International Women's Day | Venice: I am not making this up

The word hasn’t reached this street in Sant’ Elena that it’s a festive day for women.

This day is commonly observed here by means of sprays of mimosa. I’ve written about this before.

I never buy the bunches of mimosa sold by various street vendors, but this little bouquet was bestowed on me by a member of a social club that we walked past this evening. They had a whole table full of them, and it was getting late.

Today, in addition to the mimosa, we had a 24-hour transit strike (busses, trams, trains, and of course vaporettos). This is some sort of inexplicable sub-tradition, because Women’s Day has been disfigured by a transit strike more than once. Some vaporettos will run, but it will be a task to reorganize your day to accommodate the ACTV, the public transport company. If this strike were to accomplish something, I’d be so glad. But it seems a feeble reed to wield in the struggles that women live through every day, up to and including their struggles with the ACTV.

The ACTV has a hundred reasons for calling strikes; we have one every few months. They are mostly politically motivated and are usually directed at lapses in administration. Work problems, not human problems. This year they’ve decided to take every social problem yet identified and load them onto a highly worthy cause and, you know, let the women carry it.

This is the announcement on the vaporetto dock. Note that the date is written, as typical here, with the day first, month second.

These are the reasons for the strike: “Against masculine violence against women and violence in general towards LGBTQIPA persons; against every discrimination, molestation and sexual blackmail regarding access to and in the places of work; against the sexual division of work and racism; against job insecurity, exploitation, disparities of salary, involuntary part-time and being fired; against the dismantling and privatization of the social state; for the right to free and accessible public services, to income, to the minimum salary according to law, to the reduction of work hours to be equal to salary, to the house, to work, to scholastic education, to health care and to public transport (*wait, what?*); for the safeguarding of health and safety in the workplace; for the defense and strengthening of safe houses, of the centers against violence and the anticipation of measures of escape from violence; for the defense of Law 194 (*right to abortion*) and the right to self-determination, of the national network of public consultori (*these correspond to social workers)* and without objectors; for the redistribution of wealth, social and environmental justice; for the defense of the right to strike.” It’s impossible to object to these goals, but I still can’t see how not showing up for work is going to accomplish them. I guess there will just have to be another strike.

So the ACTV demonstrates its sensitivity to the problems of women in Venice, the nation, the world, by creating problems for women. Transport strikes absolutely mangle your day in a city with basically two alternatives — feet and taxis. Let’s say you have to accompany your sick neighbor to the hospital for her radiation therapy today. During a strike last year we walked to the only functioning vaporetto stop, much farther than the usual stop, and took the sole working vaporetto two stops to San Zaccaria, where they put everybody ashore. Then we had to walk inland, streets, bridges, streets, bridges, to get to the hospital under our own fading steam. She was so frail by then, but such a trouper.

When the next strike rolled around she could hardly walk to the corner anymore, so we had to take a taxi — that will be 50 euros (rate from her house to the hospital). And 50 euros back, naturally. Her pension was 750 a month. But sure, the ACTV’s union disagreements come first.

So just work your way around the strike however you can, or can’t. Kids going to school? Get them up at 4:00. (Made up, but not by much.) Going to your job, or your second job, today? Call to say you can’t make it and lose the day’s pay. Or walk. Be sure to consult the labyrinthine schedule of the times and routes of the limited service, or just decide to stay home.

So thank you, ACTV, for acknowledging all the problems that ought not to exist in a woman’s world. I don’t see you on the list, though.

It’s a good thing the timetable for the flowering of this mimosa tree behind us is not scheduled by the ACTV. I wonder if they’d make the tree go on strike?

International Women’s Day: Mimosa this!

I don’t know how much attention is paid elsewhere to International Women’s Day, but in Venice it’s “let a thousand mimosas bloom” day. The usual illegal street vendors are everywhere, there are sprigs and bouquets in the supermarkets and bars, little yellow balls all over the place, even on the tops of voluptuous chocolate cakes in the pastry shop down the street. It’s as if the entire world woke up and said “MUST. HAVE. MIMOSA.”

But this year some women’s groups in 70 Italian cities decided that flowers and even voluptuous chocolate once a year weren’t enough to draw attention to the plight of women. And plights there are, everywhere you look. Ironically, though, these advocates added a honking big plight yesterday to their sisters’ everyday burdens by calling a general 24-hour transit strike. On the mainland this inconvenience would be bad enough; in Venice it’s madness. A woman who had to get to work, or to her university classes, or to the hospital for some reason, was compelled to re-shape her day in drastic and, possibly, financially negative ways. As in, “I can’t get to work today.” Or at least “I’m coming in early,” or “late,” or “half a day,” or something inconvenient.

Their objective was to focus the world’s attention on women’s rights (lack of) and violence against women (super-abundance of). Right there with you; I just don’t see how slicing and dicing the day of hundreds of women is going to help.

The usual vendors. On the mainland they were patrolling the intersections and stop lights. I suppose the money they make goes to help some women?

For the record, I note that buses and vaporettos were scheduled to operate in the usual “protected phases” of 6:00 – 8:59 AM and 4:30 – 7:29 PM. This sounds good, but these numbers need to be decoded. The “until” time indicates when the vaporetto will be back at home base, which is usually pretty far from wherever you’re standing. That makes sense, of course — the pilot isn’t going to stop his vehicle at 8:59 in the middle of the Grand Canal and put everybody ashore.

Take the 5.1 as an example: If you’re at the train station heading toward the Lido, in order to be at the Lido before 8:59 means your last chance to board is at 8:04. Same with the return; the afternoon run begins at 4:30 at the Lido, so if you’re at Rialto trying to get to Piazzale Roma (A) you should just walk it, for heaven’s sake, you can make it in 20 minutes, or (B) take the #1 which leaves the Lido at 4:32 and reaches Rialto at 5:15 PM and Ple. Roma at 5:37. I suppose transit strikes work this way everywhere, but if you have the option of taking a taxi or an Uber or a friend with a car or a bike, you don’t have to make these calculations the way we have to do in Venice. While you’re waiting, are you thinking about violence against women? Possibly not.

As for mimosa nosegays, some illegal vendors acquire the blossoms by stripping the trees in private gardens, or wherever a tree may be found that isn’t guarded by armed vigilantes. Some people woke up to discover their mimosa trees standing there naked.

What is my conclusion? I have none, except to suggest that everyone try not to make women’s lives any more complicated or even perilous than they already are. That would be a start. You can do it even without a placard.