Narratives of Catholic women against ‘Gender ideology’ in Italian schools: defending childhood, struggling with pluralism

ABSTRACT

The role of the Vatican in the mobilization against the so-called gender ideology is structural and well established in the public arena, in Italy as in Europe. However, signs of a growing ambivalence in its attitude towards the protest have lately emerged, for example in relation to the visibility of far-right movements and aggressively right-wing parties within the movement. The paper investigates the same ambivalence among Italian Catholics groups and networks involved in the anti-gender fight. The analysis is based on 17 interviews with Catholic mothers and/or teachers who attended anti-gender conferences in 2015 and expressed their willingness to engage in school surveillance in order to prevent allegedly pro-gender activities. Results show a broad convergence towards the idea that the ‘ideology of gender’ exists and represents a serious danger for children. At the same time, interviewees express different political and cultural stances in relation to their protest. The dissimilarity detected in anti-gender narratives shed some lights on the different ways Italian Catholic activists try to oppose, manage, or solve issues related to state secularization and sexual pluralism.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-gender
• Italy
• school
• sexual democracy
• religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The dossier is available at: https://www.provitaefamiglia.it/blog/progetti-gender-nelle-scuole-ecco-il-dossier [consulted 13 November 2020].

2 Il Giornale, 3 November 2020. https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/torino-fdi-tuona-contro-listruzione-gender-assurdo-1900807.html [consulted 20 November 2020].

3 The first Family Day was held in Rome in 2007 – some years before the emergence of any anti-gender mobilization – by a network of Catholic Ngos called the Forum of Family Associations, with the public support of the Vatican (Prearo 2020).

4 Marcello Semeraro was recently (on 15 October 2020) appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and made a Cardinal by Pope Francis (on 28 November 2020).

5 The expectations of part of the Catholic cultural area towards a greater openness of the Church towards LGBT rights and people emerged, for example, in the online meeting organized by the ecumenical journal ‘Confronti’ with the title Omosessualità e Vaticano, rivoluzione in corso?’ (Homosexuality and the Vatican, revolution in progress?), 27 October 2020.

6 The interviewees were between 30 and 50 years old (mean age 42). They spoke from the standpoint of mothers (5 cases) or public or private (Catholic) kindergarten or primary school teachers (9 cases), or both (3 cases). The names appearing in the text are fictional.

7 On the link between gender ideology and populism, see also Krizsán and Siim 2018, and Donà 2020. Agnieszka Graff (2016) qualifies the populism of the anti-gender discourse with the adjective ‘illiberal’.

8 In December 2015, Italy’s center-left government (Matteo Renzi) changed the wording on identity cards for minors, replacing the words father and mother with the terms ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’. This prompted much debate also before the change was approved. This wording was abolished in 2018 by the Minister of Interior Matteo Salvini (Lega).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paolo Gusmeroli

Paolo Gusmeroli is a Research Fellow at the University of Padua, he is working on LGBT family practices. His research interests are focused on gender and sexuality, sociology of family and social reproduction. Among his publications ‘Homophobia as a Keyword in the Italian Liberal Press (1979-2007). Debating New Boundaries of Sexual Citizenship’ (with Luca Trappolin, 2020).

Luca Trappolin

Luca Trappolin, Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Padua. For several years he has worked on gender and sexuality studies. He is author of several papers on the social construction of homosexuality and homophobia, including ‘Confronting Homophobia in Europe. Social and legal perspectives’ (Trappolin, Gasparini and Wintemute 2012).