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Italian Women In Violent Organizations Essay

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Italian Women in Violent Organizations

The essay, "Mafiosi and Terrorists: Italian Women in Violent Organizations," by Alison Jamieson, discusses the role women have played in violent organizations in Italy. Despite male exclusivity and authoritarianism, women involved in such organizations have come a long way in widening the horizons of female influence in administration and commercial roles. The paper looks at, analyzes and compares two main violent organizations in Italy, the leftist terrorist Red Brigades and the Sicilian Mafia. The Italian feminist movement of the 1960s spurred a new drive toward female activity in violent organizations on the extreme left side. "For the majority of women adherents, the feminist cause …show more content…

However, the Red Brigades justify the use of violence as an inevitable and necessary starting point in the process of societal change. It is the way in which they achieve their goal, by altering society to be more suitable for their wants and needs. As female involvement increased in the Red Brigades, one would think their influence would increase as well. Though former female members of the Red Brigades report that gender equality was maintained in the organization, it has been proven that no woman had ever sat on the Brigades' strategy-making body. Not to say that there was any distinct discrimination, but men were certainly listened to more. However, "gender per se does not necessarily seem to have determined differenced in attitudes to the exercise of violence, which were the product of individual character and experience." (Jamieson 56) If a woman had the will to perform in such violent situations, they found the way to make it happen. On the other side of the scale was the right-winged Sicilian Mafia or the Cosa Nostra. "Whereas the Italian woman terrorist adopted a consciously exaggerated stand against institutional and societal paternalism, the women of Cosa Nostra have remained trapped inside traditional behavioral patterns." (Jamieson 58) Women of the Cosa Nostra cannot participate directly in

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