#+TITLE: The House of Women
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* The Square and the Net
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The representatives of the /Casa Internazionale delle Donne/
(International House of Women) from Rome, in the antechamber of the
Capitol, waited to be received by the Mayor. The first Citizens’ Social
Media Manager was intent on posting a press release on Facebook. The
Mayor’s Virtual Bulletin Board had been used for months as the official
voice of the municipality of Rome.

Coco was in the square together with over a thousand other women who
shouted slogans. They raged furiously against the eviction of the house
threatened by the Capitoline Council. While looking around for her
friend, Coco felt the vibration of the smartphone in the back pocket of
her pants. In came a WhatsApp message from Maria with a link to the
Facebook post of the first Citizen. Coco looked up from the phone
seeking her friend, and she realised that the post had already come to
the attention of the square. The eviction procedure was not suspended.

The Facebook post, reflected in the irritated gestures and drawn faces
of the women in the square, spread like a digital wildfire. The women
were feeling betrayed and taunted. Coco could hear the thought hammering
in everyone’s minds: what is the delegation doing? What kind of
negotiation are they up to, if the mayor has already posted a press
release?

It was a mockery, the usual theater of institutional power. A theater
that pretends to welcome social issues and to listen to people’s
concerns. In fact, they had already decided in defiance of the people’s
wishes.

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Coco saw Maria in a squad of women in front of the staircase. She
quickly caught up with her.

“Enough, let’s go up,” pleaded her friend. “Let’s raid the council
chamber!” added a woman with a long nose beside her. While the most
ardent were already heading towards the police cordon that protected the
entrance to the building, a warning was raised among the elderly: “We
cannot raid while the delegation is at the table! In this way we
politically delegitimize the board!”

Mumbles, quarrels, small groups where people discussed animatedly. An
older militant insisted: “We cannot enter now, we must wait to hear the
delegation.” At that point Maria, after typing on her phone for a while,
reassured: “No problem, we wrote in the WhatsApp group, we asked Laura
who is in the delegation, to tell us if it is ok that we raid… We
won’t move if they don’t give us the ok.”

Time passed, on the WhatsApp group the delegate was silent. No double
tick. Maria constantly checked the display, Coco looked around. The
women in the square were furious and impatient. It made their blood boil
to see the numerous likes and for the solidarity comments that the
Mayor’s Facebook post continued to collect. Some began to reply.

Finally, silently, Coco, who had not said anything until then,
approached Maria and whispered softly: “Maybe, if the delegate is at the
negotiating table, she is not looking at the messages on WhatsApp…”

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When, late in the evening, the delegation came out confirming the words
of the Mayor already read on social the network, only a few women
remained in the square in the pouring Spring rain. The eviction
continued and the people of the Internet were on the Mayor’s side.

* To Understand
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WhatsApp was an /asynchronous/ communication tool. Once you sent a
message, you had to wait before receiving a reply, as it used to be for
letters, telegrams, postcards, emails. Yet we all fell constantly into
the illusion that it was /synchronous/ and that therefore it was normal
to expect an immediate response from our interlocutors just like it
happens in a phone call.

This distorted perception was favored and indeed provoked by the design
of the messaging system itself, by the interaction structure. Every
detail of the interface, from the colors to the sounds of the
notifications, was designed to compress response times, thus building
the impression of sharing the same space-time, as occurs in a live
discussion.

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There are times when it is not possible to communicate with someone and
immediate decisions must be made. Let’s get rid of the illusion that you
can always be connected, that you can get instant feedback, especially
in crowded situations. Let’s try to imagine the bodily and emotional
situation of the people with whom we try to communicate: it could be
useful to avoid false expectations or the unleashing of deleterious
crosstalk.

* The Word to the Social Media Manager
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For some time now, Facebook pages and profiles had become the official
spokespeople for politicians with institutional positions. They gave
users the feeling of having a direct relationship with the person.
Actually, the accounts of politicians, like those of many public
figures, were managed by a team of communication, marketing and social
platform experts.

Reactions, engagement, sentiment: everything was carefully screened and
evaluated in order to increase the number of followers and interactions
with the contents of the politician’s pages. Quantifying was the main
method for evaluating the success of an influencer, whether it was a
mayor, a singer, a fashion guru or a renowned chef, it didn’t matter.

What was really important was to constantly feed the followers with the
most suitable images and words to create a sense of intimacy and
belonging. Politics was done to the sound of tweets, grams and posts
that oscillated between serious and facetiously in order to maintain an
high user interaction with the account.

* A Bit of History
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The International House of Women in Rome is located in the monumental
complex already called /Buon Pastore/ (used since 1600 as a female
prison), earmarked in 1983 for social purposes, especially for female
citizenship.

In 1987 the Roman Feminist Movement, following the eviction from the
House of Women in Via del Governo Vecchio - Palazzo Nardini, occupied
the seventeenth-century part of Via della Lungara, 19, claiming the
intended destination and starting a long negotiation with the
Municipality for the restoration and handover of the building to female
associations.

In 1992, thanks to the support of the Coordination of Women elected by
the Municipality of Rome, the International House of Women Project was
listed among the works of Roma Capitale and approved by the Municipality
itself. The International House of Women thus becomes an autonomous body
in charge of enhancing women’s policy, offering services and
consultancy.

In 2017, a dispute opened with the Municipality of Rome regarding unpaid
fees. The Mayor accused: “The House continues to not want to pay (…)
Feminism shouldn’t have privileges”. The International House of Women
brands this claim as fake news.
