Opinion | Columnists
Taking on rising sexism
Angered by the way female politicians are treated by Silvio Berlusconi, Italian women are beginning to say 'ciao' to the showgirl image
- By Adrian Michaels, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009
- Published: 00:00 October 27, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- Silvio Berlusconi
Something is stirring in the home of western European chauvinism. Italian womanhood is rising up. An online petition decrying the way female politicians are treated by Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister and billionaire businessman, has gathered 100,000 signatures.
A slogan — ‘I am not a woman at your disposal' — is catching on. It is aimed at the famously flirtatious 73 year-old after months of revelations about his dalliances with prostitutes and models procured for parties. It draws attention to his attempts to put forward women better known as showgirls as his party's MEPs in Brussels and for Cabinet posts.
The petition was started by two academics and a writer, all women, and hosted on the website of La Repubblica, one of Italy's leading newspapers and a frequent foe of Berlusconi.
Unusually for the supremely confident Berlusconi, he has been forced into a half-hearted apology to Rosy Bindi, a well-known Left-leaning politician in her late 50s, after he told her on TV last week that she was more pretty than intelligent — a slur intended to mean that she was neither. The prime minister said his "joke" had been made in a "moment of disappointment", a rare concession considering he usually lashes out at those offended by his frequent boorish remarks. Berlusconi is also under fire at home.
Meanwhile, something more fundamental in Italian society is being questioned. High-profile television programmes — not on the channels controlled by Berlusconi — have attacked the incessant portrayal of women on Italian TV and in advertising.
It is not the ubiquity of naked women, nor the chauvinism of men such as Berlusconi which are so remarkable — though they are pretty extraordinary. The most striking question is why Italians, particularly women — emancipated, Western, affluent and educated — put up with it. The new spasm of feminism is a very rare outpouring in a country where gains were made by women in the 1960s and 1970s but whose voices inexplicably fell silent while Berlusconi built his media empire on a cocktail of flesh and glitz in the 1980s.
Italy ranks low on part-time work, and parents are critical of the lack of nursery places or the restrictive opening times of businesses such as banks and shops. Italy is ranked 67th in the world for gender equality according to the World Economic Forum in 2007, a ranking based on the percentage of women among legislators, ministerial positions, senior officials and managers. Until the recent outcry, it has usually taken outsiders to start a debate in Italy on these issues.
Passive acceptance
I created a huge polverone, or dust cloud, in 2007 when I wrote a piece on this very topic. At that time there was no public debate about the place of women in Italy. I asked if the lack of female success in the boardroom was related to the old-fashioned appearance of women on TV, and why the situation seemed to be passively accepted. I explained that assuming the situation to be "backward" was a mistake. In the land of fashion and art, many Italians are happier than other nationals to show off their figures.
Mostly, I was praised for raising the issues, though some misconstrued my reporting as my own views, and I was attacked as an English hypocrite from the land of Page Three.
Anna Puccio, a business strategist and director, told me recently that she went back to Italy in 2001 after holding posts in the UK, Switzerland, Germany and the US. She was shocked at the portrayal of women around her. "Initially I lived in a state of denial. I just did not want to notice". She has lately been campaigning for greater boardroom representation. She says there is a danger of confusing the media with real life.
Italy has quietly been making progress for a while. The number of women in parliament almost doubled recently to about the European average of 21 per cent. A group of large Italian businesses has started a campaign called Valore D — the value of women — to press for opportunities.
The Milan stock exchange and parliament are considering affirmative action for women in corporations. Puccio hopes now that "finally the country is waking up to the broader dimension". She thinks the appointment by Berlusconi of former models to political jobs, followed by the revelations of parties, has prompted the feeling that "enough is enough".
But she is pessimistic of dramatic change in the media until there are more senior female TV executives. And Berlusconi remains, above all, a fairly-elected and very popular prime minister who owns three TV channels and has a strong say in what happens at the three state-controlled ones. "This man offends women and democracy. Let's stop him", says the petition. No one really expects that for a long time.
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