Anyone who has been following the continuing saga of Silvio Berlusconi, the
Italian Prime Minister, with its tales of Sicilian yachts, Roman villas,
call girls and construction contracts, might well conclude that Italy is the
land that feminism forgot. Surely only the most unreconstructed of
chauvinist societies would elect and tolerate such a man as its head of
state, a man who appears to treat women as commodities to be bought and sold
for the indulgence of his ego.
Here is a man who holds the second highest office in Italy (let us not forget
the Pope). He has won it three times now, and on each occasion there have
been serious questions about his performance. Yet he appears to have
interpreted the role of Prime Minister of the Republic of Italy as a cross
between that of a nightclub entrepreneur and a cabaret act (many of the most
amusing anecdotes about his parties include details of his singing and his
proclivity for make-up). Il Cavaliere, as he is known, is an
exaggerated, cartoon version of your standard Italian male stereotype: vain,
pompous, full of hot air, patronising and sexually insecure. He certainly
fancies himself as a big shot with the ladies, but all the evidence points
to the contrary.
In fact, many Italians see his philandering not as an expression of his
insatiable virility but, as one friend to whom I spoke at the weekend put
it, clear evidence of his sexual impotence. Poveretto,” she said. “He
can’t get it up any more, so he has to ship in carloads of hookers to make
him feel like a man again.”
Although my friend may be furious about his behaviour, underneath her
exasperation there is a weary acceptance. He is, after all, an Italian man.
What else do you expect?
Like many of his countrymen, Berlusconi genuinely believes himself to be
special and therefore invincible. It is a pattern that repeats itself all
over Italy. From a young age, it is clearly understood that men and boys are
uniquely favoured. But although they grow up believing themselves to be
supreme beings, the reality is not so straightforward.
A male child is still cause for great celebration in Italy and as children,
young boys are allowed to play while their sisters tidy the bedroom. They
subsequently grow into charming layabouts, frittering away their time on
street corners, in bars and restaurants, talking the big talk, showing off
to each other and whistling when a pretty girl walks by. What they don’t
concern themselves with is domestic drudgery; statistically, Italian men do
less housework than almost any other males in Europe — except for Latvians.
Like a Ferrari, the Italian male is bred for speed rather than for
efficiency.
And what about the role of Italian women? At its heart, Italy is one of the
West’s few remaining matriarchal societies, a country where women, far from
being the helpless, exploited victims of a sexually predatory male
supremacy, are at the core of everyday decision-making. From family-run
small businesses to international fashion empires, women in Italy are as
powerful and successful as they are elsewhere, if not more so. They just go
about it differently.
The quiet power-play is what feminism in Italy is really all about. It is not
feminism in the traditional sense of the word but it is, in its own way, a
triumph of the feminine.
Unlike Britain, which traditionally was a genuinely patriarchal society, Italy
has always been far more comfortable with the idea of the strong female. Not
necessarily in public, of course — but in private, boy, does she exist. In
small family firms it will often be the mothers and daughters who take the
big decisions while the sons drive the fast cars and swagger around in sharp
suits.
Behind every successful Italian businessman there is a wily mother, sister or
wife, controlling the accounts and keeping one eye constantly open for
trouble.
Think of these women, if you will, as lionesses: fiercely protective,
eminently capable, terrifying when provoked but, for some ancient reason,
quite happy to let their feckless males lie around in the sun all day long,
flicking their tails at the occasional passing antelope and generally
looking magnificent.
Ah yes, I hear you say, but what about the fact that so many Italian women
appear to dress like off-duty Playboy bunnies? Where is the
empowerment in a pair of crippling 6in heels? Again, cultural. I won’t deny
it: Italian chic is essentially strumpet chic. Look at Gina Lollobrigida, or
Sophia Loren, or Nancy Dell’Olio. All important, successful, powerful women,
all of whom have occasionally been known to dress as though they charge by
the hour. Odd? Not at all: that’s just what many Italian women are like (in
that respect it is so much easier living in Britain: you can wear flat shoes
to work). But I can assure you of one thing: they are not doing it for their
men. They are doing it for themselves.
Perhaps the greatest exponent of Italian-style feminism is Donatella Versace.
Not only is she an acclaimed businesswoman at the helm of a global design
empire, she also dresses in her own flamboyant manner. Stylistically, there
is very little difference between her and the women whose accusations
Berlusconi is so ardently denying. Yet there is nothing defenceless or
downtrodden about Versace. That is just what she happens to like wearing —
and why not?
So. Back to Berlusconi. A silly old man, overindulged by an entire nation of
similarly overindulged men and over-indulgent women. In a country where
politics is often a sinister, deadly business (see Paolo Sorrentino’s 2008
film Il Divo, about the mafia connections of one of Berlusconi’s
predecessors, Giulio Andreotti, in this respect), a few pathetic fumblings
may seem easy to overlook.
I suspect, however, that Italy will not let this one pass. For there is one
thing that Italians cannot abide. Already all the Italian newspapers are
talking about it, and it will become increasingly inescapable as the G8
summit in L’Aquila approaches next month: humiliation in the foreign media.
At least a Mafia scandal has a certain cinematic whiff to it; being caught
with your pants down in front of the world is just such brutta figura.
And that, in Italy, is a truly unforgivable sin.
So even with all Berlusconi’s power and wealth, the people who hold in their
hands the reins of this story, and therefore the future direction of his
political career, are women. The women — Patrizia D’Addario and Lucia
Rossini, to name but two — whom he tried so crassly to exploit.
Escorts-cum-models they may be, but they are not to be underestimated.
Whatever the truth of the business transactions that may have passed between
them, Berlusconi’s biggest error was to misjudge them.
He's a cabaret turn...
Lina Sotis Columnist for Corriere della Sera
The whole affair with Berlusconi and his “babes” would have been unthinkable
in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s but since then Italy has lost its grande
borghesia — its upper middle classes — who would never have allowed a
person like Berlusconi to become Prime Minister. If Italy still had a strong
middle class, Berlusconi would be nobody.
Berlusconi, through his ownership of the media and his manipulation of the
political system, bears some responsibility for the erosion of those
old-fashioned, proper values. The middle and lower classes in Italy have
considerable admiration for Berlusconi — they find him simpatico,
furbo (cunning, clever in a wideboy sort of way), figo (cool)
and he is often compared to Alberto Sordi (the popular Roman actor) who best
personified the vices of the Italians – their vulgar admiration for money,
wealth, excess, easy women and so on.
What do Italian women think of Berlusconi? You have to distinguish between orizontali
(“horizontal”) and verticali (“vertical”). Orizontali, by
far the majority, admire him and are amused by his antics because they dream
only of getting on television, having their pictures in the magazines and
getting jewels and clothes, etc. The verticali, those who work, care
for their families and are engaged with their lives in a conscious fashion,
regard him as a cabaret turn.
Lucia Annunciata, columnist for La Stampa
In my grandmother’s generation women didn’t go to the beach, and women of my
mother’s generation tended to stay at home. Even after the war Italy wasn’t
so different from a Muslim country in terms of gender relations. When I was
young, for example, women who had been raped would still be expected to
marry their rapists. The turning point came in the 1960s in a famous case
when a woman who was abducted and raped refused to marry her assailant.
Things may seem to have changed but there is still very little respect
accorded to women. They are under-represented in Parliament and in the
workplace, especially on the boards of firms.
Part of Berlucsoni’s genius is that he perfectly represents what Italians are
like underneath, whatever they may want to portray on the surface. He sums
up the hidden spirit of the country. Two days ago, for example, a prominent
male journalist said publicly at an awards ceremony that “Berlusconi
represents hope for all men that they will still be f***ing in their 70s”.
He is respected because he appeals to a part of the Italian soul. Although he
may shock the British and Americans, most Italians just think, “how cute!”.
Anyone who thinks they can make a joke of Berlusconi is wrong.
Many women don’t have the confidence to push themselves forward. There was
never the same appetite among Italian women as among American or British
women to forge equality in the workplace. The number of women who are
stay-at-home mothers in Italy is incredible. The State has not provided
adequate kindergartens, childcare facilities and so on.
I don’t think of Berlusconi’s behaviour as a moral issue. It is simply
inappropriate for a head of state. The former President of the Czech
Republic, Mirek Topolanik, for example, was photographed at Berlusconi’s
villa, naked and in a state of arousal, surrounded by topless women. It is
damaging for the country’s image. Berlusconi’s derogatory remarks and
behaviour towards women is just a small part of this and a lot of powerful
men do the same. But Berlusconi has made his own money and feels entitled to
behave as he pleases. Someone like Agnelli would never have behaved in this
way.
Natalia Aspesi Columnist for la Reppublica
Italy has been ruined by television — this sort of glamorous, frivolous world
— and Berlusconi is very much from that world. Italians are impressed by his
wealth and say ‘He’s so rich that he won’t steal’, but they don’t see that
it is his changes to the law that have made him rich. When they see him and
these girls, most men want to be like him.
Italy is facing an economic crisis and the first to pay are often women,
accused of taking jobs. This way of thinking makes women goods again. It’s
clear that to enter Parliament, to become a minister, to go to Europe, you
just have to be under 30 and very pretty and perhaps have gone to bed with
someone. There is a recession in the value of women that corresponds exactly
to the economic recession.
Television has many programmes now that are presented by men surrounded by
pretty, scantily dressed girls. They are known as “showgirls” or velline.
This all dates from when private TV channels arrived [controlled by
Berlusconi’s Mediaset].
No one in Italy cared that Noemi Letizia was only 15 [when Berlusconi met
her]. On the streets of Italy the most popular prostitutes are 14 and
15-year-olds.
Our country has changed extremely rapidly. We were not like this even ten
years ago. We were a normal country. There was a morality.
