It will be a distant March 8, perhaps to be celebrated through a video, but no less heartfelt. Although the pandemic imposes severe limitations, there are hundreds of initiatives for International Women’s Day. Some in attendance, while many will be held online. This morning the Prime Minister Mario Draghi will be at the Quirinale with the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. The ceremony, broadcast in streaming, will also be attended by the Minister of Equal Opportunities Elena Bonetti while the opening speech will be given by the writer Silvia Avallone. On the other hand, US Vice President Kamala Harris and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden will participate in the session of the European Parliament with a video message.
Online, from today and throughout the week, will also be the initiatives of “Donne Culture Roma”, a program of free events dedicated to female talent: starting with the preview – on Operaroma.tv, the YouTube channel of the Teatro dell ‘ Opera di Roma – of the new Tosca video clip. It will be available from the afternoon Shut up, boys, appointment with interventions from the Argentine stage and video contributions by artists and women from the world of culture.
In Ferrara, the Teatro Comunale Foundation organized the meeting, also broadcast in streaming, “Feminism, rights and spirituality: from Sacred Scripture to contemporaneity”, a multi-voiced reflection on the female question with the philosopher Laura Boella, the historian Lucetta Scaraffia and the anthropologist Maryan Ismail. With them also Moni Ovadia, director of the Teatro Comunale Foundation, and Vittorio Robiati Bendaud, essayist and coordinator of the Rabbinical Court of Central Northern Italy. Films with women protagonists will be broadcast on Rai Movie throughout the day: from Sophia Loren to Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale, passing through Jane Fonda and the director of Mustang, Deniz Gamze Erguven.
Live instead will be some initiatives of the main Italian cities. In Rome, in front of the Polish embassy, a demonstration will be held in defense of the right to abortion. “The mobilization deserves our full support: Polish women defend the values of freedom that are also the values of us Europeans and claim that right to self-determination that belongs to women all over the world”, explained MP Laura Boldrini , which will be in the square. In Livorno, on the other hand, the men will take to the streets: the mayor Luca Salvetti, the commissioner Roberto Massucci, the councilors, the president of the municipal council and the councilors will be the protagonists of a flashmob of solidarity in the town hall square.
In Milan, where all the city statues are dedicated to men, Terre des Hommes has organized a flashmob to place installations of women next to those of men. The first will be that of Malala near the controversial statue of Indro Montanelli; the installation by Nandhini, a fourteen-year-old Indian who rebelled against forced marriage, will be located in Piazza San Fedele and, finally, in front of the Polytechnic, the statue of Rita Levi Montalcini will be placed. Once again in Milan, the journalists of Radio Popolare will join the transfeminist strike promoted throughout Italy by the collective “Non Una Di Meno”: “The inequalities of access and economic treatment in the workplace, the omnipresence of sexist discourse and the the slaughter of women that we are forced to tell almost every day are issues that affect our lives ”, the radio editors and collaborators explain in a note, also announcing that they are donating a portion of their salaries to an anti-violence center in Milan.