When we think about 1968 demonstrations, we got Paris or San Francisco in our minds. Or maybe the Prague spring, when Czechoslovakia tried to rebel against the Soviet Union (unsuccessfully). Someone, though, three years earlier, had already passed through all these requests for a better, fairer, more equal society: Holland. And that’s thanks to Provo…
Femicide, men used to hate women
We can guess that (almost) all of us went through this at least once in our life. It might not strictly a violence, but maybe a boyfriend a little too “jealous” (not to say “possessive”), a husband who checks your email, the one who likes making scenes in the middle of the street, the ex who calls you a thousand times to find out where you are, the half unknown who has decided to skulk outside your house…
Princesses, (social) mirror on the wall
Beautiful and thin, graceful and harmonious, romantic and always in search of love, kind and helpful, affable and loving, obliging and attentive. The Italian (and English) provide an infinite number of synonyms to describe the gender role, always the same, of fairytale princesses: characters that are basically unreal in which, however, many girls still try to mirror themselves. But it is useless to blame the choices of the last century. From 2012 things have changed more in the entertainment rather than in the women’s head…
Coronavirus and the war rhetoric
During this global pandemic and quarantine, we hear a lot of talking about a war-like situation. Sure, there are some similarities between the two emergency circumstances. On the other hand, psychology, strategy and social system play a total different role…
The barber and his pivotal role in societies
More than just taking care of style, the figure of the barber – reconsidered thanks to hipsters – historically dealt with a lot of aspects that, apparently, had nothing to do with razors, scissors or shaving foam…
Rites of passage, how to become an adult
Becoming an adult is a gradual process, but is conventionally defined by a specific moment in which a young kid suddenly turns into a useful member of a society – even just with his or (more likely) her fertility. Populations in any time and place organized public celebrations that certified the entrance in adulthood, named “rites of passage” by the French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep…
Suicide and its ethics in societies
Societies throughout history gave different meanings to suicide. It was considered acceptable, to a certain extent, by the Romans; it was in Mayans pantheon and in Norse mythology; it was codified by the Japanese in the Bushido. On the other hand, the idea of killing yourself was strongly rejected by the main religions, affecting secular laws too: in the United Kingdom and Ireland, suicide had been illegal until 1961 and 1993…
The role of fear in society
At a social level, fear is a tool of political and religious control. It’s used to build a society which may respond to our concerns about safety and security, guaranteeing a community life. In a present-oriented society, fear prevents from the lost of significance of the daily routine, creating consensus and legitimacy, keeping an unstable order just to avoid to consider new social forms…
Hate crime, society’s failure (Hobbes was right)
We call for hate crime as an antidote to gender, orientation, ethnic, religious discriminations. And when the legislation of a Country includes those aggravating factors to already considered felonies we think is a step towards a more civilised society, finally equal. But if we change perspective we could think that those laws are contradictory, and the only reason to be happy is the awareness of the institutions that something isn’t going on right (euphemism)…
A tattoo is forever
When we say that a tattoo is for ever, we really mean it. Removal operations aside, the discovery of tattoed up mummies showed how the ink survives better than the skin thousend of years after the death. Embalming procedures are less frequent nowadays, of course, so “for ever” is limited to the life of the person who decides to decorate his or her body, until decay overcomes…