The killing of Alessandra Matteuzzi, the woman from Bologna murdered by her ex with a hammer and iron bench, is the plastic and perfect representation of the dynamics of every feminicide.
Giovanni Padovani is not crazyhe is not a drop out, he is a young man in perfect shape, integrated in the world, even a spokesperson for campaigns against violence against women. In short you would never have guessed, as you almost always do.
Alessandra is subjected to continuous and unprecedented harassment: must justify every movement, every breath, is forced to send videos every 10 minutes so that he always knows where she is, with whom, how she is dressed, what she is doing. He takes over her social profiles to also control her online life and asks her to delete all male contacts. She tries to humour him 'not to arouse his anger'.until she cannot take it any longer and decides to leave him. He does not tolerate abandonment, He persecutes her in every way, he breaks into her house through the terrace, he cuts off the light of the apartment building where she lives to force her to go out, he harasses her with constant phone calls, he ambushes her constantly. She convinces herself to report him, she is terrified, but as you know the complaint is not followed by immediate restrictive measures. He leaves for Bologna with a hammer in his backpackdetermined to end the affair in his own way. He intercepts her as she is returning home, on the phone to her sister for self-protection, and brutally attacks her until he kills her. A neighbour rushes to her aid, but is unable to stop him. He wants to kill her and succeeds.
"The world will not jump if man no longer has the psychological balance based on our subjugation". wrote Carla Lonzi in her Women's Revolt Manifesto. The 'disease' is present from the very beginning: only being able to stand if you have someone to control and oppress, the heel on your neck, the blind terror of your freedom. She wriggles out of control and you fall ruinously, your identity crumbling: a symbolic death. Like someone who is drowning, you attach yourself to the neck of her who wanted to free herself, you drag her down hoping that her death will restore your equilibrium. She is no longer there, but not because she left you, not because of her will, but because of yours. You finally regained the control you had lost.
The feminist does not 'lose control' but re-establishes it.
The fight against men's violence against women is not working and feminicides are not decreasing because one continues to keep one's eyes on the terminal fact (the acting out in the violent gesture, in many cases up to the killing) which in reality is only a device and a function of domination, is to reiterate and re-establish it again and again, with exhausting labour. The issue is the dominance of men over women, This is where one must look without being distracted by the details in the news of each individual case. The game is always the same and never changes.
It is a matter of finding your way in the direction of a way of being in the world as men that is no longer based on the subjugation of women. No longer requiring the symbolic death of women -in many cases until their actual death- to ensure an honourable existence according to the unwritten rules of the pact between men or sexual contract.
Not a few men who have already set out on this road of transformation and one must hope for them.
Marina Terragni
