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Abstract

This article is the first examination of a hybrid corpus of cultural narratives of obstetric violence in contemporary Italy. Adopting a reproductive justice approach, the paper considers obstetric violence as gendered, intersectional, and ontological violence against reproductive subjects over the course of their lived reproductive experiences. Combining personal and cultural narratives, the article examines the 2022 comic “Da Che Mondo È Mondo,” written by Irene Caselli and illustrated by Rita Petruccioli, Alberto Basaluzzo’s 2018 short film Si È Sempre Fatto così, and Antonella Lattanzi’s 2023 novel Cose Che Non Si Raccontano to assess how and to what extent they contribute to creating a transformative discourse for women and reproductive subjects. By framing obstetric violence as a concept of struggle within the Italian institutionalized social imaginary, where it still remains a divisive and barely visible subject to be avoided, the texts examined reveal the ways in which obstetric violence damages the complex relationality inherent in the human reproductive experience. These texts highlight the role of medical personnel as unconscious perpetrators of obstetric violence, and they explore how reproductive experiences such as medically assisted reproduction and pregnancy loss are equally vulnerable to violent practices and toxic narratives.

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