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Article by Manuela Lino
Translation by Danielle Moody

In March 2000, in Lisbon, the European Council established a set of goals related to the economic progress of European Union member states, which were collectively named “The Lisbon Strategy.” One of the primary aims of the programme was to achieve equality between men and women in the workplace: member states committed to raising the rate of female employment to 60% (therefore equalling that of male employment) over the course of ten years. Although the relevant data were still a cause for concern 5 years later, in 2007 it looked, for a moment, as though the increasing rate of employment allowed for hope that the intended results would be achieved. Yet, the onset of the economic crisis, which is weakening many global economies, leaves little room for optimism: in the first instance the construction sector, which relies on a predominantly male work force, was the hardest hit. The crisis has now, however, spread to all other sectors causing a drop in employment levels in female dominated fields as well. In the end, the results anticipated in 2000 have not come to pass, and now the fear is that the global economic crisis could justify a general step backwards in the field of equal opportunities. 

Meanwhile, in Italy, the President of the Council of Ministers has been involved in a scandal, which is seemingly unrelated to equal opportunities and gender differences. It is however necessary to look more closely, beyond the obvious moral and legal concerns related to suspected use of child prostitution and extortion. What emerges is a squalid and grotesque picture of how the role of women and the female body are generally perceived.  Upon listening to intercepted conversations between the young women who are at the heart of the enquiry, it seems that the only prospect of economic or social progress is linked to the exploitation of their bodies, to minimal intelligence and misunderstandings that belong in a comedy, where women are represented by sly servant girls who prowl around rich, old masters. An image of a giggly harem materializes and it becomes difficult to establish who is more pathetic: the President with his absurd and trivial x-rated requests (nurse or policewoman?), or “his” women, who in exchange for a wad of cash, lend themselves to shows of squalor that verge on macabre. 

The most worrying aspect is, however, the response from women within the institutions. Namely, the ministers of Education, of Equal Opportunities, and  of Youth Policy, who have failed to dissociate themselves from the Prime Minister’s statements, and as such continue to defend him wholeheartedly. They defend him even though he has claimed that the prospect of paying for sexual services is “degrading for him”; even though he has manifestly lied about his knowledge that the girl at the centre of the scandal was a minor, making his offence even more serious; even though he has been reproached on many other occasions for his ostentatious machismo, and for his distorted, patriarchal and chauvinist image of the female body. 

This is not a country for women: one where the sole career prospect lies in degrading and immoral compromises; where emancipation is a pipe-dream, substituted in reality by the possibility of exploiting your body in order to progress; and where the best case scenario is to hold the most powerful man in the country in check. Is this the kind of power we have spent half a century fighting for? 

And so, we must not resign ourselves to such decline, because it only appears to be unstoppable: we need to resist, to object, to dissociate ourselves and demonstrate our disapproval. That is what Italian women are doing. They are organising protests and sit-ins in every Italian square, with the motto “If not now, when?” That is also what judge Boccassini is doing. She is pursuing her investigation of the President of the Council despite numerous attacks by the government and several newspapers, who as well as undermining her work, are trying in every way to tarnish her name. It is a gruelling fight and by some accounts it is a lost cause, but it should be pursued, men and women together, so that it can no longer be said that Italy is not a country for women.