On New Year’s Eve 1981, he asked to see her one last time.
Anna Rita Calavalle, 25 years old at the time, had just cut ties with her boyfriend of one year, Gregorio. She never went further than the entrance when she arrived.
When Gregorio walked away to get a “surprise,” Calavalle put her hand on the door handle. Her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the gymnastics training session she was late for so when he turned the corner and pointed a gun at her, it was the last thing she expected.
Bang.
With one shot, Gregorio took 20 centimeters off of her jaw. Calavalle fell to the floor. Her hand touched her jaw and all she felt was blood. She pleaded with him to call an ambulance.
He had one requirement though – she had to claim it was a mistake. She had to pretend like the person she once loved didn’t shoot her out of anger, jealousy and confusion. She had to put it all behind her.
Before any calls were made, Gregorio left again and Calavalle heard the sounds of the gun reloading. In her mind this was it – he was coming back to kill her.
“I was able to stand up myself to go to the stairway and ask [a neighbor] for help,” Calavalle said. “When I heard the second shot, I knew in that moment that shot was for him.”
After a long recovery, Calavalle survived her encounter with domestic violence but yet, it wasn’t the physical pain that was the hardest to overcome. Instead, it was the judgment, the misconceptions, and the lack of support that were the biggest challenges.
Those challenges have fueled her work now as the adviser to the Bicameral Commission against Gender-based Violence and Femicide – a group that advocates for survivors of violence and works to prevent it in the future.
A Second Shot
Everything moved quickly in those minutes after the shots. Calavalle was able to find help in the building and wrap her jaw in a scarf to stop the bleeding.
The first surgery Calavalle had took place in Ancona, Italy. The following three surgeries happened over 4,000 miles away in Albany, New York.
Enduring such long surgeries, even one that stretched on for more than 15 hours, wasn’t the hardest part of Calavalle’s recovery though.
Gregorio was two years younger than Calavalle. While their age didn’t matter while they were dating, it was the biggest factor people used to blame her for the incident.
“His family told me, ‘You are responsible for everything,’” Calavalle said. “I was two years older than him so I was the adult. [They told me I was] the one that pushed him to do this.”
The people around her told her she was supposed to have seen it coming, she should’ve helped him and she should’ve stopped it.
“This was the second time when I was shot,” Calavalle said. “The first time was by the gun, and the second time by the people. People that I didn’t know, that didn’t know anything about the situation. But everybody thinks they know enough to judge.”
The blame came from everywhere: Gregorio’s family (especially his mother and sister), community members, and people who read about the incident.
During this time, Calavalle leaned on her support system, primarily her mom and her gymnastics coach, to get her through some of the roughest days of her life.
Female Empowerment
In one of Calavalle’s surgeries, doctors removed eight centimeters off of her hip to form a new jaw bone. During this time, she was unable to speak and at age 25, lying in bed silently was one of the last things she wanted to do.
In these moments though Calavalle thought of two of the most impactful people in her life; her mother and her coach, Egle Abruzzini.
When she started gymnastics at age 10, Abruzzini taught her resilience, determination and most importantly to always keep her head high.
“[In gymnastics], we learned that every time you go to the floor, you must come in like a queen,” Calavalle said. “Nobody can tell you anything. You are the best in that moment and you must demonstrate being the best.”
This sentiment was especially important for Calavelle during recovery.
Calavalle was always close with her mother growing up and when she couldn’t travel to the U.S. for her surgeries, her mother was devastated. Waiting 15 hours across several time zones was extremely hard on her, especially on top of taking care of Calavalle’s ill father.
As Calavalle put it, her mom became her sparring partner and her punching bag. She listened each night on the phone as Calavalle cried about her condition and the situation but she also encouraged her to see the positive side of things.
“Sports and family were good training for me to make me feel I have to go on,” Calavalle said. “Something terrible happened to me but that is in the past. I can’t do anything more than to go on to demonstrate to everybody that I’m able to be reborn and to go on.”
The Broader Issue
Femicide is a commonly used term in Italy. It is officially defined as the act of killing women on account of their gender. A 2021 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on gender-related killings of women and girls showed staggering numbers.
The global estimates revealed that around 45,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members. While the numbers are still significant, Italy has seen an overall decrease in gender-violence-related deaths in the past nine years.
Italy’s latest statistics sit at 0.32 homicides per 100,000 females which is about the same as the numbers in Spain. Still, though, there is major work to be done.
When Calavalle went through her own experience of surviving an attempted femicide, one of the things she wished she could have relied on was counseling services. In the 1980s, mental health support was not readily available or as openly recognized.
So instead, Calavalle leaned on her mom and Abruzzini for a lot of the emotional support she needed. However now, Calavalle encourages the victims she speaks with to seek out psychological support.
“There are mental health services in Europe in Italy and they are getting better,” Calavalle said. “But it’s not easy for people to ask for help. I always say, if you are close to someone that has these problems, please, convince them to go to ask for help.”
Another one of the biggest issues Calavalle has seen in her work has been the lack of accurate data about femicide. Due to the sensitivity of the subject, Calavalle believes all of the deaths of women and girls have not been accurately recorded.
Through her work now, she is advocating for victims of femicide and attempting to make the issue more well-known. Calavalle hopes a broader awareness of the issue will push people to become more involved and speak out for change.
A Helping Hand
Prior to the incident, Calavalle served as both a middle and high school teacher. In her role, she enjoyed being able to connect with her students and educate them through her course.
Last November, Calavalle was asked to work for the Bicameral Commission to help inform younger generations of signs of domestic violence. She also researches the costs of gender violence in Europe and Italy.
“I’m not a professional psychologist or lawyer so I wasn’t sure if I could do this,” Calavalle said. “But the people told me they were sure that I would be able to be more impactful to the students than some of the other people.”
In 2013, one of Calavalle’s former students, Lucia Annibali, was returning home from work in Pesaro, Italy when her ex-fiance threw acid in her face – almost blinding her and causing severe damage.
Annibali had heard Calavalle’s story of courage many times. So, when she was sitting with her mother in the hospital after the incident she only wanted to call one person – Calavalle.
“In that moment, it was the first time I was happy to be there in that situation,” Calavalle said. “I had lived through that experience and I wanted to help her too.”
After news of Annibali’s attack broke out, several TV stations contacted Calavalle and asked her to go on air to talk about the issue but she turned them all down.
Instead, she wanted to spend even more time in local schools, being able to talk to kids on an individual level and help them through their specific issues.
The Next Page
Despite having told her story time and time again, Calavalle still struggles with it sometimes. What she lived through is not the standard and because of her hardships, she is working to prevent further cases of femicide in the future.
In her lectures, Calavalle preaches the importance of literature and education – especially for young men.
“Violence comes from ignorance,” Calavalle said. “If you cannot understand what is happening inside yourself or name the feeling you have, you get frustrated. We must first understand ourselves.”
Calavalle’s work and talks across the country have helped to inspire the next generation of women and girls. Her experience at age 25 is what sparked the passion she has for her work today.
She hopes that soon, her work with the commission will impact more people and help to prevent further cases of violence.
“I heard a voice inside myself that said, ‘if you think that you are going on all your life like this, there is no point,’” Calavalle said. “It’s time that I decided what to do and I said okay, I will turn the page. It was not immediately, I’m still having many bad moments, but I did it and I am here.”
