This year's monographic course “Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. Institutional Trajectories of Social Change: a Sociological Perspective" presents, investigates and reasons on the "Istanbul Convention" (IC) in its juridical contents and in its socio-cultural reflections assuming it as the most advanced point of the international institutional trajectories of social change with regard to diffusion of a shared cultural sensitivity and the political and juridical implementation of measures to prevent and contrast violence against women and against domestic violence.
By examining both the achievement and implementation fronts and those of delay, reserve or refusal, in Italy and in the world, the course problematizes the concept of "gender" in a sociological and legal perspective, also considering historical-linguistic and symbolic-cultural aspects.
With particular attention to the most recent developments of a broad and complex institutional and cultural political debate between political-legal institutions, political parties, social movements and academia, the course intends to offer students a critical and thoughtful reflection on the breadth of issues in the field today and outline the scenarios that are implicitly and explicitly connected to IC, some of which seem to go beyond, if not even against the protection and defense of women from violence.
Last but not least, the extent and articulation of the relationship between juridical institutions, security and social change can be measured in questions concerning the IC.

The course presents a contextualized reflection on the extent and articulation of the relationship between legal institutions, security and social change.
As demonstrated by the famous study Women, violence and social change (Emerson Dobash & Dobash 1992), the problem of violence against women constitutes a peculiar observation point for sociologically interrogating the trajectories of social change in the contemporary age and empirically verifying its institutional dynamics and socio-cultural taken on in their problematic nature. The "Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence" (for short "Istanbul Convention" or IC) is, in this perspective, the most advanced point of the international institutional trajectories of social change regarding the diffusion of a shared sensitivity culture and the political and legal implementation of measures to prevent and combat violence against women and against domestic violence (among others, see McQuigg 2017; Niemi, Peroni & Stoyanova eds. 2020).
Alongside a general and majority acceptance of the IC in the EU and in many countries in the world, however, there is a broad front of opposition to it (see among others Verloo 2018). The main argument of those who oppose the IC concerns the thesis according to which this legislative instrument, under the pretext of violence against women, would allow, due to its binding effect on national legal systems, to introduce “gender ideology” or “theory” into the respective socio-cultural contexts. Most of these oppositions come from right-wing, Catholic and conservative right-wing movements and parties and the vast scientific literature and most of the publications on these issues focus on the analysis of these social groups and their values and ideological orientations.
A careful historical-linguistic, juridical, sociological and philosophical critical consideration of the question, however, invites a more precise and thoughtful analysis. The concept of "gender", in general and more specifically in certain expressions that use it, is variable and not univocal in its uses over time and, while certainly lending itself to political and ideological exploitation by the conservative Catholic and right-wing political camp, refers to themes and problems of a wider and more complex articulation on the political, juridical and socio-cultural level.
It is therefore necessary to carefully consider this spectrum of meanings and uses of the term "gender" starting from its linguistic context of origin (English-speaking context), in which different meanings and uses are historically attested. From the historical-linguistic, socio-anthropological and "Gender Studies" analysis, the fact emerges that the question has a direct objective impact on the level of acceptance of the term "gender" by national legal systems, such as the case of Italy attests on a historical level, and is complicated by the correlated notion of "gender identity".
This latter conception, which will be seen to have been understood as a human right and accepted in various national legislations, widely promoted by transgender movements, considered in terms of the dynamics of social change and the role of social movements, is increasingly at the center of a heated international debate with highly polemical tones. Its political and legal translation does not fail to show a wide range of critical issues in terms of social life and the functioning of legal systems, including certain aspects related to the very protection of women and their protection from male violence. The question, in these terms, has come to have direct repercussions on the IC with respect to which this conception is the object of objections in Italy and in the world formulated by many quarters including also by feminist movements that flank each other, albeit for obviously very different reasons and according to opposing values and ideological orientations, to the oppositions coming on the same issue from the right-wing, conservative and Catholic movements and parties mentioned above. It will come as no surprise - this is recent news in a situation in continuous and at times convulsive change - to note the open letter, addressed by feminist associations and movements to a group of parliamentarians of mixed left and right orientation, in which an explicit request is made to the European Parliament to act in this direction.
This is only the latest act of an issue that seems destined to continue in a worrying logic of "culture war" (Hunter 1992) whose breadth and consequences must be considered with careful care because they also extend beyond the important and already extensive issues considered here. The current political and civil public debate is shown in terms of a "gender war" (Berthet 2022) and an extreme "politicization of gender and democracy in the context of the CI" (Krizsán & Roggeband 2021) which makes manifest the risk that the cultural and institutional trajectories of social change, promoted by a widely participated and shared response to the issue of violence against women, enter into a collision course with cultural and institutional instances and trajectories contrary to a generalization on different fronts or far from the original aims, which will jeopardize the important results achieved so far with the risk of compromising its application and any further implementation.