Violence against women constitutes a highly relevant issue in Italy. Starting from 2019, the relevant indicators have significantly worsened, with an increase in femicides and the number of reports from victims which saw a 60% increase in 2020 and a 13.7% increase in 2021 (Istat, 2022). In 2022, there is a concerning rise in sexual violence and a percentage of femicides occurring within the family environment exceeding 80%, 48% of which are perpetrated by partners or ex-partners (Istat, 2022; Semia Women's Fund, 2023). This depicts the situation of a social phenomenon in a country, Italy, characterized by a still considerable gender gap, especially concerning women's economic participation and pay parity (Semia Women's Fund, 2023), and extreme vulnerability in women's sexual and reproductive health. The current government's effort to counter gender-based violence materialized in the development of two main instruments (the parliamentary commission of inquiry into femicide and all forms of gender violence, and the Roccella-Piantedosi-Nordio bill) and the approval of a draft law aimed at strengthening preventive measures. However, public policies supporting awareness, prevention, and education against violence remain scarce, compounded by the persistence of a stereotyped representation of women victims of violence in media, judicial, and law enforcement spheres, exposing them to a process of revictimization (Saccà, 2021). Analyses on the representation of violence against women in the political discourse of populist leader Giorgia Meloni (Raffa, 2022) also reveal a lack of socio-political and cultural understanding of the issue of violence and its instrumental use to construct a nationalist discourse and legitimize xenophobic struggle against Islamism (Farris, 2017).

Building upon this framework, the paper aims to analyze the political actions of anti-violence centers (Cav), which, within a constellation of feminist organizations, 50.24% of which have as their main mission the fight against gender-based violence (Semia Women's Fund, 2023), operate within the political and educational sphere playing a crucial role in public assistance to women victims of violence or threatened (Demurtas, Pieroni, 2022; Dominelli, 2022). The analysis will focus on good practices in prevention, education, and awareness-raising, with particular attention to their effectiveness in deconstructing stereotypes related to the representation of gender-based violence and developing a counter-narrative capable of bringing the discourse back to the political plane of gender power asymmetries and the weakening of democracy (UN chief, 2018). The analysis will use data collected through in-depth interviews with some Cav belonging to the Italian network D.i.Re., also focusing on the geographical variable (where they are located) and the relationship with the reference territory. The data were collected as part of the research activity of the Prin 2020 project "Stereotypes and prejudices: the social representation of gender-based violence and contrast strategies ten years after the Istanbul Convention" (coordinated by Prof. F. Saccà, Sapienza University, Italy).

The preamble to the Istanbul Convention stated that, historically, “unequal power relations between women and men have led to domination over, and discrimination against, women by men”, which is at the base of gender violence and of the limited advancement of women. Back in 2011 the Council of Europe made it clear that in order to tackle gender violence all Countries “shall take the necessary measures to promote changes in the social and cultural patterns of behaviour of women and men with a view to eradicating prejudices, customs, traditions”. (Chapter III, article 12.1, Istanbul Convention). Unfortunately, this has proven to be a task that many Countries have not obliged. While laws are crucial, on their own they are not enough to allow rights to become solidly entrenched in the present, let alone in the future. For this to take place, education and cultural change are also needed. In order to reveal the stereotypes and prejudices underlying the social representation of gender-based violence and lurking in its journalistic and judicial narration, with a research team from Sapienza and Tuscia universities we have analyzed over thirty thousand Italian newspaper articles on male violence against women and almost eight hundred court judgements on the matter (years 2017-2023). Indeed, in seeking to solve problems, societies start by framing them. If the framing is wrong and distorted, the solutions will be inadequate, too. The results of our research projects were quite striking. Transversally the material we analyzed showed that our culture is filled with what philosopher Kate Mann called “himpathy”: the flow of compassion, understanding and empathy that is removed from the victim, in favor of the perpetrator. Distributing responsibilities between the two. Narrating the violence as at least partly physiological to any romantic relationship. Even in court. In fact, it is in such a cultural climate, one that represents women socially more as culprits than as victims, that they -who have suffered violence - must go on to face a painful trial, for this will be the cultural humus in which the players in the trial – police, lawyers, magistrates, and witnesses – will operate. This is why it is so important to tackle sexist stereotypes in the public sphere, for they diminish the role and quality of our institutions and the democratic fibre of our nation. This paper will present the results of our research projects and how these stereotypes operate both in the journalistic and in the judicial narration of gender violence.

The Council of Europe defines gender-based violence as «any type of harm that is perpetrated against a person or group of people because of their factual or perceived sex, gender, sexual orientation and/or gender identity» (Council of Europe, 2019). Gender-based violence happens in many contexts and takes different shapes, depending also on other axes of oppression such as race, disability, class, and neurodiversity and it has the function of “correction” to maintain hierarchical social orders. The heterosexist ideology, that is at the roots of these acts of violence, affects the everyday life of all those TGNC (transgender and gender non-conforming) subjectivities who challenge the dominant binary division of society. Sexist stereotypes, in combination with transnegativity and heteronormativity (Rich, 1980), produce specific forms of discrimination like, for example, transmisogyny (Arayasirikul & Wilson, 2019), a pathologized and binary view of trans* experiences, “monstrous” representations in the media, health disparities, and high risks of facing assaults or invalidation both in personal relationships and in social spaces. Gender-based violence is part of the various institutionalized mechanisms of regulation, control, and teaching of the gender binary that sustain power relations through categorization and systematization of the real. Public and political discourses, medical standards and psychological criteria, legislations and legal procedures, and the educational world (Bourelly, 2022) all reflect and reproduce a system that shows the right directions to follow and the “natural” roles to play and discourages, when not prohibits, alternative paths. This becomes very clear when we analyse the role of shame and stigmatization (Goffman, 1963) in teaching and learning gender coherences: what is possible, “intelligible” (Foucault, 1976), and what would cause humiliation and violent responses. In this state of “surveillance” (Butler, 1990), the voices of TGNC people and activists are marginalized, preventing them from talking about their realities and the concrete effects of the prejudices that underpin our institutions, and, by doing so, their knowledge is downplayed.

The paper will discuss some experiences of the systematic oppression of the trans* community – like gatekeeping, minority stress (Scandurra et al. 2020; Hunter et al. 2021), and impostor syndrome – as examples of gender-based violence. Who writes will be reflecting on these topics using both literatures to connect different concepts and formulations, and qualitative data gathered from ten semi-structured interviews with non-binary activists in Italy about their experiences of gender restrictions and identifications, one with an activist who is part of an Italian trans* association that delivers trainings in schools on the topics of gender identity and stereotypes, and a participation to one of these in a high school. The aim is to raise awareness of hurtful prejudices that the educational system can, and in some cases is already trying to, dismantle. The introduction of the so-called “alias career” (Bourelly, 2023) in universities and high schools is an example of this effort, but there is still a lot that can be done learning from queer experiences and allying with the work of activist collectives.

In the contemporary scientific and cultural debate, the perception of the crisis of the paternal figure has now become established (Recalcati 2014, Zoja 2000) understood as a sort of social and behavioral superego indispensable for the formation of the personality of the children. Furthermore, new typology of families (Gigli 2007) and feminist studies have highlighted how family relationships have been transformed and the role of women within the family has radically changed, in an anti-oppressive way, dynamics and relational category while the dominance of the patriarchal model remains (Diotima 2023). In this context, the parental role and educational functions of parents, and in particular of the father, are being reconfigured, also taking into account the redefinition of male identity according to parameters more suited to the social evolution and cultural achievements of our time (Messerschmidt 2022). Many "caring fathers" - this objectification would be absolutely superfluous, but unfortunately it is necessary to underline it as a model of fatherhood based on the delegation of care towards the offspring remains - paradoxically find themselves having to face stereotypes and prejudices with respect to their way of interpreting the parental role based on presence, emotional harmony, responsible, dedicated to the care and educational accompaniment of offspring (Burgio et al. 2023). Behind the neologism "mammi" are hidden resistances, fears, hypocrisies that prevent a paradigm shift thanks to which paternal and maternal cultures can converge into a single shared parental educational culture, capable of going beyond the parent's gender (Bellassai 2000). This contribution aims to underline some pedagogical critical ideas to encourage the creation of a field of research and study capable of also impacting culture and widespread public opinion.

In a critical review of the model of the public sphere elaborated by Habermas, in Rethinking the Public Sphere (1990) Nancy Fraser invites us to read the conflictual feature that is determined by the plural context that characterizes contemporary publics. In taking up Fraser's suggestion to study rival public spheres based on unequal power relations and aiming to establish hegemony, we want to analyze the constant and dynamic formation of misogynist and sexist spheres of influence that operate through forms of exclusion.

With respect to the progressive demand for the recognition of new civil rights, there is not only what is in some ways an angry response to the loss of privileges taken away by the advancement of gender claims. Despite the fragmentation and atomization of the public sphere, real convergences can be observed between movements and political parties whose aim is to re-establish cultural hegemony in the context of civil rights. On the one hand, stereotypes based on a traditional, hierarchical view of gender roles are employed in social communication by far-right leaders and are equally present in their respective political manifestos and election programs. On the other hand, what comes from the articulated galaxy now known as the manosphere contributes to the process of constructing masculinity through the use of gender stereotypes.

As partial result of the research activity conducted under the PRIN 2020 entitled “Stereotypes and Prejudices: the Social Representation of Gender-BasedViolence and Contrast Strategies Ten Years after the Istanbul Convention” (Coordinated by Prof. F. Saccà as P.I.), our analysis aims to show how such convergences not only contribute to new forms of conflict, if not even political radicalization, but are based on a principle of exclusion and the maintenance of social inequalities. For this purpose, we will analyse on the one hand the imaginary of the manosphere in Italy, focusing in particular on the Men's Rights Activism (MRA), on their anti-feminist, misogynist and sexist imaginary that coagulates around very precise gender stereotypes and that identifies the image of women (especially feminist organizations) as the cause of most of the problems affecting our society. On the other hand, the political leaders of the Italian far-right will be examined and, in particular, we will focus on Meloni and Salvini, their imaginary based on the naturalization of gender differences and the defence of women's traditional roles.