Abstract
The issue of a generational exchange in Italian feminism has been crucial over the last decade. Current struggles over precariousness have revived issues previously raised by feminists of the 1970s, recalling how old forms of instability and precarious employment are still present in Italy. This essay starts from the assumption that precariousness is a constitutive aspect of many young Italian women's lives. Young Italian feminist scholars have been discussing the effects of such precarity on their generation. This article analyses the literature produced by political groups of young scholars interested in gender and feminism connected to debates on labour and power in contemporary Italy. One of the most successful strategies that younger feminists have used to gain visibility has involved entering current debates on precariousness, thus forcing a connection with the larger Italian labour movement. In doing so, this new wave of feminism has destabilized the universalism assumed by the 1970s generation. By pointing to a necessary generational change, younger feminists have been able to mark their own specificity and point to exploitative power dynamics within feminist groups, as well as in the family and in the workplace without being dismissed. In such a layered context, many young feminists argue that precariousness is a life condition, not just the effect of job market flexibility and not solely negative. The literature produced by young feminists addresses the current strategies engineered to make ‘their’ precarious life more sustainable. This essay analyses such strategies in the light of contemporary Italian politics. The main conclusion is that younger Italian women's experience requires new strategies and tools for struggle, considering that the visibility of women as political subjects is still quite minimal. Female precariousness can be seen as a fruitful starting point for a dialogue across differences, addressing gender and reproduction, immigration, work and social welfare at the same time.
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Notes
Because the author of this essay is a part of these networks, this analysis is infused with a strong element of self-reflexivity, typical of feminist research, producing mostly situated knowledge (Harding, 1997; Haraway, 2000), without any pretense of neutrality or generalizability. It should be clear, however, that using a situated approach does not mean avoiding fruitful exchange of strategies and solidarity with other feminist groups. On the contrary, starting from one's own experience is useful to specify a group's location in the large global scale of current social movements, appreciating differences and being open to unpredictability. Transnational feminism and its approach based on the recognition of different struggles and diverse voices is useful here to remind European women that none of us represents the revolutionary vanguard, nor can we hold the solution that will work for every place and every woman (Mohanti and Russo, 1991).
Members of Prec@s, Sconvegno, A/matrix and Sexyshock are also close to and in constant dialogue with other important networks where issues of precarity and feminism have emerged (i.e. Fiorelle, based in Prato,promoting intergenerational debates through summer schools and other national events, or Nextgenderation, an international third-wave virtual network promoted throughout the EU). Furthermore, members of the above-mentioned groups are also active in the Italian national network of university researchers – Ricercatori Precari, lobbying to give voice to the specific needs of women researchers (such as paid maternity, sick leave and affirmative action).
This term was used by Laura Balbo, an Italian sociologist who described how women in the 1970s typically worked full time and still had many long hours to work at home, having retained much of the domestic responsibilities while also having entered the job market (Balbo, 1979).
The oral history work carried out by Passerini in 1991, summarizing and comparing accounts of the varieties of voices in Italian feminism and its different generations, is extremely useful to understand the recurrent issues with which many generations of Italian women struggled in the last fifty years (see Passerini, 1991).
Even in the private sector, which should be more open to flexibility, Italian corporate culture is so sexist that it does not encourage women to pursue risky or high-profile careers, as argued in many recent studies (see in particular Gherardi and Poggio, 2003).
Reflecting the lack of opportunities of precarious lifestyles is the fact that the majority of young people live within 30 km of their parents, see them at least twice a week and receive material help from their family of origin (ISTAT report on Italian families, 2005).
It is important here to distinguish between the baby boomers generation, which are called here ‘ the parents’ – born in the late 1940s, which could be realistically the mothers of the third-wave feminists involved in precariousness –, and the following generation, born in the 1950s. The latter accessed higher education in the early 1970s, in a period of economic crisis and much lower expectations than the previous decade. While it is impossible to summarize here the differences among these two groups, both living in such a complex moment in Italian history, it would be interesting to develop a comparison between contemporary precarity and the experience of uncertainty for young people in the 1970s. The way in which the generation precarie criticizes precarity today could be compared especially with the way in which the 1970s generation related to the radical social movements of the time, challenging the dogmas of work and stable income (arguing for the refusal of work and guaranteed income), and expressed their critique of the university system. Access to education had no effect of opening job opportunities; it simply posed an alternative to unemployment, keeping the youth busy for a few years (university was indeed criticized for being ‘a parking lot’ for the youth with no future prospect) (see Di Cori, 2006). If the role of the university is very different today, it is certainly true that it still does not provide access to better jobs, leaving graduates in a still precarious position. I thank the reviewer for pointing to this intriguing comparison, which I hope to be able to research and develop on a different occasion.
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Networks cited
Prec@s, Italy http://www.women.it/mailman/listinfo/precaslistinfo/precas.
Sconvegno, Milan http://www.sconvegno.org.
Sexyshock, Bologna http://www.ecn.org/sexyshock/.
The Middlesex Declaration of the European Precariat. http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1554249.
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Fantone, L. precarious changes: gender and generational politics in contemporary Italy. Fem Rev 87, 5–20 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400357
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400357