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
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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
The Fascist attempted to influence behaviour in various ways, such as trying to ban the handshake (replacing it with the Roman salute) and ‘fascistizing’ forms of address, which included the use of uniform (p. 242). They made the Militia look like soldiers, but still distinguishable with their black shirts and a small fasci littori (depictions of bundles of rods bound with an axe that was a symbolic element, signifying unity, power, authority and justice) on their jacket lapel (p. 244-246). Woman in the Fascist party would also come to look more masculine and militaristic over the years as woman were becoming more accepted to wear a uniform. For children, a uniform was a source of pride, enhancing their sense of importance. Luisa Tamgno wrote in her memoir that wearing her Piccoa Italiana uniform made her feel stronger, braver, and overall better. She was usually in charge of a troop of girls who would act like little soldiers when she would bark a command (p. 256). This provides important insight in how the Fascist use of uniforms was transforming the youth into more militaristic individuals and provides an example of how women were also targeted in the fascist pursuit of patriotism and
The gangster genre within films in America has accomplished numerous positive criticisms and constant willing audiences due to containing outstanding spectacles and mind-blowing action. The Godfather, being second on the IMDb Top 250 Movies, has set a new popular concept to life within the Mafia from their point of view. Doing so, creating a positive association. Yet within Italy, the same topic contains a complete different view. Movies such as I Cento Passi demonstrate unenthusiastic view by those whom are outside yet negatively affected by those members. Unlike American films, the gangsters are not as often viewed at the protagonist and are the main causes for the problematic events. But how different is Italian Mafia and American
Life in Italy in the 1930’s caused difficulty to some Italians during that time period. During the 1930’s a large number of Italians who had opposed the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini arrived in the United States. After the news spread in Italy about the bombing of Pearl Harbour almost all Italians supported the war against Benito Mussolini. At this point, Italy was slowly becoming under the Nazi rule, the significance of a woman’s role in Italy was emphasised as they were expected to accept the fascist ideology. Girls were expected to get married and conceive lots of children. Many young women in Italy felt the pressures of politics that were dominated by men and felt that women’s rights were disappearing
The New Mafia refers to style of mafia that became increasingly prevalent in the 1950s. Prior to the New Mafia, the Old Mafia ran their operations with a focus on achieving power in society. They often associated with those in political power, even to the extent of pledging their alliance with a powerful political party in Italy, the Christian Democratic Party (Abadinsky, 2017). In return, their pledge would essentially secure an unofficial position of power within the Italian government.
The Mafia was first developed in Sicily in feudal times to protect the estates of landlords who were out of town. The word Mafia, derived from the Sicilian word, Mafioso, means family. Today, Mafia is a name which describes a loose association of criminal groups. These groups can be bound together by blood, oath or sworn secrecy. Many people had considered the Sicilian Mafia as the most ruthless mobsters of the twentieth century.
“It was during the troubled years of the 1860s that the Italian kingdom’s ruling class ruling class first heard talk of the mafia in Siciliy” (Dickie, s38, 2004). In this quote we find a potential reason to why the idea that the mafia was born during the making of the modern Italian state has become leading with scholars. Most likely this event shaped the mafia into what it has become because of the political influence that the Italian state bestowed upon Sicily. However, it is not unlikely that the mafia wasn’t already existing in Sicily during this time, and most definitely that criminal gangs of Sicily before this time had traits that were transferred into the mafia as it evolved under the new Italian kingdom. While the mafia is largely
We may not see this group but the mafia was big back in the day. The mafia was the leading group in criminal activity in the 1960’s(Darity). The mafia was a group that would make tons and tons of money off of drugs, robberies and murders. They would sometimes pay off cops to look the other way and if they didn’t get what they wanted they would use their firearms. With stronger and more enforced laws, many lives could have been saved.
Many people recognize that gangs have been around for what seems like forever. What they don't realize is that the numbers are increasing to amazing proportions, there were 28,000 youth gangs with 780,200 members in the United States (in 2000) and 20% to 46% of those members are female (Evans). And what is even more shocking is, in Chicago alone there are 16,000 to 20,000 female gang members (Eghigian). These girls start out as ?groupies?, become members, and sometimes even leaders of all-girl gangs because of troubles in the home, a need for money, for the social scene, or just because it is all they know.
The Mafia way of life may seem like a romantic updated version of the western movie played out on the streets of the big cities where the good guys and the wise guys who share the same instincts and values do battle before an enthralled public but it is actually very different. The Mafia is really just a group of uneducated thugs making money by victimizing the public. Initially, the Mafia was setup as a prominent supplier of bootlegged liquor, but it has spread into many different areas of crime. During this research paper I will discuss three aspects of the Mafia which are crime, structure and decline in leadership.
La Cosa Nostra Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film “The Godfather” when Don Vito Corleone’s son Michael takes over his father’s position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horses’s head lies bloody in a man’s bed. It is this tradition and brutality that characterizes the Mafia, a secret Sicilian society that lives and functions just as much today on American soil as it did and does still in Italy. To understand this organized crime, one must begin to understand how it came to be organized in the first place. During the medieval times in Sicily, Arabs invaded the land and native Sicilians fled and took refuge in the hills. Some of these refugees formed a
The Italian Mafia in the U.S. can trace its origins all the way back to the Sicilian Mafia which was founded in Sicily during the 1800’s (Italian Organized Crime). After thousands of years of different armies with different nationalities conquering Italy and exploiting its people, the Sicilians became to be more clannish and family focused. Originally they were just resistance fighters that were protecting their friends and family. They were relied on for protection, justice, and survival. Nobody cared if they got money from it because it came from the oppressive authorities. Members of these groups were known as “Men of Honor” and they were well respected and even admired because they looked out for their family and kept silent sometimes even unto death. They didn’t become an organized crime group until the 1920’s however (Italian Organized Crime). It was around this same time that the US began to see what later became La Cosa Nostra or “our thing,” better known as the American Mafia which was aided by the “thousands of Italian organized crime figures, mostly Sicilian Mafiosi” who came to the United States illegally (Italian Organized Crime). The modern American Mafia is credited to Charles “Lucky” Luciano who came over in the 1920’s (Italian Organized Crime). Luciano structured La Cosa Nostra just like their Sicilian
One study (Binkin & Bach) found that many NATO and several WARSAW PACT countries employed women in combat roles during World War II. Russia was reported as using military women on the front lines. In Israel, where they are actually conscripted, women have also experienced armed combat. (Binkin & Bach) found that in the first phase of Israel’s war of Liberation, one out of every five soldiers was female and they shared equality in both offensive and defensive battle situations. Holm found that some 7,500 military women served in S.E. Asia during the Vietnam War. She maintains that these women proved the modern American military woman is fully capable of functioning effectively in a military role in a combat environment, even under direct hostile fire.
When it comes to combat assignments and the needs of the military, men take precedence over all other considerations, including career prospects of female service members. Female military members have been encouraged to pursue opportunities and career enhancement within the armed forces, which limit them only to the needs and good of the service due to women being not as “similarly situated” as their male counterparts when it comes to strength or aggressiveness, and are not able to handle combat situations.
By the late 1960s, Italy had suffered through World War II. It had seen the Vietnam War unfold before them. Furthermore, it had experienced a dramatic urbanization from an agrarian society to an urban one. Such a shift precipitated the appeal for communism. Into this complicated political and socio-economic arena came the Red Brigades. The Red Brigades were an Italian terrorist organization with a strong emphasis on Marxism. Founded in 1969 by radical left-leaning students Renato Curcio and his wife Mara Cagol, the Red Brigades began a reign of terror that . In order to fully assess the impact of the Red Brigades in Italy, it is necessary to answer a central question: why were the Red Brigades so violent? The Red Brigades had ties to
Women started out being a support system for their mafia male counterparts then they ended up becoming the leading protagonists. At first, women would help hide men and would help manage the “clans”. They would help maintain contact and social relations. They were seen as dependable figures. They would help bail out men. Women that were part of a religion were viewed as being a respectable and revising image of the organization. There were two well known groups of Mafia women and they were the Camorra and Cosa Nostra. Cosa Nostra was a Sicilian organization. They were two completely different groups. The Sicilian Mafia women were loyal and subordinate wives. They did not interfere with their husband’s projects or decisions. They would obey all of the husband’s orders. The Camorra Mafia women were involved and aware of their husbands’ activities. They