Eugenia Roccella

thumb|Eugenia Roccella in 2013 Eugenia Maria Roccella (born 15 November 1953) is an Italian journalist and politician, who has been serving as Minister for Family, Natality and Equal Opportunities in the Meloni government since 22 October 2022. She is a member of Brothers of Italy (FdI). Quotes Femicide, on which frightening data has also been presented in this Chamber, is the tip of the iceberg of a broader situation of violence against women based on the power relationship between men and women, which a Pope, not a feminist, namely Benedict XVI, has defined as the perversion of the domination of one sex over the other. Verbatim Transcript of the Session n°. 13 of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 23 November 2022. Women are often seen and portrayed as victims, and they are, of course, victims of male violence, but women are strong, they are able to rebel; in short, they are not predestined victims, and they must therefore bring out their strength, express it, and the task of politics and society in general is not to make them feel alone in this quest for freedom. Verbatim Transcript of the Session n°. 13 of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 23 November 2022. To defeat the logic of the domination of one sex over the other, we must respect and value sexual difference, which is the difference that structures the human group, the human community. Throughout history, difference has been used as an instrument of oppression, discrimination and subordination, or it has been ignored, forced into the male patterns of a society built on male times and spaces. Verbatim Transcript of the Session n°. 13 of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 23 November 2022. Sexual difference is inscribed in the body, and the inviolability and freedom of female bodies must be guaranteed. Today, we have old forms of patriarchal power, discrimination and abuse that overlap with new, more subtle and insidious forms, with new devices of power, such as the destruction of the maternal body, its placement on the market or the difficulty in identifying oneself as a woman, and we have seen that a whirlwind of accusations was unleashed against a famous writer, such as Rowling, for simply stating this, that she did not renounce identifying herself as a woman, the word woman, instead of other definitions such as a person with a uterus. Verbatim Transcript of the Session n°. 13 of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 23 November 2022. This Government, which is not by chance headed by a woman, will make a strong commitment to combating violence against women. Verbatim Transcript of the Session n°. 13 of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 23 November 2022. (About the murder of Giulia Cecchettin) What we never wanted has happened. Once again. The body of a young woman has been found, and it is Giulia's. She was very young, her attacker was very young, and the violence that a surveillance camera video has already revealed is terrible. Our response is not just the unspeakable agony of a chain of deaths to which, each time, another horror is added. Our response is decisive action. Next week, the Senate is scheduled to examine the government's bill to strengthen and speed up preventive and precautionary measures, which has already been unanimously approved by the Chamber of Deputies and which we hope will become definitive state law in a few days. Quoted in Giulia Cecchettin, Meloni: "Dramma inconcepibile". Schlein: "Subito una legge", Tg24.sky.it, 19 November 2023. Adelaide Aglietta Aglietta Adelaide, in AA.VV., Italiane. Dagli anni Cinquanta ad oggi (1951-2011), www.150anni.it Adelaide had a natural  aesthetic understatement, a sobriety contradicted by her dark and intense gaze, by an appearance like that of Anna Magnani from the upper-class neighbourhoods. Her sharp face seemed to express an inner suffering, a barely restrained passion. She immediately found herself at the forefront of the campaigns for divorce and abortion, becoming regional secretary [of the Radical Party], mainly because, as she candidly admitted, she had a lot of free time as she didn't have to work. She knew almost nothing about politics and its tricks, but she quickly discovered the Radicals' extraordinary timing, their ability to exploit the gaps in media communication and political events. [...] nothing was further from her than the desire for prominence, the ambition to appear, to be seen, to occupy the stage. Until the end, there was something shy about her, a veil of reserve with which she lived out every private transgression – for example, her long relationship with Giovanni Negri, who was many years younger than her – and also the responsibility of her roles, which she always played with a touch of shyness, even if she scolded, argued and commanded. Tenacity, and a certain rigidity of manner, alternated with a tendency to cry easily (a flaw that had not yet become a virtue in politics, and for which her friends sometimes teased her good-naturedly). Adelaide's last battle was against breast cancer. She faced this too with sobriety and courage, as one of the many political battles fought alongside her lifelong friends. It was, however, a losing battle: Adelaide died on 20 May 2000, in Rome. Not even her experience tells us fully whether a woman's destiny can really be reconciled with politics as male culture has constructed it, or whether, in order to experience it as a leading figure, it is not necessary to make too costly cuts, to play roles in which there remains, somewhere, an unacknowledged unease. External links Roccella, Maria Eugenia Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:Women politicians in Italy Category:Women journalists from Italy Category:Essayists from Italy