From the women of the entertainment business to all women. We are united for rewriting the rules for the workplace, and for a society that reflects a new balance between women and men.
For some months now, ever since the Weinstein case, in many countries, actresses, the working women of the entertainment industry, have spoken up and have begun to reveal a truth that is so commonplace as to be chilling.
This document is not only an act of solidarity with all the actresses who have had the courage to speak up in Italy—and, because of this, have been attacked, harassed, even sued—but also a necessary act of bearing witness.
We thank you, because we know that what each of you is saying is true, and we know this because it happened to all of us, in different ways and taking different forms.
We support you and we will support you in the future, as well as all the others who will choose to tell their own experience.
When it comes to sexual harassment, the current tendency is, first of all, to try to isolate the problem to a single offender, who is pathologized and serves as a scapegoat. This creates a momentary wave of indignation against a single director, producer, judge, doctor—in short, one man in power.
As soon as the wave of indignation subsides, the representatives of “common sense” begin to wonder about the truth of what the “victims of harassment” said, and start asking questions about who they are, how they behave, what ulterior motive has led them to speak out.
“Common sense” also begins to ask itself questions about what will become of the free and healthy game of seduction, and about the clear artistic, professional or commercial merits of the perpetrator, who, in the long run, will be allowed back into the system.
In this way, this veritable “name-clearing machine” is aimed at keeping us quiet and making us think twice before we open our mouth, especially if certain things happened in the distant past and therefore are not considered to be of interest.
In short, the message is that no more time should be wasted in asking about the truthfulness of the accounts of the harassed women: instead, let’s put the women in jail, or under house arrest, or in a convent, or at least keep them locked away inside the house. Only if we do that they will finally just stop talking!
But their talking reveals the way in which sexual harassment is preserved and reproduced by institutions, how it becomes part of culture itself and of common sense, a set of practices that we have to accept because this is the way things have always been, and always will be.
The choice that every woman has to make in the workplace is “get used to it, or get out of the system.”
We are not interested in the accused being pilloried in the media. Ours is not, and never will be, a moralistic discourse.
Sexual harassment has nothing to do with the “game of seduction.” We know our own pleasure, and what the line is between desire and abuse, freedom and violence.
Why the cinema? Why actresses? For two reasons.
The first is that the body of the actress embodies collective desire, and since in the current system collective desire is the same as male desire, “common sense” sees actresses as narcissistic creatures, fickle and vain, willing to use their bodies as a bargaining chip in order to be showcased.
The actresses, as bodies that are exposed publicly, expose in turn a system that goes beyond the world of the entertainment business, and applies to all women, whether in the workplace or outside it.
The second reason why this indictment has started with actresses is because they have the strength to speak, their visibility amplifying all our voices.
The actresses have the merit and duty of becoming the voice in this battle for all the women who live in the same situation, in jobs in which their words do not have the same visibility or force.
Sexual harassment cuts from top to bottom. It is a system in itself. It is part of a societal structure that is there for everyone to see, involving men being the absolute majority of those in positions of power, the gender-based differences in pay for the same job, and the constant and ongoing sexualization of the workplace.
Gender inequality in the workplace puts women—all women—at risk of harassment, as they are always subject to an implicit blackmail. It happens to the secretary, the laborer, the immigrant, the student, the intern, the maid.
It happens to all women.
Calling sexual harassment a system—not the pathology of any single individual—means threatening the reputation of this culture as a whole.
We are not the “victims” of this system—we are the ones who now have the strength to unmask it and fight back.
We don’t point the finger only at some particular “harasser.” We are challenging the whole system.
This is the time when we have stopped being afraid.
- Alessandra Acciai
- Elisa Amoruso
- Francesca Andreoli
- Michela Andreozzi
- Ambra Angiolini
- Alessia Barela
- Chiara Barzini
- Valentina Bellè
- Sonia Bergamasco
- Ilaria Bernardini
- Giulia Bevilacqua
- Nicoletta Billi
- Laura Bispuri
- Barbora Bobulova
- Anna Bonaiuto
- Donatella Botti
- Laura Buffoni
- Giulia Calenda
- Francesca Calvelli
- Maria Pia Calzone
- Antonella Cannarozzi
- Cristiana Capotondi
- Anita Caprioli
- Valentina Carnelutti
- Sara Casani
- Manuela Cavallari
- Michela Cescon
- Carlotta Cerquetti
- Valentina Cervi
- Cristina Comencini
- Francesca Comencini
- Paola Cortellesi
- Geppi Cucciari
- Francesca D’Aloja
- Caterina D’Amico
- Piera De Tassis
- Cecilia Dazzi
- Matilda De angelis
- Orsetta De Rossi
- Cristina Donadio
- Marta Donzelli
- Ginevra Elkann
- Esther Elisha
- Nicoletta Ercole
- Tea Falco
- Giorgia Farina
- Sarah Felberbaum
- Isabella Ferrari
- Anna Ferzetti
- Francesca Figus
- Camilla Filippi
- Liliana Fiorelli
- Anna Foglietta
- Iaia Forte
- Ilaria Fraioli
- Elisa Fuksas
- Valeria Golino
- Lucrezia Guidone
- Sabrina Impacciatore
- Lorenza Indovina
- Wilma Labate
- Rosabell Laurenti
- Antonella Lattanzi
- Doriana Leondeff
- Miriam Leone
- Carolina Levi
- Francesca Lo Schiavo
- Valentina Lodovini
- Ivana Lotito
- Federica Lucisano
- Gloria Malatesta
- Francesca Manieri
- Francesca Marciano
- Alina Marazzi
- Cristiana Massaro
- Lucia Mascino
- Giovanna Mezzogiorno
- Paola Minaccioni
- Laura Muccino
- Laura Muscardin
- Olivia Musini
- Carlotta Natoli
- Anna Negri
- Camilla Nesbitt
- Susanna Nicchiarelli
- Laura Paolucci
- Valeria Parrella
- Camilla Paternò
- Valentina Pedicini
- Gabriella Pescucci
- Vanessa Picciarelli
- Federica Pontremoli
- Benedetta Porcaroli
- Daniela Piperno
- Vittoria Puccini
- Ondina Quadri
- Costanza Quatriglio
- Isabella Ragonese
- Monica Rametta
- Paola Randi
- Maddalena Ravagli
- Rita Rognoni
- Alba Rohrwacher
- Alice Rohrwacher
- Federica Rosellini
- Fabrizia Sacchi
- Maya Sansa
- Valia Santella
- Lunetta Savino
- Greta Scarano
- Daphne Scoccia
- Kasia Smutniak
- Valeria Solarino
- Serena Sostegni
- Daniela Staffa
- Giulia Steigerwalt
- Fiorenza Tessari
- Sole Tognazzi
- Chiara Tomarelli
- Roberta Torre
- Tiziana Triana
- Jasmine Trinca
- Adele Tulli
- Alessandra Vanzi
