Carla Lonzi’s figure is fundamental for understanding Italian feminism in the 1970s, within which Lonzi occupied a radical position that can be understood by reading three books by her: Manifesto di Rivolta Femminile (1970), Sputiamo su Hegel (1978) and La donna clitoridea e quella vaginale (1974).

These and other texts were published at the time by the publishing house that Lonzi started in Rome as part of the Rivolta Femminile project, one of the first Italian feminist groups, of which she was a founder together with the artist Carla Accardi and Elvira Banotti, and have recently been republished in Italy by La Tartaruga edizioni. (There is a French version edited by Giovanna Zapperi, while an English translation is missing, which will hopefully arrive soon).

Manifesto di Rivolta Femminile, written in the USA, is a real attack on the entire patriarchal cultural system that places the male/female relationship in a power system that Lonzi claims must be deconstructed if women are to be truly liberated from the cultural constraints in which they live. In her manifesto, Lonzi goes beyond the concept of equality, which would imply acceptance of the power system in place. Lonzi’s position is one of difference, which wants to bring about a global change in the civilisation that has imprisoned women. Once patriarchy has been dismantled, Lonzi does not want to replace one ideology with another, she does not wish to be in power, Lonzi goes further, towards the annihilation of the very concept of power and the dissolution of all ideology, so that we can live in a world where imagination and unpredictability can open new doors, in a free and unpredictable world. In his own words: Vogliamo essere all’altezza di un mondo senza risposte (We want to live up to a world without answers).

Sputiamo su Hegel (We spit on Hegel) attacks the pillars of European progressive culture: Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Freud. Their vision, even when it seems to give rise to a cultural revolution, has perpetrated the subordination of the women’s question in every sphere: philosophical, economic and sexual. On all of them Lonzi spits.

La donna clitoridea e quella vaginale (The Clitoral Woman and the Vaginal Woman) reveals the great deception within the idea of female sexuality conceived, told and perpetrated for the use and consumption of men. Lonzi invokes pleasure that is finally free from mere penetration, aimed at controlling and containing female sexuality: the clitoral woman is a liberated woman, psychically autonomous in sex and self-seeking.

Once the myth of the patriarchal family has been dismantled and true sexual pleasure has been rediscovered, the woman is also ready for the re-appropriation of a free motherhood, linked to care and untied from the restricted institution of the mononuclear family. The radicality of her thought, always written in an assertive and bold language, which aims at deconstructing from its roots western thinking seen as a system of power is still, years later, a current vision: we will not succeed in liberating women unless we attack the foundations of patriarchal culture.

Carla Lonzi (1931-1982) is the sister of Marta Lonzi, architect and also member of Rivolta Femminile. Raffaella Poletti has written annotations on her writing.