Drawing as a Device to Deconstruct Gender Stereotypes: The Case of the Southern Italian Woman

  • Francesca Brunetti Xiamen University

Abstract

My project is a combination of artistic and scholarly research about the Southern Italian woman, who are often referred to by the pejorative term terrona. By analyzing films that include the terrona stereotype, I investigate how she has been represented as aggressive, sexualized, and maternal. Through my drawings, I challenge the terrona’s stereotype by recontextualizing the terrona image in dialogue with the Italian philosophy of sexual difference and ecofeminism. My drawings reconfigure the terrona’s stereotypical feminine traits into an agential, fulfilled woman connected to the Mediterranean environment. In my drawings, I fantasize how the reclaimed relationship to the Mediterranean environment potentially transforms the terrona representation from a marginalized woman into an empowered one. In this imaginative arts-based speculative narrative, the stereotypical terrona’s aggressiveness becomes a green energy that she uses to produce sustainable agricultural activities. The terrona’s sexualized body becomes a power that she holds to feel sensorial pleasure by connecting to her environment. Her stereotypical maternal attitude is transformed into her capability to bring prosperity to the ecosystem where she lives. 

Author Biography

Francesca Brunetti, Xiamen University

Francesca Brunetti is a Teaching Fellow at the Institute of Creativity and Innovation at Xiamen University in China. She is an artist and a scholar interested in the intersection between drawing, gender studies, and ecology. She pursued an interdisciplinary and international education in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. She earned her BA and MA in Philosophy from La Sapienza University of Rome. She also has a MA in Communication Design from the Glasgow School of Art. On moving to the US, she obtained a PhD in Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Dallas. She has been included in several group and solo shows in the US, Europe, and Japan; held teaching appointments at U.S., European and Asian universities; presented her artistic projects at international academic conferences; and published articles about her work in peer-reviewed journals. She can be reached at francescabrunetti@hotmail.it. 

Published
2022-09-15
How to Cite
BRUNETTI, Francesca. Drawing as a Device to Deconstruct Gender Stereotypes: The Case of the Southern Italian Woman. Visual Culture & Gender, [S.l.], v. 17, p. 6-18, sep. 2022. ISSN 1936-1912. Available at: <http://vcg.emitto.net/index.php/vcg/article/view/175>. Date accessed: 28 mar. 2024.
Section
Articles