Feminist Writing Practices

During the 1970s, writing and recounting one’s own practice represented a difficult challenge for many feminist collectives.
Despite this, the movement always sought new forms and ways to express itself, to narrate the extraordinary process of consciousness-raising that lies at the heart of women’s liberation. The volume Feminist Writing Practices retraces the experience of one of the most interesting magazines born within the Roman feminist movement, “Differenze,” which was edited for each issue by a
different collective from the capital. Through the twelve issues that make up the magazine, published between 1976 and 1982, one can re-examine the stories of certain groups, follow the development of women’s thought, the internal tensions of the movement, the achievements and great passions, the directions of research, and the outcomes.
The extensive documentary section collects a selection of texts published in the magazine: theoretical documents, letters, dialogues, provocations, and memories, all united by a strong drive toward writing and toward recounting the extraordinary political and existential experience of feminism.

Federica Paoli (Rome 1978) is a subject expert in Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Sociology of Literature and has written about contemporary literature and theater in journals and anthologies. She earned a PhD in the History of Women’s Writing from La Sapienza University with a thesis on the magazines of the feminist movement in Rome in the 1970s, a subject on which she has published essays and articles in “Leggendaria,” “Genesis,” and “Zapruder.” She is a member of “Archivia, archives, library and documentation centers for women.”