ALICE
ANNA: How do you feel within a group of women?
ALI: I think there’s a very positive component of mutual understanding, but there’s also an inevitable sense of comparison, especially among peers in Milan, a city that is small and sometimes so closed off.
I’d also like to say that comparison can be positive too. With my female friends, I talk about everything, and that’s the reason we’re friends, there’s a huge exchange of opinions.
A: Do you see yourself getting married in the future?
AL: I’m learning to live in the present… but yes, I’d like to get married because of the value of love within a couple. In life, heavy things can happen and they do take away your sense of calm and security, things that really put life in front of you with all its unpredictability. In the future, I just want to be at peace, that’s it. If my peace means having a so-called traditional family, I’ll have that. If my peace is living on the other side of the world, I’ll live on the other side of the world.
A: Tell me more about this other side of the world.
AL: My urge to leave isn’t about running away from the problems we have in Italy, but rather about discovering the beauties that exist outside of Italy. Being Italian still lives within me.
A: And if I asked you instead what you’d want to escape from, what would it be?
AL: I’d want to escape from fear, fear of being a woman in Milan, fear of interacting with someone after nine in the evening.
I don’t believe women are weak. I grew up with my grandmother, who, when I was little, always told me that women are strong. I used to shout as a child, “Women are strong, women are strong…” Women have a special inner strength, I don’t want to compare it to that of men; I just want to say it’s special.
In Italy, unfortunately, especially in certain environments, there’s still this concept of men, understood as male, as holders of a purely physical kind of decisional power, a power they can exert over you. Of course, I don’t agree with this, but I’m aware it exists.
A: Where do you think this exercise of power starts?
AL: I’d say it stems from an aura of heavy judgment. Italy is full of it. Like with the huge issue of abortion, no one has the right to judge or take power over someone else’s decision.
A: What makes you feel most like a woman?
AL: My self-criticism. Because I start from the idea of women as absolutely strong and absolutely special beings. So I want to be the first to be strong and special. To be that, I have to listen to myself, observe myself, and consequently also be self-critical.