To begin with congratulations to Elly Schlein and best wishes for your new assignment.
Then the factsas I see them.
Elly Schlein's victory was a takeover bid on the PDthe voting in the gazebo, for the first time different from the voting in the clubs - also a historical novelty - shows that Schlein has mobilised the radical left to the limits of antagonism, as well as the 5-star. He said this years ago: Occupy PD. Now he has done it.
That it is supported by an important part of the Apparatčik of the party, from Franceschini to Bettini, including many ex-Democrats who refer to Romano Prodi, will perhaps mean less than they think. Susanna and the old men: but Susanna is not easily outwitted. Very poor in political and cultural fundamentals -has failed to fill slogans with credible content, in any field, starting with labour- Schlein is very skilful in her political moves and image buildingsupported by a formidable personal ambition. It has already eaten Pippo Civati, just to say. It could happen to others. And of course will remain untouchable for a long time: we will witness a honeymoon between her, the PD and her voters, and we will -maybe- also see a halt in the party's free fall in the polls. It is difficult for anyone within the party to spite her.
A split is also unlikely in my opinion. Someone, at random, will leave the PD to join the Third Pole. Perhaps Giorgio Gori, perhaps Guerini. But nothing comparable to an earthquake.
And we come to the our feminist affairs because that is what we are talking about here.
To say first of all that it is absolutely shocking in a country as misogynistic as ours -but with strong matriarchal roots- to see two women almost still girls leading their respective coalitionsMeloni as head of the government and Schlein as head of the opposition. It happened suddenly, and probably without Giorgia Meloni, Operation Elly would not have been conceivable. They were looking for an anti-Giorgia, it was almost obligatory to stop the decline -if it stops- and they found her. Otherwise it would not have happened.
What has happened is impressive, and understandably impresses women in particular. There is much that is positive in this female protagonism.
Very different profilesOn the right is a girl who is familiar with the expression 'belt-tightening', a daughter of the people, brought up in a matriarchal household but never calling herself a feminist, able to come to terms in the party with the 'father' she missed, traditionalist but not at all bigoted, fiercely gender-criticalsupported by a formidable determination, one who has laboriously climbed every rung to get where she is; on the left, a young middle-class, cosmopolitan woman, educated by her family -beginning with her participation in Barack Obama's campaigns- to become a leading politician, built piece by piece, with little experience of the job, anti-maternal profile played as a plus even in the election campaign and made to coincide, by perfect emancipatedwith feminism, looking at political figures such as Corbyn, Melenchon, Bernie Sanders, and among women Ocasio-Cortez and the Spaniard Irene Montero, creator of the terrifying Ley Trans.
The Schlein secretariat has the merit of clearing away many of the PD's ambiguities: consistent with the line of all western progressive parties, the horizon is individual rights. In her first speech as secretary Schlein glossed over the war -she says she is a pacifist but voted to send new weapons to Ukraine- but was clear on the prevailing orthodoxy. If up to now it had been a blur, it is now crystal clear. The party has 'woken up' and is definitely woke. We know the contents and they were also written in the programme: LGBTQIA+ rights, absolute self-determination, gender identity, alias careers in schools, facilitated transition, hormones, sex work, sexual assistance to the disabled, free womb renting -there was also a very clear vote by Schlein in Europe- and so on. Issues that radical feminism has always included in the neo-patriarchal liberalist package. It's quite funny to think of Franceschini as queer, but that's the way it is.
The experience of Spanish feminism can come to the rescueborn in post-Francoism is almost entirely made up of communists, socialists, anarchists. And today that betrayed by the wokeism of the PSOE-Podemos government majority, especially with the passing of the incredible law "si es si" and the infamous Ley Trans, it seems intent on turning their backs on the left to proclaim mass abstention at the next regional elections -in May- and political elections -in the autumn-, hashtag #feminismonvotatraidores.
Indeed: You can fight for years and years against the exploitation of women and the child market, against the substitution of sex for gender and of the relationship for the individual armed with rights, against the homophobic scandal of hormonised minors, against the business of induced sterilisation and assisted fertilisation, the whole package we call transhumanism, and then support the transfeminist Schlein -or, in Spain, her counterpart Montero-?
You may decide that after all these are marginal issues, when you have been putting them for so long at the heart of your political practices because that is precisely where they belong? Can you, because you have always been a leftist?
Meanwhile Let us refresh our memory: the principles that hold us together, for which we have fought together to the point of personal sacrifice, subscribed to and endorsed by tens of thousands of women worldwide, we find here. And also here.
After that anyone is entitled to change their mind and leave the camp. It is enough to say it clearly, for a minimum of decency towards oneself.
Marina Terragni
