Patriarcato criminale. Le storie di Saman Abbas, Maria Chindamo e Giulia Cecchettin

Criminal Patriarchy: The Stories of Saman Abbas, Maria Chindamo, and Giulia Cecchettin

In November 2023, just two days after the discovery of her sister Giulia’s body, Elena Cecchettin wrote an open letter that should be etched into all our minds: “We continue to call those who kill a woman a ‘monster,’” Elena wrote, “but a femicide perpetrator is not a monster — he is a product of a patriarchal culture that is still far too widespread.” A culture from which none of us is truly immune, not even those who believe they are, simply because we grew up within it.
This is proven by the fact that, even today, in the highly modern 2020s, women continue to die brutally when they refuse a life of submission to the will of men. It is patriarchy that arms the hands of these killers, and this is why we speak of Criminal Patriarchy.
In this urgent and necessary book, Roberta Bruzzone helps us become aware of the stereotypes that, more or less unconsciously, shape each of us. She then shows, in the harshest way, how these stereotypes are still alive, through three emblematic stories of recent years. The story of Saman Abbas, killed by her own family for deciding to escape the fate imposed on her. The story of Maria Chindamo, kidnapped, murdered, and cruelly made to disappear for saying “no” twice: first to her ex-husband’s family and then to the ’ndrangheta. And finally, the story of Giulia Cecchettin, whose case shocks us into seeing that patriarchy is still alive and can affect anyone.
Their stories deserve to remain etched in everyone’s memory, because the responsibility to change the culture that killed them falls on each of us — no one excluded.