WWOOF Italy: Italian Women

17 April 2011

I flew into Rome the weekend of the “Protest of the Women” against Berlusconi. It was a beautiful thing to see: thousands of women and supportive men standing up for women everywhere. The message: “Forget Politics, Berlusconi. This is personal. The image that you have given Italian women to the international community is shameful. We are tired of a government run by machismo: shown in the jobs available to us, the pay, the respect and the way men like you think you can treat us. We work hard to get ahead, and we are offended to see you choose a woman for sex and then put her, unqualified as she is, in a high position as a personal favor. We work hard: let us earn our spots not because of our bodies but because of our brains.” (This is my summarized version of what I saw. )

Machismo pervades this culture. Berlusconi perpetuates it, but we certainly cannot blame him for starting it. That acknowledged, in something like 17 years in power, his influence certainly can be blamed for allowing it to thrive.

On all talk show-like programs, there is a slender woman, very made-up, dressed in a cocktail dress, tall, blonde and beautiful. In sum, not very not-Italian looking. She usually has scripts or comes on for the beginning or end, not trusted to make any off the cuff comments or speak candidly. Italian publicities have the same above described woman, doing very “womanly” things (based on Italian womanly of forty years ago): grocery shopping, cleaning or being beautiful.

The plastic surgery that I see in this country is HIGH. Berlusconi—the bionic man—is one example, but most obvious examples are women with giant, unexpressive lips sitting atop a wrinkly neck, sitting atop a Dolce & Gabana/Gucci/Versace poorly matched outfit. Classic.

Fabio, while talking about the difficulties of this life being a farmer and remaining in the country on a farm where you will make little money, said how difficult it is to find women for a lot of men like him. In fact, I’ve met several single Italian small-scale farmers, some of them older and never married. Side note: the first farm where I stayed, Angelo’s 28 year old godson had left his old life, moved in two years ago and was learning and preparing to build his own life on the land. Knowing that women-—especially decent ones-—would be few and far between in his future, he all but proposed to me to keep me for his country wife.

Fabio continued to explain, “It is difficult for someone to find a woman here who wants to stay in the country...they want to be in the city. All (puts his hands up in cutesy way) want to be “top model” (not translated). "Ma che ci fa' con un Top Model?!" (“what the hell do you do with a top model?!” is a decent translation, but you must picture it in Italian with all appropriate Italian animation, intonation and hand movements at their liveliest). *

I told him, in efforts to be a little easier on Italian women, that he needs to respect that his culture is much harder on women than it is on men. Advertisements are all directed at women, and public opinion expects much more of a woman. Women are expected to be beautiful and it is their fault if they are not; men come as they are. Intelligence is secondary, sometimes ignored, and sometimes not even wanted. Thus, for all women the need to be beautiful must have a strong presence.

Being a woman in a culture like this (expanding beyond Italy to most Western culture also included) is horrifying. How do you stand up against it? Even I see a woman in television and I assess her appearance; I do not do so with men (is she attractive/isn’t she; is she wearing the right amount of makeup; is she a suitable weight...I never do that with men, assessing sex appeal notwithstanding).


*Later I found out that Fabio's daughter made it to one of the final selection rounds in a Miss Italia competition. I laughed for five minutes straight—a Miss Italia competition represents everything that this man is against. I feel terrible for him; his family has not followed his lead. Nonetheless, the idea of them interviewing him about his daughter, long messy hair, flannel shirt, dirt caked on his hands, made my heart swell with happiness, at the expense of Miss Italia’s TV crew.