Difference Feminism

Sputiamo su Hegel was published in 1970, when Italy buzzed with restless energy as political upheaval and social movements collided in an atmosphere of change and possibility. Carla Lonzi wrote a startling feminist manifesto, followed by equally striking essays that deepened her radical exploration of female difference and freedom. But when she died, in 1982, her work fell into obscurity.

In the last few years some female figures of the 20th century that had been pushed to the margins of cultural memory have been brought back on Italian bookshelves. Goliarda Sapienza, Alba de Cespedes, and Carla Lonzi are a few of them: they still have something to teach us.

As some of Lonzi’s work is being re-published by La Tartaruga, Linda Bertelli and Marta Equi Pierazzini published a book they devoted five years to: Il corpo delle pagine. Scrittura e vita in Carla Lonzi, a complete biography built through a meticulous archive work, enriched by photos and previously unpublished documents.

Though rooted in its time, Lonzi's work demands to be studied. This biography is an important step in building an exhaustive literature. It would be impossible to accurately convey the complexity Lonzi’s thought (and of her life) in a one-hour interview. To help scratch the surface, three key words emerge from the questions posed by Elisabetta Bucciarelli and the respective answers. These three words are Writing, Dialogue, and Self-Awareness.

For Lonzi, writing is a way to track her consciousness: she develops her ideas starting from the self, embodying the principle that the personal is political.

Dialogue is the other side of the same coin. Confrontation with the other was essential, a constant challenge to her beliefs, a never-ending pursuit of growth through positive interactions. Hers was a joyous, generous feminism. So much so that she often recorded her conversations, listened to them multiple times, analysed them closely. Bertelli and Equi found this aspect so decisive that they chose to close their examination of Lonzi's inheritance by enacting Lonzi’s method. The last section of their book is, in fact, a transcript of a conversation between the two while they work together. The entire book, they say, came alive through conversation; it couldn’t have been any other way.

Self-awareness is the political practice that weaves together the individual and the collective. Originating in feminist circles in the US, this tool is used to deconstruct the personal self through the lens of the collective experience, in an act of mutual recognition. In Lonzi’s thought, self-consciousness leads to a radical awareness that lies at the core of her difference feminism. The world has been constructed by men, who also designated a specific, subordinate place for women. Liberation is not possible if women navigate the structures shaped by their oppressor, not even within the framework of class struggle. That's why Lonzi spits on Hegel.