“Non una di meno”, an approach to different perspectives of the 8th of March. Volunteers say
…The streets of Trento showed a strange air of celebration as the city got covered in yellow flowers, that was the first source of confusion for me, a Spanish volunteer in Trento. For me, the 8th of march was purple, as so I thought was on the rest of the globe, but here, the colour of the mimosa remember the partisan resistance and the whole act of giving flowers was proposed by Teresa Noce, Rita Montagnana and Teresa Mattei.
The last 8th of march the world celebrated International Women’s Day.
The streets of Trento showed a strange air of celebration as the city got covered in yellow flowers, that was the first source of confusion for me, a Spanish volunteer in Trento. For me, the 8th of march was purple, as so I thought was on the rest of the globe, but here, the colour of the mimosa remember the partisan resistance and the whole act of giving flowers was proposed by Teresa Noce, Rita Montagnana and Teresa Mattei.
And while it is true that there’s a clear political and revolutionary background behind the tradition of giving mimosa to women, it still felt (for me) inappropriate. I’d spend the past 8thof march walking the streets, screaming and demanding more security, more freedom, more equality. I was seeing how the feminist movement was being criminalized in Spain and the concentrations in the capital were forbidden… And here I was in a different country being congratulated for being a woman, it didn’t feel right.
I opened my organization social media and saw multiple cakes being baked in “honour” of women, posts celebrating the beautiful women in one’s life and not many political statements. To say that I was baffled would be an understatement, I was raging.
As I scrolled in anger through social media I found a flyer for a concentration on Piazza Duomo that same day, that did look like something up my alley.
A big part of understanding other’s cultures is to stop and talk about it, so I did. I asked my workmates, why were they celebrating? What were they celebrating?
“I use this day to share it with the other women in my life and to be thankful for having them, so we share the day” At that moment, that answer felt so naive to me. How could people not be as angry as I am? How could they not see that after a hundred of years we were still in danger on a daily basis just because of our gender? I kept that attitude for some days after the 8th.
That’s why this article is being published in the 18th.
Not everything that happened that day was perceived by me as “awful”, during the meeting in Duomo after some music performance, manifests were read, in those so many interesting points and claims were made. Specially how they highlighted the necessity of approaching equality through a trans-activist and racial perspective, as women of colour and trans women are the one’s who suffer discrimination the most, the most vulnerable.
And so far you might think that I despise the way Italy chose to approach the 8th of March, but it’s been 10 days and all I’ve done is think, I could have written all the above 10 days ago and finished this article with a triumphant feeling, being the one in the right, the one from a country that actually fights, but I would have been wrong.
My way of seeing the 8thof march is as performative as the way Italians chose to see it. Maybe just more bitter.
We are not facing a day problem, being furious one day doesn’t change that we are angry all the 364 days left, we’re still facing a systemic problem, no matter the way we choose to use the one day a year we’re given a platform to discuss it.
The change has to come from governments, the education system, families and individuals; and appreciating the women in your life being alive and well one day a year, a giving them flowers and baking a cake, is not harmful, not detrimental and probably leaves you with a sweeter feeling than a sore throat after screaming “Non una di meno” in the cold streets of Trento.
During 2021, there’s been 14 femicides in Italy, 15 in Spain.
"Femicide:
Violence against women comprises a wide range of acts – from verbal harassment and other forms of emotional abuse, to daily physical or sexual abuse. At the far end of the spectrum is femicide: the murder of a woman."
-World Health Organization from “Understanding and addressing violence against women”
The flowers, the screams, the anger, the cake… Nothing changed the reality of being a woman.
Time gave me perspective and time is all we have, it’s in our hand to chose not how to use our platform on the 8thof March, but every single day of the year. So one day, we can happily celebrate that we’re alive, independent and more importantly equal.
