Crida Editorial – November 25th

“If tomorrow it’s my turn, I want to be the last.”

The poem by Cristina Torres Caceres—which I invite you to read if you haven’t already—is a punch to the gut.

It is a letter written to a mother by one of the many young women who live with the fear of femicide on their very skin.

Talking to my daughters, aged 22 and 27, I realized there is a vast distance between their way of thinking and experiencing this situation compared to ours. I was deeply struck by the sense of extreme vulnerability they also feel: coming home at night, traveling alone, or working in a society that only superficially accepts female empowerment, but continues to view women as objects to be admired—often through unsolicited comments that leave young women feeling inferior and uneasy.

If I walk into a bar to grab a coffee and the barista says, “My, how beautiful you are, when are you coming back this way?”, that is not okay, my daughter tells me. And I, who experienced many similar situations when I was young, realize that I never gave weight to phrases like that; in fact, I was almost flattered by them.

I was wrong.

Because in the opposite situation—a female barista and a handsome young man entering the premises—there would hardly be such an approach.

This is a sign that male culture continues to be centered on the power of the dominant male who judges a woman by her appearance.

How many times are we women evaluated by our physicality? You are fat, you are thin, you are old, you are sexy. How many times do the media present women who are authoritative and successful in their fields by saying: “here is the beautiful and talented so-and-so.” If it were a man, the aesthetic judgment would obviously be omitted. He is authoritative, and that is all.

I believe the time has come for a deep reflection on how our boys are growing up, influenced not only by these unfortunate behaviors but also by the verbal violence of social media and a type of music—rap and trap—that is a continuous hymn to male strength and power over girls, who are either “sluts” or the property of an individual. A boy today can have many women and he is “cool”; a girl who has had many relationships is “damaged goods.”

To address the femicide emergency (and we have reached 105 victims since the beginning of the year in Italy), men must change—those same men who today say “I am not like them” to lighten their individual responsibility.

It is not enough.

Perhaps Filippo Turetta, the latest murderer, said the same before attacking Giulia Cecchettin, stabbing her to death, and abandoning her in a ravine. Yet he seemed like a “good boy,” so much so that his lawyer—a man—hastened to tell us that he loved her very much and even baked cookies for her.

I believe there is still too much distance between the two sexes in the perception of this problem.

Women are becoming stronger, and men—despite macho attitudes—are becoming increasingly fragile. There would be nothing wrong with this evolution of society (everything we have achieved, we have more than earned) were it not for the fact that some men are unable to handle the change in roles. They feel undervalued, diminished, and end up transforming their weakness into aggression and violence. Giulia would have graduated before Filippo; she was more talented, and she would have moved away for work. Giulia would no longer have been his ex-girlfriend, always available for a pizza or a stroll through the city. Giulia would have met someone else, as is right for a young woman who decided that he no longer represented her future.

So, instead of losing her, he killed her.

But this boy, who comes from a middle-class family, who studies biomedical engineering, and who I imagine had likely read stories and testimonies about femicide—how could he be convinced that all this didn’t concern him? How could he not feel like part of the problem?

And above all: if the problem is men, why are only women talking about femicide?

For this November 25th, I would like to see a demonstration against violence toward women made up only of men. I am tired of hearing, on these occasions, only advice on what we should or should not do: how to protect potential victims, how to help them report abuse, “don’t ever go to that one last meeting.”

Let’s stop asking ourselves why Giulia agreed to meet Filippo or why she got into that car. The question we must ask ourselves is: why can’t we raise young people with an emotional education based on respect and equality? Why do men still kill women?