The Feminist (In) Public: Femminicidio and Feminist Activism in Italy

Giulia Cecchettin, a young Italian woman, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in November 2023. Public outrage following her death sparked national discourse about the problem of femicide in Italy. Her older sister, Elena Cecchettin, made explicitly feminist interventions in the media and in so doing brought feminist discourse into the public sphere. In this paper, I argue that, by making her sister's murder a question of public responsibility, Elena's contributions challenged the pre-existing distinction between the public and the private and evidence the capacity for feminist discourse to be politically transformative. I use digital ethnographic methods and discourse analysis to examine media reporting, opinion articles, speeches, and other discourse objects in circulation at the time of, and following, Giulia's death to explore how discourse circulates and transforms. As I illustrate, not only can feminist discourse rethink understandings of the public/private distinction but it can also push the bounds of 'the public', calling upon a transnational counterpublic of feminists to prompt political action.