Il contrasto alla violenza di genere e la pandemia covid-19. Rischi e ambivalenze nelle politiche di welfare: un’introduzione al tema

Hindering gender-based violence and the covid-19 pandemic. Risks and ambivalences in welfare policies: an introduction · Two years after the spread of the covid-19 pandemic it is possible to draft some initial analyses of the impact produced by the health emergency on a social context such as the Italian one, already burdened by risks and characterised by conditions of inequality. In this sense, the concept of syndemic has often been used to describe the current condition as determined by a set of pandemic pathologies that are not only health-related, but also social, economic, psychological, of life models, of enjoyment of culture and human relations. This has led not only to a greater visibility, if not amplification, of pre-existing phenomena, but also to evidence the close relationships that link the various factors that characterise them and that also underlie pandemic pathologies. These phenomena also include genderbased violence, which the United Nations had already defined in 2018 as a ‘global pandemic’ due to its diffusivity in every context and social stratum. The impact of the pandemic on the causes, dynamics, actors and consequences of gender violence constitutes a case study of the increased visibility, amplification and interconnection between constituent factors of a social phenomenon. The essays collected in the thematic section introduced by this essay describe various aspects of this impact, looking at this ‘emergency within the emergency’ in search of the most appropriate analytical approach. Among the many approaches that the scientific community is adopting, the intersectional one is proposed here as effective in representing both the elements that characterise gender-based violence today and those connections that are useful in arranging more effective strategies to combat it.