The power of women: acclaimed Italian author Elena Ferrante on patriarchy and protest in Iran

The Guardian -Nov 26th 2022

By : Shiva Akhavan Rad

Shiva Akhavan Rad is an Iranian freelance journalist. She worked as a psychologist before starting to write about film and culture in local Iranian newspapers and magazines.

Elena Ferrante is the pseudonymous author of many books, including the four-volume Neapolitan Novels, which tell the story of two girls, Lila and Lenù, born in Naples in 1944, who try to create lives for themselves within a violent and repressive culture.

Here the two discuss protest, patriarchy and the power of women.

Rad Iranian women are living in a terrible condition. They take off their headscarves in protest against the mandatory hijab and walk the streets without covering their hair and without fear of arrest. Some of them go further and burn their headscarves and this is a sign of a big change in Iran.

In my opinion, being a woman in Iran is a political act. That’s why some people believe that the movement that has formed in Iran today is the first feminist revolution in the world, which introduced itself with the slogan “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (woman, life, freedom). We live in a patriarchal environment and after reading your Neapolitan Novels and seeing the TV series I felt many similarities between the atmosphere of Iran and the atmosphere of Italy at that time, and I strongly psychologically identified with the characters of Lila and Lenù.

I’m wondering what Lila and Lenù would do if they lived in Iran in these turbulent days? Or what would you do if you lived in Iran?

Ferrante What can I tell you? Lila would certainly be in the frontlines, and Lenù, in order to keep up, in order not to miss anything , would follow her, even to prison, and to death.

As for me, I would be ashamed to make any claims: I’m far away and in a safe place. But for weeks I’ve been following what is happening.

The repressiveness is terrible, but it’s wonderful that people so diverse in age and in social class and culture are standing side by side, resisting.

I find the centrality of women especially exciting. The motivations of Iranian women are the just and pressing motivations of all those who today, in Iran and in the world, fight for dignity and autonomy, for the freedom to decide how to dispose of their own bodies, their own lives. I am moved in particular by women who expose themselves to danger wholeheartedly, with absolute determination. To demonstrate at the risk of one’s life takes great courage, extreme desperation, a glimmer of hope.

I’ve always admired those who openly confront the violence of power, and I always wonder if I would be capable of it. I think of myself as timid, but I can’t tolerate anyone who instils fear in me. Citizens should strike fear into their repressive rulers: the opposite enrages me. And rage, in general, makes me forget fear.

Thus – I imagine – if I were there, I would be in the streets, like Lila, with passion and rage; but also like Lenù, out of duty, the need to see, to understand and try to describe.

Rad In the first volume of the quartet, My Brilliant Friend, Lila tells Lenù about her conversation with Pasquale: “He explains about the things that happened before us… We don’t know anything, neither when we were children nor now. Therefore, we are not in a position to understand anything.”

I think one of the main themes of the novel is that we don’t learn from what happened in the past, therefore we repeat the historical mistakes of the previous generations. Lila understands that her parents know nothing about the past and the history of Italy, neither about fascism, nor about justice, oppression and exploitation. Lila is looking for historical awareness, but she is a victim of a traditional family system, patriarchal society, and the criminal gangs like Camorra. I think history is important in the lives of these characters.

In Iran, the freedom movement and the struggle against tyranny have been always there since the constitutional revolution. Progressive and national forces, as well as the leftists, have always been suppressed by different governments, however the people’s struggle for freedom has continued in various forms throughout history. And now the young generation is moving again on another path to reach freedom.

In your opinion, how can this historical awareness help the women’s movement in Iran and their emancipation? Is it possible for them to skip the historical mistakes and not fall into the pit again?

Ferrante Education is fundamental. Studying, remembering and self-analysis are indispensable for making a conscious choice about the form we wish to give our life. Put like that, though, it’s too linear. We mustn’t forget that every human being is a tangled knot. Different eras, incompatible beliefs, contradictory feelings are all mixed up in us.

Here in Europe we tend to simplify the complexity of our pathway to freedom. When we think we’ve won we set aside the pain, the inconsistencies, the unresolved problems.

Yet the history that is truly useful to us women is not the history that seems like a triumphal march but, rather, the history that reminds us of the sufferings and injustices endured by past generations: the history ensuring that we render justice to them, that we not delude ourselves on our victories, that we start again after our defeats, and that we remain aware that every generation, even though it learns from the preceding generations, ends up making its own mistakes. We have to be vigilant. No triumphalism.