The voice, principium individuationis, is the expression in sound of what originates within our respiratory apparatus. It demonstrates the human ability to give a name to things, people and animals, to celebrate through song one’s own joy, pain and holiness. Since ancient times, women have been given the task of expressing the feelings of the community during ceremonies, both in good and bad times. In many societies these customs are still present today and it is impressive, for an outsider, to hear the guttural, obsessive cries of Arab girls during weddings and feasts. However, when used auto- nomously, the female voice has often not received a reply or has even been ordered to be silent in an authoritarian manner. It is also said women spend too much breath on speaking, as if to say they have an incorrigible tendency to waste time. Women’s words were for a long time the only words addressed to small children, the intermediary between children and the world, through their stories, reading, teaching and laughter. Even today a woman’s voice is almost the only one we hear in hospital wards. Women are automatically assigned the care of ill family members, a difficult task that requires great strength of spirit. At this moment many Israeli and Palestinian women are speaking to each other. They have a tenacious wish to continue to the exchange of their views on the absurdity that has curtailed their lives and those of their children. In so doing, they defy the anger of their husbands (because, as we know, men have "clear ideas") and risk the hatred of their neighbours and relatives. Wherever there is war, women wonder more about the reasons for the hatred than about which side is right. Our hope is that sooner or later we stop thinking that all this talk is a waste of time and breath and we continue to do it, "as long as there is breath". f M. BOVO