News of september

This September, we are publishing two very different testimonies, both of which share a rejection of motherhood as a predestined fate.

Veronica,a 40-year-old Ecuadorian woman, describes the greater sense of freedom she now feels in her life following a hysterectomy carried out for health reasons, in a context where women are still primarily expected to care for their husbands and children.

Martina, who grew up in southern Italy, describes a choice that has developed over time: she wants to be an aunt, not a mother, and desires neither pregnancy nor motherhood. Even adoption, which she does not rule out, would for her mean offering a chance to those already in the world, rather than fulfilling a desire for motherhood.

In the Stories section, Claudia Mazzilli reviews Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine by Nada Elia (Edizioni Alegre, 2024), a book that links a feminist reading of the Palestinian question with a decolonial one. Elia examines the impact of colonialism on women’s lives and connects Palestine with other histories of occupation and segregation, without overlapping them. The ultimate aim is political: recognising the connections between different struggles can become a concrete form of alliance.