Breaking the Silence: A History of Women

“Breaking the Silence: A History of Women” (Ledizioni, September 2022) is the ebook, available here as a free PDF download, created by sociologist Maria Grazia Gambardella based on the papers from the Uds archive, organized and preserved by the Badaracco Foundation.

Commissioned by the last Uds board to preserve the memory of women’s political practices on issues that still permeate public debate, the work reconstructs the journey of Breaking the Silence, first as a movement and then as an association: a ten-year history of feminism starting from the major demonstration in Milan on January 14, 2006, in defense of Law 194 and women’s freedom.

The text is accompanied by the afterword “Rereading Uds Today Between Reason and Sentiment” by four of the Uds founders—Cristina Pecchioli, Manuela Cartosio, Maddalena Gasparini, and Assunta Sarlo—and a photographic portfolio by Isabella Balena, who also created the reworked image for the book cover.

The attempt to sabotage the regulations governing the termination of pregnancy, women’s self-determination, and their right to a safe abortion is a recurring constant in Europe and worldwide. This has also been the case in Italy in the more than 40 years since the approval of Law 194 and the referendum that confirmed it. In the early 2000s, after the approval of the legislation on medically assisted procreation, the center-right government reopened the political debate on the application of the law, attempting to challenge women’s right to decide over their own bodies and lives.
In response, the feminist movement, with its excesses, alliances, and shared experiences, returned to make its voice heard. This time the wave started in Milan, with an email that journalist Assunta Sarlo sent to colleagues and friends: “Dear all, where are we, where are you? They are waging war on our freedom. I don’t know how, but our thoughts and our opposition are needed.”
Within a few hours, the network was filled with a wide variety of responses from women. A series of initiatives and assemblies began; thousands of women realized that the battle for self-determination regarding the termination of pregnancy was still and always open, and they spoke out again against the attack from the conservative front and the Church. And so they returned to demonstrate. On January 14, 2006, Breaking the Silence (Uds) brought 200,000 women and many men to Piazza Duomo in Milan, in one of the largest women’s demonstrations ever recorded in our country. It was the beginning of a ten-year movement history reconstructed here through the Uds archive, organized and preserved by the Badaracco Foundation, and with a contemporary perspective from some of the founders on an experience that is part of the long and passionate history of Italian feminism.