
called "How To Be A Women".
[Translates into Italian]
Simeone de Beauvoir already said that in the 1940s:
You aren't born a woman.
You become a woman.
Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition,
it's not something you just happen to be.
It is a process actually, with a series of mostly mandatory steps.
Woman, long before a "what", is a "how".
Among all the difficult things that you can do as a woman,
the thing I'm doing right now is one of the most difficult, ever:
speaking for like 10, 12 minutes
without being interrupted - tipically by a man -
it's a sort of exceptional event.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
And when you point this out,
a man usually interrupts you saying that that's not true.
I was born in 1972.
Back then, pregnancy was a crapshoot.
My parents found out I was a girl the very moment I was born,
not a minute earlier.
So they didn't have four, five months
to project their fantasies on how I would be.
I was a very slim, bald and a baby girl!
And now I am a cisgender woman.
If you perceive a gender like a hill to climb -
it's not accurate, but bear with me -
I am already on the hillside I belong to.
I'm already here, I'm "cis".
Anyway, you are born a girl - someone feels it more than others.
And you spend most of your life trying to learn how to become a woman.
It's about addition and subtraction.
Mostly subtraction actually, because in order to become a Woman -
with a capital W, like in Carmen Consoli's song,
you need to learn how to "be less":
less noisy, less messy, less exuberant, less mindless.
And if you aim to be considered a "Lady"
this is brought to the extreme.
A real lady is elegant,
and elegance is minimalism, sobriety, sacrifice.
Being a woman means, mostly,
learning how to take as less space as possible.
So being skinny has nothing to do with beauty, as fatphobics say.
Forget about it.
People don't give a damn about other people's health.
The point is that women's body is conceived
as something mostly meant to be looked at,
and if the watcher's eye isn't satisfied,
then that body needs to be concealed.
So we moved from the witch hunt of the past,
with a sort of an epic taste,
to a present where we say,
"You don't really want to see flabby arms on a sleeveless dress."
Skinnier, prettier and well groomed
are the only three additions women are allowed to.
Every girl's brain is hammered with the same concept:
nobody cares what you think.
A girl's thoughts are always negligible, irrelevant.
Nobody really cares what girls really think, want or wish for.
Conversely, when girls stand up and take the stage, they're attacked!
Think about Greta Thunberg, think about Malala.
And Malala, you may recall, survived a shot in the head.
Now, make no mistake: we address a lot of concerns to girls!
We worry about how they dress, how they speak, what they eat,
whom they date.
We're keen on telling them they should be careful!
That they shouldn't go out at night,
and they should carefully choose whom they go out with.
So a very high wall is built around women,
of small and big limitations to their personal freedom:
because "It's a nasty world out there!"
The one thing we're not worried about
is to make sure the boys don't represent that very girls' nasty world.
(Applause)
Somehow, from behind this wall,
we should learn how to be leaders.
And if we fail and surrender our leadership to men,
then we're told it's our fault,
that we do not lean in, that we are not brave enough,
that we don't want to stand out,
that we'd rather stay behind the scenes.
And this is where feminism steps in.
Actually, feminism is much more than that:
there's no facet of life where feminism couldn't step in
and rewrite, upholster, rebuild everything.
Feminism, for those who missed the last episodes,
was born at the end of the 18th century with the pamphlet of Mary Wollstonecraft,
called "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman".
Back then, women meant nothing:
they didn't own anything, they could not study,
they could not work, they could not vote.
Wollstonecraft is among the first women to claim
for the right of women to be human,
and to exist also outside of their homes.
From there on,
the feminist theory has evolved, and came up with highly sophisticated work.
It shifted focus!
We are still defending rights - different rights, these days -
but it's not dealing exclusively with protecting our right to exist
in a world where we don't write the rules.
Feminism now deals with rewriting the rules,
making them more balanced and liberating for all.
Feminism doesn't create an anarchic world;
it creates a world where the struggle for power
is replaced by the sharing of knowledge and of resources.
Cooperation over competition;
solidarity over dominance.
Who wouldn't be happy with that?
Well, a lot of people, as far as I can see.
(Laughs)
Being woman leaders, leading something,
leading parties, political movements or professional teams
is a complex issue,
and it's even more so if you are surrounded
by the walls they built for you.
You can't be a leader behind a wall.
You're not born as a leader. You become a leader.
Leadership is made of responsibility,
competence, ability to take risks,
firmness, courage, endurance.
A feminist leader
is not necessarily defined by her ability to stand out,
but for her ability to cooperate and help others become leaders.
Feminism doesn't take up space.
It's a multiplication of spaces, of voices, of perspectives.
And the more you climb the prestige ladder,
according to statistics,
the stronger the male dominance is.
All the aforementioned features of a good feminist leader
are usually swept away
before leadership as we know it,
which is usually competitive, pyramidal, assertive:
only one man in command, like Captain Ahab on the Pequod's deck.
And we all know what happened to Achab and the whole Pequod, don't we?
The leadership as we know is fragile.
It's based on the cult of personality,
more than on creating and sharing ideas.
It's a leadership that men contend, share and pass on in exclusive circles
where women are only admitted
if they're able to replicate exactly
the same dynamics of subjugation and dominion.
(Applause)
This happens everywhere at work.
The higher on the ladder, the more money involved,
the harder it is for women to make room
in a society that favors aggressiveness and assertivity
even when there are no adequate skills.
Sure, women can be terrible too.
The saying goes,
"Women are women's worst enemy",
because at first you're tought
that only bad people can make a career in life,
then they punish you, because "A woman shouldn't behave like this".
A woman with capital W is kind, understanding, thoughtful, welcoming.
What is called firmness and character in a man,
in a woman becomes...
"Being a bitch."
(Applause)
Actually,
(Applause)
Bitch with capital B.
(Applause)
Being a woman, and being a leader,
means being able to overcome a great fear:
being able to speak out loud,
instead of whispering in yet another man's ears.
You know, "behind a great man there's a great woman."
Now I'd like to share an anecdote with you.
For a couple of years now
I've been talking about feminism and gender related topics
in public venues - and sometimes, it gets very public.
It happened that together with my feminist discussion group
we launched #quellavoltache [#thattimewhen]
that was basically a starting point for discussing sexual harassment in Italy,
starting on the web.
I committed to talk about it on newspapers, TV, radio -
wherever needed.
And this is a daunting challenge.
One must be very careful not to flinch the focus away.
If you speak feminism in public,
people would expect you to jump
as a circus seal when they throw fishes at you,
screaming: "Where are all the feminists?"
Women should assumingly take a subordinate role.
Either they say what you want,
or they're not worthy their credentials.
And in order to do so, I had to overcome some of my fears.
The first one was saying silly things in public.
The second one was to come up as a feminist
without the support of other feminists.
And then the third fear was, people might think I was right,
which would give me credit
and put me in a pivotal position,
with all the responsibility that comes with it.
So I was in a school meeting, talking about feminism as usual.
At the end of the meeting, one of the teachers came up to me
and he said, "The way you speak is so man-like."
(Laughter).
I'm not sure what sort of face I put up;
I never know,
when someone praises me using men as a benchmark.
But since I'm a woman, they educated me to be kind,
I didn't really want to chew and spit that little man on the spot.
I also understood, he was genuinely trying to be nice to me.
So basically the thing is,
you spend most of your life
trying to become a women:
but in reality, what really counts when you're out there,
is trying to be as man-like as possible.
(Applause)
Now, I'm 46 and it took me at least 30 years
trying to become a woman who sets her own conditions.
But there's one thing that I did learn to do.
I am no longer afraid of my voice.
(Applause)
Thank you!