(Photo: Cristian Iotti, Simona Galassi. Campionessa del Mondo WBC pesi Mosca femminili, 47,55 x 31,7 cm. www.cristianiotti.com)

As time goes by in Italy we see more and more systematic attacks on the victories won by feminism. Women are rescaled to remind them that their "natural" place is next to a man, silent and aware of masculine superiority.
By Michela Marzano (Paris Descartes University)

When, in October 2009, I decided to launch, along with Nadia Urbinati and Barbara Spinelli, an appeal in the Italian newspaper Repubblica for the restoration of dignity to women, it was not merely in order to give a voice to the protests against prime-minister Silvio Berlusconi’s comment to Rosy Bindi (the president of the opposing Partito Democratico): “You are more beautiful than you are intelligent”. We also, and above all, wanted to react in opposition to the droplet that caused the glass full of insults to women to finally overflow. Our aim was certainly not to “speak in place of Italian women”, as some have alleged, as they refused to sign the appeal. We reacted as women, mindful of the famous slogan from 1975: “Né difese, né offese, né protette, né adoperate” (Neither defended nor offended, protected or manipulated). We reacted to “defend ourselves” on our own, without seeking anyone’s protection, without wanting to use anyone else… We reacted because we were “indignant”.

For too long, Italy has stood by impotent and impassive, watching women being humiliated. Women, reduced to being seen as just youthful, seductive bodies, always have greater trouble becoming something other than mere bodies: “The qualities considered useful for publicity shows are transferred into essential political skills, leading to indecent confusion about gender: obedience and attractiveness become indispensable training for those who wish to stand for posts with the most responsibility” we wrote in our appeal. “These become like a burqa thrown over women’s bodies to humiliate them on television and transform them into weapons that harm both men and women alike.” As time goes by in Italy we see more and more systematic attacks on the victories won by feminism. Whether this is in terms of the media’s degrading representation of woman or the sexist language used in politics, the result is always the same: women are rescaled to remind them that their “natural” place is next to a man, silent and aware of masculine superiority. Deep down, the systems of politics and television are perfectly interwoven to reflect a very specific idea of gender roles. Speech is reserved for men. Women should be content to be beautiful and silent. Of course, this is not to say that I consider the image of women created by the media in other European countries to be always respectful and dignified. All over the world, advertising makes use of women’s bodies to sell all sorts of products. Almost everywhere, the worlds of television and fashion take advantage of eccentric and provocative images of women’s bodies. And we don’t even need to mention modern pornography, a topic I have already written much on…

What I want to say is that, in other Western countries, in contrast with the situation in Italy, women are not only this; they are not just beautiful silent dolls who allow men to show off their superiority. The bimbos registered on electoral lists to project a false image of freshness; the show girls ridiculed on television as soon as they open their mouths whenever, rarely, they do so; the “glamour models” who are paid an attendance fee to appear as decoration at business dinners: all of these just represent an “unpleasant and humiliating aspect” of our country. They are symptomatic of how women are viewed in Italy today. From time to time someone, realising this, is ashamed and feigns protest. Yet instead of really devoting themselves to this and working to make things change, most of the time they turn elsewhere, disgusted or indifferent, without noticing that the ambitions and aspirations of Italian women are steadily disappearing. There are some exceptions to this rule: brilliant young women who manage to break into the fields of science or sport, or into the world of business and management. But even in the twentieth century, long before the social revolution in the Sixties and Seventies, there were already some women that were also able to escape anonymity in this way.

Unfortunately, as we all know, one swallow does not make a summer. And when we look around and analyse what is happening in other European countries, Italy cannot but cut a poor figure: it is the very epitome of a return to the atavistic chauvinism of the Mediterranean nations. It is both amazing and discouraging when you realise that the only females valued in Italy today are the young women obsessed with their own body image and at the service of male seduction. That is not to say that women should not take care of their bodies. It is through our bodies that we all express our individuality. But because, when the body is no more than an object for seduction, women lose the opportunity to express themselves away from male eyes. All the more so as, though in advertising the use of women’s bodies has a purely commercial purpose, in television entertainment shows, reducing women to ornaments serves to fuel the fires of gender stereotypes, for use and consumption by a male audience. In such a contest, the language of politics – which is not just used by Silvio Berlusconi, but by the overwhelming majority of male politicians – only serves to reinforce masculine domination. It is rare to find a politician who, during a rally or television appearance, does not make use of sexual metaphors.

Certain remarks, which we had hoped belonged to a former era, cause widespread hilarity. Sometimes women themselves laugh and take part, more or less consciously, in the perpetuation of atavistic forms of chauvinism. Can you really smile when Umberto Bossi, a cabinet minister, turned to Berlusconi during a rally and exclaimed cheekily: “Silvio, didn’t I say we were getting a hard on, and that’s why there are so many women here today?”? Can you really chuckle along when you know that, in the middle of an election campaign, upon meeting a woman who told him what she thought of him, Berlusconi replied: “What would you say after spending a night of passion with me?” And when our premier advised a young temporary worker to find a rich husband? In the summer of 2009, Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica Lario’s declaration (that Berlosconi consorted with young ladies) opened a Pandora’s box, showing that her husband’s remarks were just the tip of the iceberg of a fundamentally patriarchal system that exploits women and, in promoting their personal successes and achievements, reduces them to simple pawns to be placed on the chessboard of power at the whim of men. A few weeks before the European elections, Sofia Ventura took the opportunity to firmly denounce the phenomenon of “bimboism”: “Women are not playthings to be used as decoys, nor are they fragile creatures in need of protection and nurturing by generous, paternal overlords; women are, quite simply, people.” But it is Veronica Lario’s revelations and, then later, the scandal over the escort girls at Palazzo Grazioli and Villa Certosa (Berlusconi’s Rome residence and summer house, respectively) that forced Italy to face up to the reality of the situation of women there. The sad rituals of dinners, balls, jokes and “glamour models” in black dresses and light make-up, whose faces are so similar that they all begin to blur together, have become symbols of a world in which women are no more than featureless copies of each other. These instances are not just, as some have implied, isolated anecdotes of events or idle gossip. Quite the contrary: these are the clear consequences of a politico-cultural system that assigns women a totally subordinate role. This is why we must highlight the political aspects of the scandal. There are moments when, as a famous slogan from the Seventies said: “What is private must be made public”!

Every liberal democracy is founded on the necessary separation of the public and private spheres to allow people to preserve their individual freedoms. Yet, once someone’s private life is placed on the public stage for years to be employed as a key argument in favour of their own credibility and political success, then it is hopeless for them to put a spin on the situation and defend themselves by claiming that their private life should hold no interest for the Italian people. They cannot use their own virility as a selling point during electoral campaigns and then want to hide their sex life as soon as they realise that it does not correspond exactly with what people expect. Especially as the way in which they talk about women is then paralleled in the way they treat them… But then we must ask why so many women are still mute? The “Rosy Bindi” affair provides us with at least a partial explanation. Faced with a woman who has presented her own ideas with courage for years and has not been intimidated by scornful attacks from male politicians, the reaction has been extremely virulent: “You are more beautiful than you are intelligent” Silvio Berlusconi told her during a live broadcast of the Italian talk show Porta a Porta. His words did, nonetheless, have the desired effect, at least to begin with, because Rosy Bindi paused for a few seconds before reacting, frozen in the face of a sentence that did not merely say something, but “acted” as well. Because “words are stones”, as Carlo Levi wrote in Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli (Christ stopped at Eboli). Because words “do” – they have a performative power – especially when their aim is to insult. Rosy Bindi, unfortunately, is used to this kind of treatment. She has spent years training at the school of humiliation. And maybe this is why, after several seconds of astonished silence, she responded with a counterattack: “I am not one of the women at your disposal, Prime Minister”. How many people (both men and women) would be capable of reacting like her? How many would have had the strength to move onto a counterattack without bursting into tears, because such words are like a slap across the face?

The subject of insults, so-called “hate speech”, is complex. This phenomenon has been analysed by certain American feminists who, by deconstructing the mechanisms of male domination, have put their finger on the vicious cycle of hate speech which assigns a clearly determined role to women that they can never shake off. All those women who dare to open their mouths to demand equality and their civil rights are not taken seriously: their demands are immediately discredited and, rather than using reasoned arguments against them, it is the subtle weapon of insults that silences them. A woman who asks for respect is always labelled “hysterical”, a “frustrated woman”. The same technique is by those in power when, unsure of their position, they try to stifle the demands of minorities (immigrants, homosexuals, etc.). When women are shouted at and told they are “whores”, or homosexuals “queens” or coloured people “dirty blacks”, it happens because the person in question cannot respond. What counts is not the argument used – when it comes to insults there is no argument, no thought, no rationalisation. The aims are always the same: hurt others so they shut up. And, in general, that is exactly the result you get: silence. Because women, homosexuals and foreigners, faced with so much violence, get upset. So they shut up. They hide. They learn to internalise the negative images of themselves that are thrown at them. At least up to the point where they can no longer take a critical step back and separate the violence of the insults from their objective content, thereby forcing their adversary into a rational discussion. Which is not easy, especially when on television and the set is being flooded with invectives. I do not want to justify women’s muteness by saying this. Remaining silent or, worse still, laughing at the jokes made by a premier who tries to quieten a member of the opposition by calling her “more beautiful than she is intelligent”, means becoming complicit in a well-developed system that knows how to permanently gag women. What I want to say is that it is extremely hard to turn the other cheek to these insults and publicly speak out, in spite of everything, in defence of your own dignity. I will never forget how, a few days after launching our appeal for the restoration of women’s dignity, my inbox was full of insulting comments. “Marzano – choosing one of the least vulgar – do me a favour: stop writing.

No one in Italy shares your opinions.” Similarly, I remember doing a pathetic interview with an Italian radio station, whose name I prefer not to mention, during which I was never allowed to reply to the interviewer: he would interrupt me before I had even had the chance to finish a sentence with a subject, verb and object! Yet this should not make us bow our heads and surrender. When a man offends us, we have an inescapable duty to reply to him. Our dignity is at stake!