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"Mimosa cake" from the
Cicara Caffetteria, Modica. The mimosa is a symbol of IWD in Italy.
I am writing this very late, so I hope everyone is having or has
had a happy International Women's Day.
Here in Italy, it was announced yesterday that the Italian
government has approved the draft of a law which will make femicide
a crime in itself, instead of being a sub-category of
homicide. Other measures to be contained in this law (which
still has to go through Parliament) will include sentences for
crimes such as ill treatment, stalking, sexual violence and revenge
pornography.
This is welcome and it reminded me of something that happened long
ago:
"Cathy was married to Jim."
Every year, on this day, I think of pretty Cathy, "Cathy" being the
name that I gave her in my memoir. She was the mother of my last,
and most serious, boyfriend in Bristol before my family moved to
London. Cathy was one of the nicest and prettiest women I have ever
met, yet her husband Jim beat her - every single day. Joey would
often arrive home to find his bruised and bloodied mother lying
unconscious in the grate.
Everybody in our Bristol neighbourhood knew about it and they were
also well aware that Jim kept a mistress. Whether he abused this
woman too I have no idea, nor did I know who she was, though she was
someone I probably saw most days either in shops or in the
street.
My dad, along with other men who lived nearby, couldn't understand
why Joey, tall, strong and eighteen years old at the time, didn't
just "sort his father out" physically but I knew that the answer was
that if he had, Joey would have arrived home to find his mother
lying in the grate not unconscious, but dead.
Cathy tried to leave several times but no one was going to give a
woman who had left her husband and had three other children much
younger than Joey a job, or let her rent a flat and the police
largely ignored domestic violence.
At the time, newspapers even ran cartoons in which such violence
was depicted as funny and it would take until 1971, when a woman
called
Erin Pizzey
set up the first Women's Refuge in Chiswick, London, for the problem
to be recognised. Other refuges sprang up all over the country and
the women could go to them with their children to be safe from the
men who had promised to love them but were now threatening their
lives. The Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act of 1976
was the first piece of legislation to begin to deal with the problem
and other legislation followed. Coercive control did not become a
crime in England and Wales until 2015.
After we left Bristol and my relationship with Joey had ended, I
heard that Cathy and Jim had been reconciled and that Jim was
ignoring his mistress when he saw her in the street. I do not think
that this state of affairs lasted, as in 2020, quite by chance I
came across a death notice for Cathy. I forget the exact date of her
passing but it was in the first decade of this century. The part
about family said only,
"Cathy was married to Jim." There was no adjectival phrase, such as
"much-loved Jim" or "her devoted Jim" - just "Jim".
But you, pretty Cathy, will never be "just Cathy" to the now
elderly woman who was nearly your daughter-in-law and I cried when I
saw your photo that day, over half a century after I knew you. I
cried for you and all the women like you, all over the world, even
today.
No woman should be afraid outside her home.
No woman should be afraid to go home.
No woman should be afraid in her home.
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Wedding Destinations in Sicily 💍
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