Mafia and women
Sommary
di Paola Corso
Speaking about women and organised crime, about the Mafia, one cannot pretend or ask to be recognised original or new, rather what must be recognised is the effort, the fatigue to penetrate into a world that has always been denied, disowned to women: that of the complete civil and criminal responsibility, the right to mischief, also responsible in the complicity of connivance. For centuries this "right" has been denied to women; the aggressiveness, the guilt, and the "offence" carried out by women had to be the issue of "madness", state of lunacy and excitement, or subordination. Incapable or mad (Cf. "Diritto Sessuato", by Tamar Pitch, in Democrazia e diritto, n. 2, 1993). The centuries have accustomed us to oppose "to the image of an aggressive and fighting man that of a non aggressive and peaceful woman(2). We had to experiment feminism first and psychoanalysis afterwards, to assert that even war belongs to our sex, and that aggressiveness belongs to mothers. Accepting and ascertaining this responsibility, assuming it is a long as well as tiring process, that is why most texts and researches dealing with women's condition and and their relation to these forms of crime were dogmatic and descriptive, hagiographic or holding they were guilty. It's hard to admit that women exist and in a way somehow different from male, but concordantly elaborate and experienced. The concealment was determined by the male eye and male observation, certainly corrupted by laws and by juridical praxis that are the first not to acknowledge the participation of relatives, and therefore mothers, wives and daughters to guilt: to be "family" saves, excludes. Many are the regulations, juridical and affective, that impede men even if scholars, to thoroughly read women's personal, social and human experience. Mainly if they have to come out of sublimation or affective dependence and therefore condemnation or hagiography. The cornerstone, the founding value of our relations is still the family, women's official wealth, that represents the continuity of species, control and safety of economical and affective wealth. In the Calabrian society the right, the law processing and its internal handling are entrusted to women: they are mothers' wealth, the responsibility is theirs, the task to keep respecting the father and to carry on the feud: revenge and conspiracy of silence are entrusted and controlled by women, because the tradition and custody of memory of the dead are women's (Cf. L. M. Lombardi Satriani, V. Meligrana: "Un villagio nella memoria". It's a sadomasochist plot that is put up by the connivance of the two sexes and that while it enhances the strength and virility of men, it forces women to the abandonment of intelligence and freedom, to concealment within seduction and subordination. It's a process that many women - like me - that grew up in the Calabria of 'ndragheta, experienced on their body. Written in a violent manner by male control and deceitfully practised by a female mentality aiming at preservation and sacrifice. That is how we were able to hide even to ourselves connivance with Mafia, given by common and more general "feeling Mafioso", the protection that Mafia gave to virility and the oppression of femininity. The fierce conditioning of women's freedom, that went from the favour of prostitution to the exaltation of Virgins and Madonna in sacred processions. No prostitute could have survived in Calabria without the control of 'ndragheta, but it had to be kept quiet, not said. Chastity, respectability, family honour is the condition necessary to become "picciotto", to be included within the "honoured society", the "chatter" does harm to the association that among its symbols holds "silence" and conspiracy of silence as "humbleness", it reveals interests and business. But then this is the same model of honourability that is required by our families, middle-class or low-class, laic or catholic. Not only in Italy. This model is also widespread in Mediterranean societies (Cf. Tamar Pitch: op. cit., and: Onore e storia nelle societa' mediterranee, G. Fiume, ed., La Luna, Palermo, 1989). It's the same mechanism, of sadomasochist connivance, that made us "forget" (neglect? underrate?) the historical and documented presence, of women in the trials "for Camorra criminal association", carried out in Calabria from 1860 to the early '900. The Calabrian brigand women - but this phenomenon exists in the whole South where there have been brigands - have been recognised and condemned not only because they were partners or reference points, logistical support to brigands, but also because they were bosses responsible for gangs that they formed and led themselves (Cf. Maria Oliverio: La piu' bella briganta del Mezzogiorno, her story goes from 1860 to 1864). These women could not, then, disappear from the events of 'ndragheta or however cut down their power to simple "housewives". They certainly didn't lose their ferocity and intelligence necessary to oversee to organised crime. But this responsibility, the capability to take part in the action of the Camorra, has been denied by jurists and historians. In those and other trials (Cf. State Files of Catanzaro, v. 394, 4 June 1901) where they were accused, they were remarkably underrated, even when they were recognised as the "bosses" they were considered inferior to men: lovers, "drude", victims of males. These are trials that still await to be read, investigated more carefully, compared to our daily situation. That in order to understand, also in a boundary greater than Italy and than that historically given, what the process of responsibility and full citizenship for women can be. In order to be able to be citizens even in the identification of one's own crime and in the assumption of the penalty. Working on these subjects I came to suggest a conference of studies about "women and Mafia" to be held in Tuscany on the 30th and 31st of October. Tuscany because it is a region at high risk in organised crime, because women in this region have a solid power within economy, principally a family power, and they widely support (see work done at home, small and medium size firms, the diffusion of rural and artisan banks, tourism, etc.) the regional economic systems, and its political and affective relations, finally because there is a strong female political leadership. The topics that will be dealt are: 1.women's concealed and displayed extraneousness from violence trials and in particular from this type of criminality. Why? 2.how women's relations, and above all the analysis of the relation with maternal power, can help us investigate on processes, tools and means of involvement 3.what image does visual imagery and culture hand down of/on women involved in organised crime 4.Tuscany's women and new forms of defence and education based on legality: how to be "anti-Mafia". These are hard topics to deal, not new for the discussion started out by women with society. (1) "Diritto sessuato", a cura di Tamar Pitch, in: Democrazia e diritto, n. 2, 1993. (2) Margarete mitscherlich: "La donna non aggressiva", la Tartaruga, Milano, 1992. (3) L. M. Lombardi Satriani, 'n villaggio nella memoria, Meligrana. (4) Tamari Pitch, Onore e storia nelle societa' mediterranea, a cura di G. Fiule, La Luna, Palermo.