A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #470 - WOMEN, FAMILY, AND JUSTICE. The underclass and its intricate gender issues (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In a springtime, crooked Palermo, amidst exuberant roadworks that hurt 
without truly healing, a mother-we'll call her Vita-is summoned to the 
Juvenile Court. She's not the first, and she won't be the last, but her 
heart is pounding, and her stammer makes her answers to the judge's 
questions almost laughable, evidence of a deceitful attitude.
In recent years, Vita has been experiencing the typical difficulties of 
women and mothers left alone after their husbands' imprisonment. For a 
brief period, she had hoped that things were smoothing out with her 
partner's house arrest, but he had scuppered them by returning to crime 
and returned to prison after a handful of months, unable to prevent the 
consequences this time being paid by the entire family.
Vita has three sons: the eldest, eighteen, will soon give birth to a 
daughter, the second is in middle school, and the third is finishing 
elementary school. Some in the family can barely read and write, while 
others, even though they're still in school, can't. No one has a 
diagnosis, and Vita doesn't know what it means, but she always provides 
the entire family with the care she knows how to provide: food, 
clothing, toys, personal hygiene, respect for the family rules, and 
presence. The judge, adamant, plays on her shortcomings and her 
difficulty expressing herself to reassure her that she's a terrible 
mother and that the two minors will likely soon be removed from their 
family. A brand-new charge hangs over Vita's head, one that's announced 
to her in no uncertain terms: complicity with her husband, who, while 
under house arrest, was found in possession of a considerable quantity 
of hashish.
The tip-off came one morning when he was the only one at home; Vita was 
cleaning for her clients, and the minors were with relatives. When the 
police raided the house, they found the drugs in the refrigerator, and 
the man's attempts to claim they were for personal use and that no one 
in the house knew anything about them were in vain. He was returned to 
prison, and Vita found herself alone once again, angry with her husband, 
overwhelmed by shame over this new stain on her family's image.
Now that she has been summoned to the Juvenile Court, Vita has urgent 
homework: she must prove in every way possible that she was innocent of 
the crimes, that she is a caring and attentive mother, and that she 
deserves to exercise parental responsibility. The problem is that she 
can do so by proving herself innocent in the criminal proceedings in 
which she and her husband are involved, but in the meantime, the 
Juvenile Court's timeline, as is standard practice, could be much 
shorter than the outcome of the criminal proceedings, threatening the 
removal of the children still under her care.
This suspended and painful story, one among many similar ones, provides 
us with interesting insights for a gender analysis and demands that we 
do so with the urgency conveyed by these family histories, in which 
women and children too often experience unexamined and dysfunctional 
existential patterns imposed on them. Beyond the highly complex 
reflection on the forced removal of children from their family contexts, 
which forces them into communities devoid of any emotional dimension and 
where it is impossible to see their uniqueness valued, the most obvious 
gender insight is that linked to the dynamics between women and men 
within family systems in the context of the underclass, amidst 
delinquency and markedly patriarchal cultural traditions.
Moving away from the risk of discussing justice and legality, I feel the 
urgency of giving voice to all those women who, caught between 
socio-cultural disadvantage and a perception of femininity still 
entirely subordinate to masculinity, spend their entire lives at the 
mercy of others' will, be it that of their father and brothers, then of 
their husband, and whoever in his absence assumes "control of the 
family." Because for every woman fighting to break down patriarchal 
dynamics, there are still too many who ignore the possibility of an 
alternative to the gender subordination to which they are forced.
Women who concretely embody a true example of emancipation, finding 
themselves shouldering everything while being forced to resist the 
violent winds of institutional rule, yet who meanwhile lack the freedom 
to stand up to husbands who sell drugs at home, putting the entire 
family at risk; to fathers who forced them into prostitution; to 
brothers who beat them when they don't adhere to family norms destined 
to never change; to all those male figures who pass on the baton of 
imprisonment, too quickly involving the younger members of the family, 
who, as men, are destined to suffer the same fate. Women who, in all 
this degrading chaos, have no right to resist, don't even try; and who 
must collaborate, endure trials, lose children and grandchildren, 
reunite in tiny homes with other single women, dividing their time 
between menial and undeclared jobs, inconsistent schooling for children, 
demanding care for the elderly, public defenders, and criminal records 
regardless of their actual criminal record.
The use of the domestic context by men for their business, the violation 
of that place that is everyone's property but perceived as the property 
of those in command, corresponds to a cowardly division of blame and to 
an overexposure of the little ones to contents, practices and 
testimonies that in fact poison their lives.
The problem is that very rarely is anything resolved by placing those 
lives in communities, torn from their caregivers, just as nothing is 
resolved by blaming women for witnessing crimes, because we continue to 
address the symptom and not the problem, destroying life paths and 
impoverishing opportunities.
Because, in my opinion, the real problem lies in the lack of 
alternatives for those women and children.
For many who commit crimes voluntarily, others are unjustly implicated, 
and the result of a society that gropes its way forward, attempting to 
apportion blame and inflict punishment is before our eyes, beyond 
judgment. As long as the family is supported by patriarchal logic, it 
will be too easy to transform it into a hostile and inimical place, the 
first and harshest prison, followed by others like pale retorts. In the 
hope that Vita and all women in her situation can find respite and 
relief, if not profound change in the years to come, the cry "All free" 
and the outstretched hand of transfeminist anarchism rise from here.
.
Désirée Carruba Toscano

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