First, in Italian politics, the referendum to allow a more reasonable fertility-assistance law in Italy failed because of low voter turn-out. It’s a disappointment, but not a huge surprise. The vote was scheduled for a Saturday during the summer months, so it’s hard to get 50 percent of the population to get out and cast a vote on this single issue. I don’t think that this is quite the “victory for the Vatican” that the New York Times article claims; in fact, I would bet that if this referendum were to come up for a vote during the working week and not during the summer holiday, particularly if it were voted on at the same time as other broader referendums or during a general election, the law would be liberalized. As the article says,
Other Italians mentioned the Vatican’s campaign and the complexity of the issues at stake to explain the low turnout, as well as the fact that citizens have grown tired since referendums have been called frequently and on a variety of issues in the past decade.
No referendums have reached the required turnout since 1995.
From the people I’ve spoken with, there seems to be a general frustration with the Vatican poking its nose (or perhaps more accurately, squashing its foot down) into secular Italian politics. I’m sure this view varies from city to city and between families, but everything I’ve heard points to one thing: many Italians think that it’s bad news to mix politics and religion. They resent the Vatican for trying to do it. They think that one of George W. Bush’s biggest flaws is that he’s a religious zealot. They view religion as something that should be personal and private, and politics as something public and secular. Granted, I haven’t spoken to that many people, so I’m not suggesting that I’ve in any way identified a national Italian consensus here. But it’s been interesting none the less.
Now, a little beauty:
A view of Cagliari
In non-political thoughts, it’s been an odd experience living as a true outsider here. Very few people speak my native language. My Italian is ok, but I can’t communicate nearly as easily as I would like to. Being the book-nerd that I am, I’ve already torn through four books since I’ve been here, and this morning I started “If on a winter’s night a traveler” by Italo Calvino (appropriate, right?). So I’m reading the first chapter, and, as often happens when one is reading the right book book at just the right time, came across a passage that completely perfectly described how I feel when I’m in Cagliari:
I, in fact, find myself here without a here or an elsewhere, recognized as an outsider by the nonoutsiders at least as clearly as I recognize the nonoutsiders and envy them. Yes, envy. I am looking from the outside at the life of an ordinary evening in an ordinary little city, and I realize I am cut off from ordinary evenings for God knows how long, and I think of thousands of cities like this, of hundreds of thousands of lighted places where at this hour people allow the evening’s darkness to descend and have none of the thoughts in their head that I have in mine; maybe they have other thoughts that aren’t at all enviable, but at this moment I would be willing to trade with any one of them.
Now, I’m not feeling as depressed at that passage would suggest upon first read (but I also think that perhaps it’s not intended to be depressing at all… anyway), but it is extremely isolating being someone who is looking in at a world to which you really don’t belong — isolating, of course, in the best of ways, which is exactly what I came here for.
Cagliari
Another interesting aspect about being here has been the experience of living in my own body in a place that looks at me differently — or at least, that I think looks at me differently. This one is a little hard to explain, so please excuse me if I’m totally inarticulate. Body image has always been an issue for me. When I’m in the U.S., at home in Seattle or in New York, I walk around with a constant consciousness of what I look like. When I look in the mirror, I choose — today, am I ugly or am I pretty? When I walk into a different context, that self-evaluation can shift, but I’m always choosing — and you can probably guess which one I usually pick. There is a permant self-awareness (“don’t sit like that, your legs look fat;” “you shouldn’t have worn this shirt,” “can’t you feel your arms jiggling? that’s disgusting”). I can’t remember a time when I had the privilege of simply living in my own skin, without being completely aware of where that skin was stretched by fat, where it was marked, where it was imperfect — or where I had done something to make it more perfect, but to my own detriment, because that meant that I couldn’t walk to class without getting commented at every three feet. When I go back to Seattle, there’s a sense that I’m being evaluated by everyone I knew in high school, and I have this constant internal monologue going, berating myself for not having the same body that I had when I was 16. And then, as someone who knows that what I’m thinking is totally in conflict with my personal politics, I berate myself even more for being a “bad feminist.” I hesitate to write about it because (a) I feel like it calls my politics into question, and (b) I feel like bringing it up only re-institutes the notion that there is an ideal, and even perfectly “normal” women like me are unhappy because they don’t fit it. And so it goes.
But here, there are times when I find myself forgetting to check myself. I’ve worn make-up once since I’ve been here. When I go to the beach and I look at all these beautiful Italian women, I don’t think, “God, I wish I had her legs, her stomach, her breasts…” I just think, “God, she is beautiful.” And I find myself thinking that about women who are twice my size, and women who are half my size — women who generally don’t fit the American beauty standard that I’m used to evaluating myself so strictly by. And so I feel like more and more, I’m becoming able to identify beauty simply. I certainly won’t ever escape a worldview shaped by beauty ideals, and the process of looking at other women and thinking “beautiful” absolutely confirms this. But the difference is, the way I think it is different than how I think when I’m in the United States. It’s greener. It’s not about dividing women (or men) into “beautiful” and “not beautiful;” it’s simply appreciative. If that makes sense.
And so, I’ve been a little more able to give myself a break. I don’t feel particularly “beautiful” here, but I don’t feel particularly ugly, either. I just feel like I exist. When I’m walking around, I’m walking around, and that’s it — I’m not concentrating on how I’m presenting myself. When I’m at the beach, I’m not thinking about whether or not my ass is hanging out of my bathing suit, or whether or not I could ever be as skinny as that girl over there — more likely, after seeing all the Italian women of all ages and body types in their tiny little bikinis, I’m thinking, “Damn, I need to get me one of those. The tan lines from this suit suck.” It’s quite a relief.
I don’t think, though, that this is necessarily an experience related to the Italian view of women’s bodies. I think it comes partially from the lack of body-shame that people in many European countries have, and partially from being a stranger here. I’m still trying to sort through it. All I know is that it feels like a real privilege to not be pretty or ugly — to just be. So I’m curious if anyone else has had a similar experience, and what conclusion you came to. And, thanks to serious blog withdrawl, this post has gone on way too long, so I’ll end it here with the view out my bedroom window. But I’d love to hear your thoughts.
