Richard Owen in Rome
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Italy has opened its first women-only beach, away from the prying eyes and wandering hands of the country’s notoriously lascivious men.
The beach at the resort of Riccione, on the Adriatic coast, is also closed to children, with mothers encouraged to leave their offspring with their father or grandparents.
Signs at the entrance to Beach 134 say “No Men”. One sign depicts a macho-looking man in a bathing costume apparently ready with his next chat-up line. But he has a diagonal line across his torso, in a manner similar to signs saying “No Dogs”. Ironically, dogs are allowed on the “Pink Beach”.
“This is not a lesbian beach,” Fausto Ravaglia, the businessman behind the idea to ban men, said. “It is simply for women to be themselves.”
Cinzia Donati, 43, a housewife from Milan, agreed. “I’ve left my husband and son behind — and I feel I’ve arrived in paradise,” she said. The beach was “a really classy place, beautifully clean and well organised. It’s perfect for us women. We are so much better off on our own.”
Mrs Donati said that it was “wonderful to relax, read or doze without hearing some child shouting ‘Mamma, Mamma’ six hundred times — and without men ogling you all the time. Men think they are indispensable, but they are not”.
Mr Ravaglia’s daughter, Francesca, 22, who runs the Pink Beach, said: “Life is still quite tough for women in Italy. Men give us no peace.” She said that at Riccione, “no one stares at you to see if you’ve got cellulite. You don’t have to tie yourself up in a beach sarong to disguise your imperfections. Men are so critical. We can’t all be Miss Italy”.
There is a beauty queen on the beach. Marta Magnani, the winner of the Miss Muretto pageant at Alassio in Liguria, offers beauty tips. The beach also offers lessons in deportment, keep-fit classes, manicures, pedicures, and cookery lessons from Roberta Brescia, the 30-year-old chef, who also prepares the “ladies’ lunches” at the beach cafe.
The fitness instructors are all women, as is the beach DJ. The only men tolerated are a hairdresser and the lifeguard. “You need a man to save women in the sea,” Mr Ravaglia said. “It’s a question of muscles”.
La Stampa said that the “beach harem” reflected a growing demand for female rights in Italy, a country that was still largely a bastion of male chauvinism. “My husband won’t even let me go dancing in the evening,” Mrs Donati said. “Sometimes you just want to meet other women and talk, gossip, exchange ideas. Here I am allowed to be myself.”
“This is an oasis of female apartheid,” said Alice Ghresta, 24, a surveyor. “They should put a eunuch at the entrance, like in a real harem.”
Mr Ravaglia said that as far as he was aware, the beach did not breach Italian laws on sexual discrimination.
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I like this idea - not because of the exclusion of men so much, but the opportunity to hang out, network and chill with other women. I love men - but the dynamics do change when in mixed company. At work I find if 6 women are together, the room and behaviour is different to 3 men and 3 women being in the same place. I know that is the same for men too. Sometimes it is nice to revert to being what we were before we were mothers, teachers, parents, partners, wives etc and to lavish and indulge ourselves in being what we are - women. I am sure that a lot of guys understand exactly what that means as a great many men enjoy a blokey night out with a bunch of guys and mates without their female partners.
Siobhan, Shefford, UK
Hey Sassy Scotland! They do have male beaches and clubs...they're called GAY beaches and GAY bars.
Tim, Los Angeles,
"You need a man to save women..it's a question of muscles?" what pre-baywatch decade is this guy living in? Newsflash: Lifeguards can be either male or female.
Jen, New York, NY, USA
Love it How do i find out more about Beaches and no guys allowed
Just relaxation
jana lillis, little elm , texas
Being from the Virgin Island, I can truely say, understand your Idea, but what you think make up the beaches, it surely not the water, and the sand, it's the woman and men on the beach.
Anthony James, Niedermittlau , Germany
I think that attitudes of people like J. Rhinehart of Spartanburg, USA are the real problem here: "I think there's a crime gene, & it's on the Y chromosome". Nothing but sexist, chauvinist drivel...
Peter, London, UK
During the early days of slavery in the U.S., the newly arrived captives, men from various parts of Africa, would be put under the control of a female slave who had already adapted to her life as a slave. This was done in order to psychologically crush the men, thus making them more fully adjusted to the new life that they would be leading as the less than fully human property of their American masters. The current global elite who run this planet as their own plantation must be delighted that modern women are all too eager to psychologically negate their own men. Too bad the process of psychological debasement is largely irreversible, and these men will be unavailable to help women in the future when life becomes much harsher than it is today. This story suggests that the wheel of history is about to complete a full revolution. We will return to a world dominated by the worst aspects of maleness in only a little while. Male ogling on the beach with seem like the good old days then.
Matthew Richardson, San Francisco, U.S.
Hampstead Heath has long had separate lakes for women and men to swim in as well as a mixed bathing lake. As a woman, it used to be wonderful to be able to swim and sunbathe in such a glorious outside setting without being pestered by some man. You did get some pathetic men lurking in bushes at the side of the lake, desperately trying to catch an illicit view of women. Somehow, I think women have far more sense than to try catching illicit views of the male only bathers.
Kate Winspur, Melbourne, Australia
Maybe they should use the beach to educate women on how to seek out GOOD men, how not to attract the wrong ones by flaunting their sexuality in our faces constantly, and how sex discrimination is sex discrimination. We all share the earth, it's a shame people are allowed to own property at all, but if it's a private beach then the owner can allow anyone he wishes. The problem is that if we're going to allow a person to only allow in women, maybe we should make a beach for men and allow only beautiful flirtatious women on it. Discrimination is discrimination. If they take issue with the men in their country they should push for laws and stiffer penalties for misconduct.
Ryan Swartzendruber, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States
I agree with Laureline Kouteli from Grenoble, France.
Men aren't indispensable and they aren't the only ones who commit crimes.
The Scribe, Batavia, Ohio
Beached wails.
Harold King, Sergeant Bluff, USA / Iowa
That's really sad. So Italian men cannot be tolerated, apart from the few who will look after your kids and educate tomorrow's women!
Who are we kidding there? Women, who just seem to find an open beauty parlour before their rejoin the judges of their fitness? Men, thus justified to maintain 'men only' clubs in bars, on golf courses, in their businesses? Or simply mankind, especially its Latino sub-species, incapable of altering its intractable enslaving to tradition?
Laureline Kouteli, Grenoble, France
Women only beach. What a wonderful idea.
Maybe it will teach Italian men that they're not only not indispensables, when they think they are, they become a nuisance. Or worse.
My grandmother used to say that men were evil. I thought she was wrong, but now I think crime statistics proved her out.
I think there's a crime gene, & it's on the Y chromosome.
J. Rhinehart, Spartanburg, usa
Much ado about nothing. In the Northeastern city of Trieste -- still in Italy -- a women-only beach has been thriving for the last 100 years. May be because over a not so high fence there's a men-only beach...
F S, Milan, Italy
Although I have no problem with this concept - indeed I think that it has has some merit - can you imagine the absolute outrage if the sex was reversed. Male only beaches (or clubs, cinemas, etc) would cause uproar!!!
Sassy, Scotland,
I believe that a beach onl for women will result to be very sad after a few days of enthusiasm. The same thimg would happen in case of a beach only for men. If the new generations believe in this I am glad to be of old generation (1930) so thato I could have a good time flirting with girls on the same beach.
Roberto Castellano, Salsomaggiore, Italy
Eugene, harassing and/or grabbing a woman's rear isn't being a "real man", you know.
Max, Paris,
What a lucky life-guard!!!!!!
A.Crawshay, London, England
Mmm whilst I can understand the reasons, I am somewhat surprised. How exactly does it not breach sexual descrimination laws ?
A very muslim idea indeed.
Victor Nadine, Manchester, England
Then they complain there's no real men left. I wish they'd make up their...uh....mind?
Eugene, Heidelberg, germany