In the summer of 2023, Italy faced a migration emergency as a large number of people in transit arrived on its shores. Some of these people crossed the country toward north with the aim of reaching France. At one of the border crossings where migrants have to “illegally” cross the border, there is a receiving center, a safe house, managed and supported by various civil society organizations providing humanitarian assistance to those in transit. In Oulx, in northwestern Italy, the daily influx has far exceeded the capacity of the receiving center. According to On Borders data, in that small village, with just over 3,000 inhabitants, there were over a thousand transiting migrants in the month of July. The overcrowding, the emergencial situation, and the semi-legal nature of border solidarity have attracted the attention of various media outlets eager to report and interpret these events. The solidarity component, both institutional and informal, is predominantly composed of women.
This text (here the original bosnian version) arises from the need to find responses and defenses before a video that appeared on the internet a few months ago, published by the YouTube channel ‘The Jolly Heretic’ titled ‘Why do some women treat migrants like children?’. In this video, the speaker aims to provide and prove an evolutionary explanation for the “infantilizing attitude” of women towards people on the move.
The video discussed in this text is based on a segment from a BBC report called ‘Desperate Journeys: Italy’s Prime Minister has warned that Europe will be overwhelmed by migration unless the EU finds Solutions.’ In this report, a volunteer from the receiving center in Oulx is pressed by the BBC journalist, questioning whether her actions encourage the clandestine border crossings. The girl’s response refocuses the discussion on the need to mitigate the risks of death in the illegal border crossing, as people would do it regardless of appropriate clothing. The goal of the charity, represented by this young activist is in fact to prevent deaths, not to encourage illegality.
This is not the space to discuss the thin line between solidarity with migration and possible encouragement of illegal migration; a dedicated article deserves a focused debate. What raises concerns from this interview in here is the distorted and misleading use of it. The speaker in ‘The Jolly Heretic’ video begins by analyzing various female attitudes towards caregiving, referencing studies on how women approach their pets. He then moves on to a stereotypical analysis of female attitudes towards transracial adoptions and finally arrives at the core question of his video, ‘Why do some women treat migrants like children?’
At this point, a recurring statement in the video becomes evident: ‘females, of course, and particularly of that age, that young age, have an overwhelming desire to nurture. And so it follows that if there is something nurtural about refugees, which there seems to be because of the way that they are described as innocent and childlike.’ For the speaker, it’s not essential to deconstruct or contribute to the debate on this specific issue. His analysis aims to shed light on what this induces in female attitudes: ‘Now, what is this going to induce in females?’
The Jolly Heretic argues that from an evolutionary perspective, young females in their 20s are biologically adapted to be mothers. Due to societal changes, many women in this age group are delaying motherhood, leading to unfulfilled nurturing instincts. The speaker suggests that women may redirect these instincts toward refugees, particularly young male migrants, viewing them as ‘baby substitutes’. This nurturing inclination, seen in studies on pet ownership and transracial adoption, could explain why some women actively support and engage in activities to help migrants, even in the face of legal challenges, hiding also cases of abuse for protecting voulnerables aggressors. The speaker concludes that the refugee crisis is heightened due to the surplus of women in their 20s and 30s without children, and the mothering instincts finding expression in various ways, including support for migrants.
‘Precisely because there are so many women now that are in their 20s and 30s and don’t have children, those mothering instincts have to go somewhere, and in some cases, they’re going to go to cats and dogs. In some cases, they’re going to go to transracial adoption or whatever, but in the absence of those things, it seems that they are going to go to young male migrants.’
The evolutionary analysis provided by this video presents several criticisms. The distorted use of face and words of a young activist without consent is worring. Secondly, it highlights gender stereotypes, limiting the understanding of the female role in these activities to biological perspectives. Women should not be reduced to their reproductive capacity. If young women do not become mothers in this society, the reasons can be diverse and do not require justification, forsure not the one proposed by Jolly The Heretic. The choice to delay motherhood should not be interpreted as a lack of fulfillment.
The concept of ‘baby substitute’ proposed by the speaker propagates the idea that childless women instinctively seek substitutes in various forms. While the video conflates pets, transracial adoptions, and migrant individuals in a confused narrative, it reinforces stereotypes that reduce the value of women to mere caregiving roles. Women are diverse, with unique experiences, aspirations, and perspectives. Reducing them to a single category making choices based on a stereotype is reductive and unhelpful in understanding contexts and actions.
The case of this video is not isolated; there are numerous complaints from comrades and colleagues who are often sexualized, particularly due to a fetishization of people on the move in transit solely because they are Black and vulnerable. Colleagues have faced disturbing comments, such as one being wishing a rape by her migrant friends ‘to learn to like foreigners’. This debate is usually fueled by racist stereotypes about the sexual performance of individuals of African origin and the extreme sexualization of women activists. In the male-centric and patriarchal gaze, if an activist cares, she does it in line with her mothering instinct, not as a political choice. She can be seen as mothers or concubines, but rarely as sisters, comrades, and solidarity actresses.
The debate on the infantilization of refugees deserves and needs to be developped, as this attitude is present in various aspects of Western solidarity and migration management. While real, this attitude does not stem so much from a biological call to motherhood but more from a colonial gaze from all genders towards subalterns. Recalling Spivak’s critiques, it can be highlighted how the agency of subalterns is dismissed or distorted, assigning them an inferior and liminal role. The subjects involved in this debate are, on one side, migrant individuals, and on the other, womens from solidarity movements, but no one in that video has asked these two subjects how they actually perceive those roles and dynamics in action. No one asks why one is supportive toward this cause or how a supportive woman is perceived at the border. It’s a white, hetero cis-normative man reading the relationship between two subjects from his distant study, detached from the context of action in that specific dynamic.
The fact that solidarity and activism in some areas often have a high female presence should not reinforce gender roles and requires analysis within a broader framework related to social contexts, imaginaries, expectations and imbalances in Western societies, and ultimately, simple demographic data. If feminism is genuinely intersectional, demanding involvement in broader contexts than its own emancipation struggle, a more in-depth look into the reading of female activism in areas not strictly related to their emancipation (but also to that of other individuals) is necessary. In this regard, it is essential to counteract gendering narratives and interpretations that give women roles stereotypically explained. Only then can we talk about emancipated, and truly intersectional, internationalism that does not subtly, even if “militantly”, reproduce behavioral and caregiving attitudes chosen centuries ago by patriarchy.