By Miren Gutierrez* and Oriana Boselli
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ROME, Sep 22 (IPS) – Four ministers out of 21; 193 parliamentarians out of 952 (upper and lower houses); no party leaders. Why are there so few women in Italian politics?“The feminist movement in Italy has been strong… But in order for women to participate in politics as women, politics itself should change,” says Luisa Capelli from L’Italia dei valori party (The Italy of Values). “Italian feminism has influenced party politics, especially those from the left. But it has been marginalised to the point that if you identify yourself as a feminist, you are looked upon with distrust.”
Capelli, who is also the head of Meltemi Editore, a social sciences publishing house, has thought a great deal about the weak political presence of female politicians in Italy.
“There have been years of exposing women’s bodies, of daily belittling women’s talents,” she tells IPS in an interview. And this is the result of the systematic vilification of women on television. “At least two of our (female) ministers have been chosen because their presence sexually pleases prime minister (Silvio Berlusconi)… Why should we be shocked? When two years ago a female student asked him for advice about her future, he suggested that she marry a rich man.”
Chiara Volpato, professor of social psychology at the Milano-Bicocca University, sees “historic factors” in the current impasse.
“The democratic development of Italy was interrupted by 20 years of fascism,” she says. “The regime’s machismo was translated into laws that reduced women’s rights even further. For example, women were forbidden to teach philosophy and history, considered the highest studies.”
In spite of it, women had a key role in the fight against fascism, and created for themselves social and political spaces like the right to vote in 1946 and the divorce, abortion and family planning laws in the sixties and seventies. “But this thrust vanished in the following years, while the lack of ideas and initiatives has been replaced by the commercial Berlusconian TV,” she says.








