A woman could not handle being a mother and mayor of Rome, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday, drawing sharp criticism from across the political spectrum in a nation where many complain of rampant sexism.
“It is clear to everyone that a mother cannot devote herself to a job and this would be a terrible job, because Rome is in such a terrible state,” the billionaire said on state radio RAI.
The 79-year-old leader of the Forza Italia party also defended his choice of Rome mayoral candidate, Guido Bertolaso, who was quoted this week as saying that a pregnant potential rival, Giorgia Meloni, should focus on being a mother.
Parties of all stripes are tearing themselves apart over municipal elections slated for June, and the new mayor will have a particularly tough job in Rome, where years of alleged corruption have been laid bare in a mafia trial.
Meloni, who leads the Brothers of Italy party, has not yet decided whether to run, but if she does, that would split the center-right vote in the capital.
On Sunday, the Five Star Movement party’s candidate for mayor of Milan dropped out of the race, saying she had been shaken by criticism of her looks and weight.
“When will they ask a male candidate to withdraw because he is not telegenic, or because he needs to be a father?” Italian Minister of Constitutional Reforms and Relations with Parliament Maria Elena Boschi said on Twitter.
Democratic Party Deputy Titti di Salvo said: “This is pure patriarchal machismo, deciding what place a woman should occupy. Harping on this matter shows we are still in the Middle Ages culturally.”
Gender inequality is writ large in Italy’s employment data, which shows that less than half of working-age women have a job, 18 percentage points below their male counterparts.
The female employment rate was the second-lowest in the EU in 2014 after that of Greece, according to Eurostat.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has trumpeted gender equality within his government, but political watchdog Openpolis says only 14 percent of Italy’s mayors are women, while no city with more than 300,000 inhabitants has a female mayor.
“This is not a country for women,” Italian Minister of Health and mother of twins Beatrice Lorenzin said on Monday.
“What is going on at the moment is incredible, it reveals a fundamental misogyny,” Lorenzin said.
However, an opinion poll published on Tuesday suggested that Five Star Movement’s female candidate to take charge of corruption-riddled Rome, Virginia Raggi, was leading the field of contenders.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia