[100 Challenge] Roberta Gattel_51

A woman, Sibilla Aleramo, 1906

Some intellectuals of the time called her a "sexual sink" for having more than one relationship, not just with men, but Sibilla Aleramo managed to keep her voice strong over time, even after more than a hundred years. Her cry from the past resonates loud and clear in our present and reminds us of how much courage is needed to choose one's own life.

When I think of her, I think of how difficult it is for a woman to be herself in the context of the Italian province. By “being yourself,” I don't necessarily mean something highly existential like being proud to show your sexuality outside of heterosexual normativeness; I also mean more simply dressing differently than the average person. To many, it may seem silly, but it isn't.

When I moved to England, one of the first things I noticed was that women dress how they want, and no one tells them anything. Women who, like me, grew up in the Italian province know well how liberating this can appear.

Every time I go back to my childhood town to visit my parents, it almost always happens that people I don't know stop me on the street to comment on my hair: “So white! And you're so young! And you don't dye it?". Then the attention switches to the two eyeliner spots I usually draw under my eyes, and the questioning continues: "What are they? What do they mean? Why do you have them?"

Every time I go back, the story is the same, but the answers I give change.

Sometimes, I say that was the type of makeup the girl I was in love with used. She told me, "Never wear makeup like me as long as we go out together because your eyes are more beautiful than mine, and everyone will look at you.” So when she left both me and the city, out of nostalgia and promise, I began to paint two dots under my eyes. Usually, with this story, people decide that I am perverted.

Sometimes, I tell the story of a lover who, during an erotic game, in an attempt to choose the most suitable point on my face to draw a mole on me, decided to do it under my eye. Here, I am perceived as a rude person.

Other times, I say it's because of Twiggy, of what she represented in the 70s: the diversion of social attention from the abortion pill to a new female model of sick thinness. In this case, they usually don't understand what I'm saying and think I have mental problems or a desperate need for attention. When I don’t feel like wasting energy, I say it is a legacy of my morbid passion for Pierrot's mask, or that they are my spare pupils, or that it's just fashion, or that I didn't feel like wearing makeup, and so I made those things to do something. The truth? They are all truths and all equally insufficient.

A more complete truth might be that my makeup is like my gray hair: a lifelong story. People are not used to stories, so they ask because asking is their right. They do not recognize the sacred inviolability of the space of the Other. They don't know how to mind their own business. And if you're female, it's strange that you carry your story.

When faced with white hair that is not hidden by the dye, there is almost indignation, as if its presence offended. This is why people ask: they don't want a story but a justification.

Like my hair, this makeup is a wrinkle, a scar, a symbol, a line between two worlds. There was a Roberta with black hair one with white hair, as if there was a Roberta before the dots, and one after.

Ask me again, what are those marks you make on yourself?

It's a colon, open quotes, and a war cry.