As Italy inches closer to a new normality after a two-month strict lockdown imposed to stem the spread of the Coronavirus, clear provisions on school reopening and childcare have been lagging behind. For many women, this means having to sacrifice their professional lives to childcare.
Last April, in the middle of Italy’s lockdown, the hashtag #noncisiamo (literally “we are not there”, but it can also mean “it’s not ok”) started circulating on Italian social media to raise awareness of the fact that the government had close to no plan about the millions of pupils and students who’d suddenly found themselves out of school. Francesca Fiore and Sarah Malnerich, two women’s rights activists, built on the hashtag from their highly popular, irony-filled blog Mammadimerda, or “Shitty Mom”, which sets out to dismantle gender-based prejudice and to give a realistic view of the issues that mothers face day to day.
To them, it was clear that the consequences of the government’s lack of attention to these issues would inevitably burden women more than men, given that Italian women are more likely than men to already be under-employed and earn significantly less on average.
