Italia Viva attacks Tajani: a 19th-century view of women. The PD: a distillation of the worst stereotypes

Italia Viva and the PD have launched an attack on the Foreign Minister and Secretary of Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani. According to Italia Viva leader Matteo Renzi, ‘Tajani’s comments on today’s young women paint a picture of women from the 19th century. The Foreign Minister should concern himself with the burqas worn by Afghan women, not the miniskirts worn by Italian girls. And to think that Forza Italia was once Silvio Berlusconi’s party.” Renzi is referring to remarks made by the Foreign Minister in Formello during the ‘Itaca’ event.

And, Renzi adds, ‘He’s taken us back a century; Silvio Berlusconi must be turning in his grave. I hope that Forza Italia has the courage to remove Berlusconi’s name from its emblem, given what they’re saying. And that Giorgia Meloni has the courage to remove Antonio Tajani from the Farnesina.’

Raffaella Paita, the leader of the Italia Viva group in the Senate, also goes on the offensive: ‘Tajani never ceases to amaze, treating us to pearls of wisdom. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, it’s best not to marry an attractive young woman. A remark straight out of the 1950s, worthy of the worst kind of Vannaccian Mediterranean patriarchy. It brings to mind the proverb quoted in Monicelli’s masterpiece *I Soliti ignoti*: ‘Take a fiery woman as your mistress, take a cook as your wife’. Who knows what Marina Berlusconi thinks of these embarrassing and reactionary remarks by the national coordinator of Forza Italia – and, along with her, all her female colleagues in this political party.’

The statement issued by Paita refers to remarks made by Deputy Prime Minister Tajani from the stage at ‘Itaca’: ‘According to our Foreign Minister, if you are beautiful you are unfaithful, whereas if you are not, you are trustworthy. In light of the political commitment to tackling femicide, these words are shocking – the senator states – because we are telling women that they cannot trust our work as politicians. Tajani must apologise.”

Senator Valeria Valente of the Democratic Party (PD) said: ‘A collection of stereotypes about women and a view of women as angels of the hearth, faithfully waiting for their husbands at home with their children, wearing long skirts. Tajani’s remarks are simply shameful, unworthy of a minister of the Italian Republic.”