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Exposing Prevailing Misogyny, Italy's Reaction to #MeToo is Lacking
In October 2017, several American actresses accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. It was not long before the hashtag #MeToo was tweeted as a response to this news story, and the hashtag became the name of a global movement. Anybody who identified as a person harassed by a man in a position of power could use the hashtag #MeToo. When Weinstein was fired from his company, it became clear that #MeToo was strong enough to make an impact. It was suddenly an undeniable fact that sexual harassment against women is a universal phenomenon. While some countries are learning from the #MeToo movement and are trying to hold harassers accountable, other countries do not feel the need to take any immediate action. Italy is one of them.
ITALY’S REACTION TO THE #METOO MOVEMENT
The First Italian #MeToo Story
Five days after the news broke about the Weinstein scandals, Italian actress and director Asia Argento was interviewed about her non-consensual sexual encounter with Weinstein. This was the first time an Italian woman spoke out about sexual abuse since the hashtag #MeToo started circulating around social media. In her interview, she described how, in 1997, she was under the impression she was going to a party at Weinstein's hotel. Argento met the movie's producer in the lobby, and he led her to a hotel room. Once they got there, the producer left Argento with Weinstein, who was wearing a bathrobe. Argento described how Weinstein then asked her to give him a massage, and when she reluctantly said yes, he performed oral sex against her will.
This event happened twenty years ago, but this was the first time Argento had publicly spoken about it. She said this was because she was afraid that Weinstein would "crush" her. "I know that he has crushed a lot of people before. That's why this story -- in my case, it's twenty years old, some of them are older -- has never come out," she stated.
While she was supported in the U.S. and many other countries around the world, many people in Argento's home country insulted her in the newspapers and on TV. Alessandro Sallusti, the editor of the conservative daily Il Giornale, said on Italian TV that Argento's accusations decades after the event make her an "accomplice." The editor of Italy's right-wing daily Libero, Vittorio Feltri, told a radio host that it was difficult for him to believe Argento, saying: "First, these women give it away. Then, twenty years later, they repent and denounce the alleged rapist. And if they gave it away in exchange for a part in a movie, that's a form of prostitution.”
Argento did not even receive support from some people who consider themselves feminists, including Natalia Aspesi, a journalist who said that the actress should not have been surprised by what happened considering she agreed to give Weinstein a massage.
Argento was devastated by the responses to her allegations in Italy. She stated: "I didn't expect to be vilified and called a prostitute and called the worst things in Italian newspapers… I did not expect any of it and it broke my heart.” She has since left Italy because after being "slut-shamed" in the media, she said that the atmosphere became too hostile to stay.
Impact of #QuellaVoltaChe
While Argento's story was disregarded by many people in the Italian media, there were still supporters of the #MeToo movement in the country, including many women's' rights activists. Writer Giulia Blasi is credited for starting hashtag #QuellaVoltaChe in Italy, which means #ThatTimeThat. Unlike #MeToo, which can act as a statement in itself for people who know its meaning, the Italian hashtag has a specific aim to encourage women to share their experiences of sexual harassment.
Number of Tweets Using #MeToo in the First Month According to Language
(From DataCamp.com, updated Nov. 14, 2017)
#QuellaVoltaChe has experienced far less impact compared to #MeToo and other countries' versions of the hashtag. As Italian journalist Simona Siri wrote in her Washington Post op-ed, #QuellaVoltaChe only generated 20,000 tweets the first week, which is low considering that #MeToo was used in over half a million tweets during that time. There was a lot of discussion online about the Italian hashtag, but then "it was buried among the topics no one really wants to address."
That being said, three high-profile men have been accused of sexual misconduct since October 2017: Giuseppe Tornatore, Fausto Brizzi and Carlo Tavecchio. Tornatore is an Oscar-winning movie director accused by actress Miriana Trevisan of groping her twenty years ago. Brizzi is also a successful movie filmmaker, and he has had ten women accuse him of molestation. Lastly, Tavecchio is the former head of Italian football accused of sexual harassment by a former executive of the federation. The accusation occurred a day after the man resigned from his job, after the victim (who wanted to remain anonymous) learned he planned to assume another position of responsibility in the sport.
Of the three men, only Brizzi has faced real consequences for his actions. Warner Bros. studio suspended all future work with him and pulled his name from his about-to-be-released movie poster. However, some Italian media coverage around this event has supported Brizzi. Author Francesca Marciano commented on NPR that instead of condemning the director, Brizzi's suspension turned the molester into a victim in the eyes of many Italians. "The press is not giving a voice to the women. It's just giving voice to the men and the men who defend the men and the women who defend the men," stated Marciano about these allegations against high-profile men that seem to lead nowhere. Since the allegations against Brizzi went public, no major figures in Italian business, media or politics have been publicly accused of sexual harassment.
Supporting #QuellaVoltaChe in 2018
While #MeToo is not as popular a movement in Italy as it is in other countries, it still has many supporters. In 2018, there have been two forms of protest used to raise awareness about sexual harassment. The first is a continuation of last year's global Women's March, with supporters marching in the piazzas of Rome, Florence and Milan on January 21. The central theme of the marches this year was #QuellaVoltaChe. In each city, organizers gave women a platform to share their experiences with sexual harassment.
At the Rome march, Argento spoke to a large crowd about the criticism she faced in Italy after she shared her Weinstein story. Loretta Bondi, Managing Board Member of the domestic violence shelter International Women's House, praised the #MeToo movement for highlighting the need for more spaces for victims of family violence, sexual abuse and human trafficking. The marches in Florence focused on Italians, Americans and other expatriates sharing stories of sexual abuse. In Milan, younger people were encouraged to share their stories.
In early February, 124 women from Italy's film community signed an open letter denouncing sexual harassment across workplaces entitled "Dissenso Comune," or Common Dissent. Shortly after, over 100 journalists published another open letter on the same topic. In the journalists' letter, they denounced "a cultural system which discriminates against, penalizes and abuses women" from unequal pay to sexual assault.
The open letters received backlash from Argento, who called them "watered down." The problem with the letter, she said, is that they do not name any specific perpetrators and instead only talked about the problem in broad terms. "I'm waiting for concrete gestures, the things we did first: helping each other, sharing the trauma, taking the streets," wrote Argento in her response to the open letters. "Then we can finally unite and really fight together.”
While large, mainstream efforts like the marches and the open letters are evidence that #MeToo is present in Italy, they still do not effectively achieve the ultimate goal of the movement: to prevent further harassment and hold the accused accountable. Along with these bigger forms of protest, there are smaller, grassroots feminist group efforts to spread awareness of the cause. For example, the group "Non Una di Meno," or "Not One Woman Less," campaigns against violence against women, organizing a smaller-scale protest in Rome in November. A more radical group called Cagne Sciolte, meaning Wild Bitches, wrote before the November women's' rights protests: "We will flood the public space to assert our rights, our practices of daily change, mutual support, and solidarity: the strength of thousands of women, trans and queer together who acknowledge one another in #MeToo, to transform it into #WeTogether."
The impact of the marches, the open letters, and the smaller feminist radical groups can’t be measured yet. Except for Brizzi, not a single high-profile man accused of sexual harassment has experienced any tangible consequences. Little change has occurred in the majority of the main Italian industries and most of the public ignores the presence of #QuellaVoltaChe.
WHAT GENDER INEQUALITY LOOKS LIKE IN ITALY
Prevailing Violence Against Women
The fact that #QuellaVoltaChe has not gained much traction is troubling in a country in which violence against women is not only prevalent but, in many cases, excused. According to national statistics agency Istat, nearly half of Italian adult women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their lifetimes. Sixty-nine percent of female university students report having experienced sexual harassment. Istat also described how over the course of their lifetime, 1.7 million Italian women said that they have been victims of sexual blackmail in order to be hired, promoted or to keep a job. The women had no one to turn to at work eighty percent of the time, and Istat reported that "almost no one" went to the police.
When reports of sexual harassment are made to the police, many examples have been reported of the authorities blaming or condescending to the victims. In Florence, defense lawyers for the police officers accused of raping two young American women asked them if they wore underwear that night. A court in Sicily cleared a man of any sexual harassment charges by stating that he probably groped his colleagues for humor's sake.
One of the signatories of the Dissenso Comune, director Laura Bispuri, said that "in Italy, a woman is murdered every three days (by partners or former partners). This is a fact, not an opinion… we are talking about a gigantic level of abuse of which molestation is one very serious aspect…" She credited #MeToo for bringing up this discussion but lamented that her country chooses to ignore the prevailing violence against women conveyed by the stories and the statistics.
Men and Women in Politics
Nearly one-third of the seats in the national Italian parliament are held by women. While this is around the average proportion of women in government around the world, it does not mean that issues pertaining to women are given as much attention. As Italy's highest-ranking female politician, Laura Boldrini has made a career of fighting for women's' rights in a country that, according to World Economic Forum, ranks 82 out of 144 countries on a gender equality index. She is the president of the Italian parliament's lower house, and has used her position to convince the parliament to ratify an international treaty requiring states to prevent domestic violence. However, her efforts are not appreciated by many Italian men and even women.
Boldrini has received multiple death threats online. When Boldrini wanted to put an end to the Miss Italia beauty pageant or exclaimed that she was tired of seeing housewives and the objectification of women in advertising, some in the mainstream press and even female voters told her to "stop attacking our culture."
According to women's' rights advocate and filmmaker Lorella Zanardo, "in Italy, there is a real difficulty in accepting the authoritativeness of women." She believes that many women do not like Boldrini because "she is a difficult model to follow because she reminds us of our own failings."
As if that was not enough, Boldrini has also faced harassment by other politicians. In 2016, Matteo Salvini of the Lega Party brought an inflatable sex doll on stage and called it Boldrini's doppelganger.
For this year's election, Boldrini campaigned for a parliamentary seat in Milan. Another person who has re-entered the arena of Italian politics this year is Silvio Berlusconi, a politician who was banned from running for office in 2013 because of a tax fraud scandal. At the time, he was also accused of having sex with an underage prostitute. While those charges have been acquitted, he is still due to stand trial for bribing witnesses to stay silent.
Zanardo and Siri claim that Berlusconi is a major reason Italy has not taken to the #MeToo movement. As the owner of several commercial TV networks, Zanardo said that he has "helped shape Italian society for three decades." His TV empire showcased women as desirable objects, dancing provocatively and never speaking. He also popularized "Bunga-Bunga parties," which are bacchanals with prostitutes and minors.
According to Siri, his "personal machismo signaled to Italian men that it's acceptable and normal to objectify and diminish women." More recently, Berlusconi called Angela Merkel "unfuckable" and suggested that a woman with a firm handshake should weaken it if she wants to find a husband. These are signs he has not changed, said Siri.
Unsurprisingly, when asked about his view of the #MeToo movement, he said that he agreed with one of the most outspoken critics of the movement, French actress Catherine Deneuve, who said that men should be free to "hit on" women. Although Deneuve later retracted her statement and apologized to victims, Berlusconi pointedly did not.
Many Italians who support #MeToo are against Berlusconi's political return, including Argento. The actress commented that she's "very worried. All I can do is... to remind Italians who is Berlusconi, what's he done to women, since this is very dear to me."
However, according to a survey by the pollsters Ipsos, Berlusconi's strongest support came from pensioners, housewives and the unemployed. Also, this survey indicated that he had more female supporters than male.
An Enduring Misogynistic Culture
Italy does not have as many women in positions of economic and political power as men. On the one hand, there are systems in place that make it difficult for women to break glass ceilings. On the other hand, there seems to be little encouragement for Italian women to enter male-dominated fields or to speak out against men when they are sexually harassed. As a result, a misogynistic culture endures.
"The idea of a women advancing her career by giving or selling her body -- it's taken for granted," Zanardo said about reactions to women accusing their male coworkers or bosses of harassment. "It's not shocking, because in the end, Italians think it's normal.” She added that Italians have double standards for women, which have roots in centuries of Catholic education that either women are good wives, or behave freely and therefore deserve harassment.
Boldrini added that Italian women fear the repercussions of speaking up about sexual assault because "they know that in this country, there is a strong prejudice against them." She has spoken out in favor of #MeToo, but then received thousands of social media threats in return.
There were five women in the national government under Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and none of them have spoken up about the #QuellaVoltaChe movement. To this, Zanardo stated: “You have to consider that in these last five years, we didn't have Berlusconi. We had Renzi who put a lot of women, young women, in the government. It's terrible to say, but these young female ministers didn't care about women's issues. We could have used those years to get stronger, but we didn't, and we are now weak.”
According to economist Elisabetta Addis, fewer than half of Italian women have jobs, meaning that, unlike other Western countries, Italian women tend to vote more like the men in their lives do. Women are far more dependent on men for resources in these cases and do not have the same opportunities to exchange ideas with other people.
Instead of focusing on pro-women policies like preventing sexual harassment in the future, many political parties such as the ones in Berlusconi's coalition are only discussing how to raise Italy’s birth rate. Some politicians are even skewing the idea behind #MeToo to fit their purpose. For example, anti-immigration politician Salvini said that women are increasingly at risk of being raped by migrants coming into Italy illegally. In an election that did not produce a clear outcome on March 4th, Salvini's party Lega was among the favorites to ultimately win a majority in Parliament.
"Italy shows that the consequences of having misogynists in power can be long-lasting and potentially devastating," wrote Siri about Berlusconi and the other men who stay in power and laugh off women's accusations of sexual harassment.
With the Italian election yielding unfavorable results for any progress toward passing pro-women policies, the #QuellaVoltaChe movement could either dwindle away, or grow in strength. The #MeToo movement is only six months old, and time will tell what the movement's long-term effects will be in Italy, a country not too eager to talk about it.