Why the First Female Italian PM is a Setback for Feminism
Three weeks prior to the national elections in Italy, Hillary Clinton commented on the likely scenario of having the first female Italian Prime Minister: “Every time a woman is elected as head of State or government, that is a break from the past, a step forward.” But being a woman does not automatically make you a feminist.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, certainly made History on September 25th, when she gained 26% of the popular vote, with her coalition totaling a comfortable 43%. Her values and persona are in no measure different from previous right-wing Italian governments, namely Silvio Berlusconi rising to power in 1994 and Matteo Salvini dominating the 2018 elections (both politicians are not-so-surprisingly members of Meloni’s coalition). The novelty here is that she will be the first ever woman to reside in Palazzo Chigi, home to the Prime Minister.
Despite the natural assumption that any woman in politics would strive to hold in place long fought-for basic rights, Meloni does not seem to have this objective in mind. Her campaign was based on ignoring rampant issues concerning women’s rights and on manipulating certain freedoms. For instance, she has made it clear that she will not abolish the 1978 law that legalized abortion. However, she has promised to launch initiatives to make women “rethink” their decision – e.g., paying them in cash to keep the baby – and “overcome the causes” of the termination of pregnancy, in order to prevent such procedure.
Meloni and her coalition have widely expressed their support for Viktor Orban’s Hungary, a country recently removed from its “full democracy” status by the European Parliament. It is no stranger then that the same leader who is legally forcing women to listen to the fetuses’ vital signs before the abortion, was among the firsts to congratulate Meloni for her victory.
Italy records only 49% of women being employed in 2021 (Confindustria). The country, nonetheless, ranks lowest in the index which measures the gap between female and male employment percentages (Eurostat placed the gap at 19.7 p.p.). In the Brothers of Italy manifesto, there is no sign of policies to boost women’s involvement in the professional arena. Instead, Meloni has announced that she will cut taxes for larger families in order to increase Italy’s birth-rate.
One could easily read such a move as a way to reinforce the slogan of Brothers of Italy: “God, homeland, and family.” Meloni wants to relegate women to their roles as wives and mothers, a position that has allowed conservative and right-wing women to be publicly acclaimed by their parties, more than their counterparts in leftist groups (“all three female British PMs have been conservatives,” as Theresa May noted).
It is inevitable to trace this traditional concept of “family” to the fascist ideology of the 1920s. The regime supported the definition of woman as wife, mother, and keeper of the house. Women – or better, their husbands – also received financial benefits relative to the number of children in the household. This does not seem very far from the idea of “preventing abortions.”
The family Meloni talks about must, nonetheless, be necessarily heterosexual. She has fiercely opposed the “LGTB lobby” and has stated that she will ban adoption for same-sex couples.
Moreover, Meloni is strongly against the so-called “pink quotas” concerning professional. She has argued that the application of such a policy would rob people of merit of their chance to succeed, regardless of their gender.
But what has probably created the most striking criticism among Meloni’s controversial actions was something else. Just over a month ago, Meloni tweeted a video showing a Ukrainian woman being raped by a Guinean asylum seeker in Piacenza, Italy. Not only did she disregard the victim’s privacy by spreading the footage online; Meloni intentionally used the video to promote her anti- immigration policies. She promised that, as Prime Minister, she would bring security back to Italian cities.
Despite 71 women being killed in a familial context in Italy between January and September 2022 (Ministero dell’Interno, 2022), the Brothers of Italy oppose punishing violence against women both at a national and European level, rejecting several proposals to protect women from violence and assault.
The question then arises naturally: why would women vote for Meloni? A first explanation lies in the fact that the Brothers of Italy party is appealing to those traditional families where there a strict separation of roles according to gender is still present. A second answer as to why Meloni won the elections might be retrieved in the record-breaking high rate of electoral abstentionism (36%, meaning that more than one in three Italians decided not to cast their vote). A far right-wing victory seemed inevitable, and the left-wing parties’ campaign made women even more disillusioned about their opportunities. They preferred not to vote, as nobody truly put their rights first. Meloni has herself been the victim of harsh gender-based criticism. She was pregnant when she ran for mayor of Rome in 2016. In a country where a female mayor is still a major item of news, the fact that she was having a child while unwed sparked debates. Thus, her soon-to-be-formalized new role as Prime Minister is a national victory for the male-dominated political system and a personal one for her. Yet, unless she starts defending women’s rights, then it certainly is not a win for the female population as a whole.
To quote Meloni herself from a 2019 speech that has been widely “memeifed”, «I am Giorgia. I am woman. I am a mother. I am Italian. I am a Christian». But she definitely is not a feminist.
Sources:
AGI - Agenzia Italia, 2 September 2022, https://www.agi.it/estero/news/2022-09-02/clinton-meloni-elezioni-rottura-passato-17929195/
LaRepubblica, 26 September 2022,https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2022/09/26/diretta/elezioni_politiche_2022_risultati_ultime_news_oggi-367310110/
Maria Tadeo, “Feminist or Not, Giorgia Meloni Has a Duty to Italy’s Women”, 23 August 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/feminist-or-not-giorgia meloni-has-a-duty-to-italys-women/2022/08/22/18c1ea52-21d8-11ed-a72f1e7149072fbc_story.html
Hannah Roberts, “Will Italy’s first female prime minister be bad for women?”, 2 September 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-first-woman-primeminister-giorgia-meloni-mario-draghi-brothers-abortion-feminist-levante-chiara ferragni-elodie/
Results of Italy’s 2022 political elections retrieved from the Ministry of Interior’s website, https://elezioni.interno.gov.it/senato/scrutini/20220925/scrutiniSI
Hyperlinks:
Greta Privitera, Interview to Hillary Clinton, published on “Il Corriere della Sera” on 2 September 2022, https://www.corriere.it/esteri/22_settembre_02/hillary-clintonputin-bullo-meloni-donna-rottura-col-passato-poi-andra-giudicata-fatti-7f31d088-2a2d-11ed-8963-d54a3aeaa2d9.shtml
Confindustria, Report on female employment data, October 2021, https://www.confindustria.ud.it/upload/pagine/Ufficio%20Studi/occupazione_femminile_ott_21.pdf
Eurostat, Gender statistics report, updated in March 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Gender_statistics#:~:text=Highlights&text=The%20EU%20employment%20rate%20for,%25)%20by%2011.0%20percentage%20points
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22at0FHlIdg
Criminal Analysis Service of the Italian Ministry of Interior, Report updated on 26 September 2022, https://www.interno.gov.it/sites/default/files/2022-09/47_settimanale_omicidi_26_settembre_2022.pdf
About the author:
Federica Pizzuto is a 21-year-old Italian student. She has recently obtained a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs at the University of Bologna. Federica is currently volunteering at “Cooperazione Internazionale Sud-Sud”, an association promoting long-term development initiatives in the world’s most troubledareas. She is nonetheless pursuing to enroll in a master’s in International Security to work in the peacebuilding sector. Passionate about diplomacy, intelligence, gender and African studies, she aspires to work for International Organizations aiming at maintaining peace and to become a human rights advocate.
