A BOCCACCIO BOTCH UP

Giovanni Boccaccio by Morghen
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This is quite a year for anniversaries and although much has been made of the Verdi bicentenary outside Italy, there has been less coverage of the 700th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Boccaccio. There is still time, for although we know the year, 1313, no one knows the exact date of the writer's birth. The people of Certaldo believe it happened in their town and it was certainly there that Boccaccio died on 21st December 1375.

Celebrations of Boccaccio's life and work are taking place now in Tuscany and will continue until the end of this year. It was all going splendidly until, in September, some advertising posters which appeared in Certaldo, Florence and other Tuscan towns caused a storm, for they featured four young women striking suggestive poses in minimalist underwear. The result was rather more suggestive than if they had been wearing nothing at all. Anyone who has read the Decameron knows that it is not without a degree of bawdiness but the posters did not look to me as if they were trying to convey this. 

The Equal Opportunities Commission of the Province of Florence complained, saying that the posters were offensive to women and delegates to the women's conference of the Federazione Empolese Valdelse said that the Boccaccio septcentenary was not taking place in order to launch an underwear range but to celebrate the culture of a region.  The president of the cultural association which had overseen the production of the posters responded that they were not advertising posters but were urban art.  Hmmm - nice one, but it didn't work, for then the Quirinale, the President's office, got involved and the Prefect of Florence received a cordial but firm note offering town administrators the choice of removing the posters or removing the presidential seal of approval from the whole Boccaccio project. The Prefect promptly issued an "invitation" to the Mayor of Certaldo to supervise the removal of the posters, which was done.

Photos of the posters can be found online but I don't want to feature one on my blog, for the reasons given by the women's organisations mentioned above. This is another case of Italy shooting itself in the foot but this is a country where "Miss Italia" is prime-time viewing so I give up.

Incidentally, my favourite Decameron story is the tale of Madonna Oretta and my least favourite is the last, the tale of Patient Griselda [whom I had first encountered in Chaucer, where she also drove me mad]. If ever a woman was in need of a homily from the sisterhood, it was she.

To be fair, the Boccaccio celebrations include some fine initiatives. You can find out more about them here. 

SHITS AND ANGELS OF 2012

At this time of year, I've decided, it should not be only HM The Queen who hands out the honours, so here are mine:

1.  Let's start with my "ingredient of the year", which has to be the noble pomegranate.  My recipe of the year is this one.

2.  Still in the kitchen, let's move on to my "gadget of the year".  I have arthritis in my hands and, whilst there is my trusty processor for chopping, peeling had become difficult.  Then one day, in Catania, I found this American palm-held peeler. I cannot thank the makers, Chef'n, enough!

3.  My book of the year is kitchen-realated, too.  In the centenary year of the subject's birth, it is Dearie - The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz.  I'm intrigued by the relationship between Julia and her husband and the meticulous way in which this lady researched her recipes is a lesson for all cooks and aspiring cookery writers.  The book also offers a fascinating insight into American culinary mores of the time and the birth of the chef superstar.

4.  From the kitchen to the bathroom, for I've already awarded my "Italian logic prize 2012" here.  If I hadn't, the organisers of the following fiasco would provide stiff competition:  in Italy, most successful job candidates are selected by complicated competitions on a "points" system rather than by pre-selection by CV and then an interview.  Recently I heard of a situation where two candidates had equal points but one was wanted by the company more than the other. At this point it was decided to exclude both these candidates, on the grounds that they had more experience than the others, to "make it fair".  This again proves my point that Italy is a democracy that is a long way from being a meritocracy and therein lie many of its troubles.

5.  The "non-feminist of the year" award goes to the former Mrs Berlusconi, Veronica Lario. Her ex may well have deserved being taken to the cleaner's but let's stop hailing the lady as a feminist heroine, shall we? There is no doubt that Miss Lario is beautiful and I'm sure she is very talented.  However, independent women, by definition, do not live off men!

6.  Now the shits:  I've had many bad days in my life but the worst two were those on which my parents died, twenty and forty years ago respectively in 2013. Time helps you accept these things, as you must in order to go on living, but the pain never really goes away.  In 2012, someone I'd trusted chose the eve of the anniversary of one those days to do something spiteful, premeditated and awful to me. After I'd cried a bit, though, I was able to say, "I've known a worse day than this" and pull myself together. Therefore, in retrospect I would like to thank the person for the timing; it helped me to establish what's important and what isn't.

7.  The angels are the friends who listened, lent their shoulders, fed me comforting soup and enabled me to start again. I include my precious dog Simi among them, for although she has difficulty preparing the soup, she continues to give me all the love in the world, every day.

8.  My "shit number two" [so to speak] award goes to all who profit from the misery of others and especially the ratings agencies that do so much to cause it.

9.  Finally, my "Carry On Up the Tiber" award goes to Italian politicians, who cannot even give the bickering a rest over Christmas.  Ever heard of "peace and goodwill", guys?

Image:  Wikipedia

AUGURI, BUON ANNO AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Frank Sinatra - Pick Yourself Up

FESTA DELLA DONNA 2012

Following last week's St David's Day bash, I had no energy left to make sweet goodies to celebrate International Women's Day so I got some squisiti biscuits, told my students about the Suffragettes and decided that the S shape could represent those brave ladies today:

A friend gave me these mimosa blossoms, as is traditional for the Festa della Donna:

Why do Italians celebrate International Women's Day with mimosa blossom?  It was the idea of the partisan, politician and women's rights campaigner Teresa Mattei, who suggested mimosa as a symbol of the day in 1946 for the simple reason that the flowers are in season at the beginning of March and could be obtained at little or no cost.  Thus the pretty blossoms continue to brighten the lives of women all over Italy on this day.

Teresa Mattei

A SIGN OF THE TIMES

This notice in a shop window is telling me that, if I buy a certain type of bra, I will not need to resort to plastic surgery to make my bust look a size bigger, the bust being the only part of a woman's body where she is allowed or encouraged to gain weight. Feminism, come back - we need you!

GOING POTTY

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What a day Thursday was for those whacky news stories that can only, it seems, happen in Italy.  For those of you who may have missed them, I'll summarise them here:

The first giggle was over the tale of a somewhat optimistic Viterbo [Lazio] police officer who was arrested by his own colleagues for growing no less than 17 cannabis plants in his barracks.  [The carabinieri are military in Italy.]  Maybe he had been relying on a law, passed by the Italian Supreme Court in June, under which we are each allowed to grow one cannabis plant, for personal use, on our own balcony or terrace.  I don't suppose even a barracks has 17 balconies and one has to admit that the unfortunate officer was - well, pushing it.

Basilica di San Salvatore al Monte, Firenze
Image:  Wikimedia Commons

No sooner had I stopped laughing at that than news came through of a group of monks in Florence who, having had two precious Bibles stolen from their Basilica, were praying for the thief to be punished ..... by an attack of diarrhea.  I wonder how long he'll stay on the run?

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More seriously a survey of the five largest EU countries reported yesterday that Italian housewives are the most unhappy in Europe:  the economic downturn has worsened their situation and it is harder than ever for them to find adequate child care - assuming, that is, that they can find employment in the first place. In addition, 95% of Italian men have never so much as emptied a washing machine - we do not know whether they have ever loaded one but the odds are not brilliant - 70% have never used an oven and most do not help at all in the house or with bringing up children.  Half of the women interviewed said they regretted getting married and most, sadly, regretted having had children.  The antics of the Prime Minister, who is deemed to be setting a bad example to a generation of men who hardly need his encouragement,  were the last straw for many of the women.

Ruth Orkin: An American Girl in Italy - 1951

Then, late last night, came a surprising and delightful item of news:  Ninalee Craig,  the American Girl in Italy of the famous and iconic Ruth Orkin photograph at last spoke publically about the circumstances in which the picture was taken and how she felt about it.  It seems I was wrong when I wrote about the photograph here, which just goes to show what can happen when you judge one era from the viewpoint of another, but I am pleased to know that Ninalee was happy on that long-ago day and it was nice to end the evening on a positive note.

A FEMINIST TRIUMPH - WELL, SORT OF

A Sicilian Miss Italia:  Francesca Chillemi in 2003.

The fact that this year's Miss Italia contest is going to be open to women who are a size 44 - British size 12 or US size 10 - is being hailed here as a triumph for all women if not exactly a feminist victory.  The newspapers are full of articles extolling the more curvaceous woman and we are being reassured that men prefer us that way. 

Well, I have a few questions:  since when has a size 12 woman been particularly curvaceous and men, why didn't you tell us before -  vociferously?!  Ever since the sixties, women have been trying to look like stick insects but now it's OK to look - I hardly dare utter the word - healthy? Will someone tell the fashion industry - please?

Does this mean that Liz Hurley will have to stop making ridiculous statements like,"I'd kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe" and are the organisers of Miss Italia about to confer upon that most glamorous Italian lady of them all, Sophia Loren, the title that should rightly have been hers back in 1950?

The Miss Italia organisers pride themselves on innovation, having waived the requirement for contestants to give their measurements on the entry forms back in 1990, allowing married women and women who were mothers to enter from 1994 and awarding the title to a woman of colour in 1996.  Last year there was the scandal, or non-scandal,  of the transsexual contestant and from this year women under the age of eighteen will not be allowed to enter.

I suppose we must be grateful for small mercies but I for one look forward to a day when women are judged on their achievements and on their inner, rather than ephemeral, beauty.

Sophia Loren shows contestants how to do elegance at the 2010 Miss Italia contest.

ITALY: AN OUTSIDER'S VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE STATE

In a week when Italy's Premier has made what is being seen as yet another outrageous gaffe and is generally being depicted abroad as a buffoon, I think it is time for me to add my two-centesimi worth to the debate.  For anyone who has not read of the latest scandal, the background is here but to cut a long story short, the Prime Minister of Italy is being accused of inappropriately helping a minor to evade police charges of theft and illegal entry into Italy. Erotic parties are said to have regularly  taken place at Mr Berlusconi's Milan residence and the girl, who denies having had sex with the Premier, says that he gave her money and gifts.  Yesterday Mr Berlusconi shocked progressive Italians and caused indignation around the world when he said that it is better to like beautiful women than to be gay.

The remark, in my opinion, was not a gaffe but a carefully orchestrated appeal to the Berlusconi heartland of sexually conventional Italy.  Everywhere an Italian looks, it seems, there are sex scandals but at least the Prime Minister is attracted to the right gender, goes the logic.   So when smiling Silvio shrugs his shoulders and conveys the message, "Look at me - I'm a regular guy", he reassures middle Italy whilst also appealing to a very Italian instinct - the instinct for joy.  After all, the reasoning continues, even the Premier's detractors would have to admit that the man has worked hard so doesn't he deserve a little fun?  And hey, is there any man out there who wouldn't like to party with pretty girls?

This is not to say that everyone is defending the Premier - far from it, for many Italians are expressing shame at the way in which their country may be perceived abroad.  Many women in Italy, feeling that the Premier's behaviour is degrading to their sex, have been expressing their shame for some time and Mr Berlusconi's estranged wife, Veronica Lario, is a heroine to some.  Personally I am not sure about her status as a heroine, for independent women do not expect men to provide for them nor do they hark back to a career they abandoned upon marriage as a justification for that provision, for who knows how that career would have fared?  If I were to name a heroine of the Berlusconi era, it would be Rosy Bindi, President of the Democratic Party and long the target of some of the Premier's cruellest remarks, which she deals with extremely well and with remarkable restraint.

But if Italians are ashamed of  Mr Berlusconi and are losing faith in  the governing Coalition, whom, then, do they trust?  Not the Opposition, generally seen as weak and not, en masse, the federalist Lega Nord [Northern League, currently part of the Coalition];  possibly Gianfranco Fini, President of the Chamber of Deputies and founder of the parliamentary group Futuro e Libertà per l'Italia.  Mr Fini is perceived as strong and able to stand up to both the Lega Nord and the Premier.

There are brave journalists, too, who defy government attempts to gag the press and, although Mr Berlusconi's media holdings are vast, most Italian newspapers, contrary to popular belief in other countries,  do question the Premier's behaviour.

As an outsider who cares very much about Italy, I would stand with another heroine of mine, Rita Levi-Montalcini and put my faith in the country's young people:  time and time again, and with astonishing equanamity, young Italians put themselves through impossible procedures to obtain jobs that do not, in reality, exist for them; they are politically active and aware in ways that a country like Britain should envy; and they are ready to do their utmost to achieve the peaceful change that is needed.

Italy, despite or perhaps because of everything, is still a proud democracy.  What it is not, however, is a meritocracy and this is the factor that is holding it back.   Only Italians can decide whether this situation can change under this Premier.

A THING OF BEAUTY

A twitter message from the wonderful Women's Library in London last week reminded me of the time I held, in their reading room, a volume which may have been Mary Wollstonecraft's own copy of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.  I also spent some happy hours in that room reading Simone de Beauvoir's Letters to Nelson Algren.

There is something miraculous about holding any book - an experience which I hope future generations will not entirely abandon for the ebook - but when the book is a fine, hardback volume that pleasure is doubled.

Last week this tome, La Nascita di Roma [The Birth of Rome] was available at just €2.90 plus the price of one of a range of newspapers and magazines.  It is such a joy to hold and to look at and I am so looking forward to reading it when I have time.

I shall not be able to afford the other volumes in this series, which will be offered at a still reasonable but more realistic price. All the more reason to make the most of this one!

BOOK REVIEW - "A DANGEROUS LIAISON"

We are leaving Italy this evening to visit the France of the existentialists:

A Dangerous Liaison by Carole Seymour-Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"What did you do in the war, Sartre?"

Two years ago when I was in hospital I reread de Beauvoir's "Prime of Life" and it occurred to me that she and Sartre had rather an easy war. Now Carole Seymour-Jones, in this double biography, explodes the myth that the couple were prominent in the Resistance and we learn that they did very little indeed. It was Albert Camus who put himself in danger by publishing clandestinely, while Sartre and de Beauvoir attended only one committee meeting of the underground newspaper "Combat". What is more incriminating is that Sartre wrote nothing against the laws of Vichy France and the famous articles he is supposed to have written for "Combat" were actually penned by de Beauvoir.

Resistance and collaboration are difficult subjects and, since none of us knows what we would do under occupation, perhaps the golden couple of existentialism cannot be blamed for what they did not do.

More shocking for a whole generation of women, perhaps, is de Beauvoir's bisexuality and her abuse of her position as a teacher when she seduced female students. Her compliance in Sartre's affairs - the two had a pact whereby they were both free to take other lovers as long as they told each other - is well known. In acting as procuress for her "intellectual partner" and making friends with his lovers, she was, after all, following a tradition set by many a "maîtresse en titre" but we are talking about the "mother of feminism" here!

I do not have a problem with Sartre's womanising or de Beauvoir's acceptance of it but I do have a problem with the fact that the greatest "anti-bourgeois" of his time took the very bourgeois step of setting his women up financially and that de Beauvoir did not rail against this.

The second major point on which the couple can legitimately be criticised is, of course, their tardiness in condemning the post-war actions of Stalin: fêted by the Russians, they fell into every trap set for them: protagonists of their time, perhaps, but startlingly naive.

I had never understood de Beauvoir's relationship with her adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon but much is clarified here. It seems that the adoption was contrived mainly so that Le Bon could become de Beauvoir's literary executor, a decision which de Beauvoir' s sister understood.

Interestingly, Le Bon says that de Beauvoir never had an abortion, though of course the writer famously signed the "Manifesto of the 343" stating that she had. The extent to which de Beauvoir was pilloried after the publication of "The Second Sex" shocks even today.

All in all, then, a fascinating and timely biography of a couple who changed the thinking not only of their own generation but of generations to come. De Beauvoir emerges as less likeable than before but I admire her none the less: her feminism was based not upon ranting or hatred of men but upon intellectual rigour and that leaves her forever enthroned as "the mother of feminism". De Beauvoir once said of Sartre that he was "the writer who never lets you down". For me, it is de Beauvoir herself who never disappoints and continues to sustain me today as she did forty years ago.

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BOOK REVIEW - "RIPRENDETEVI LA FACCIA"

Riprendetevi la faccia by Barbara Alberti

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"RECLAIM YOUR FACE"

The novelist, journalist and screenwriter Barbara Alberti was shocked when a female politician who had obviously had a facelift and other invasive "anti-ageing" treatments appeared on Italian television to launch a campaign which would "liberate" Muslim women from the obligation to wear the veil. What scandalised Alberti was the politician's total lack of self-irony and she takes, as her thesis for this book, the idea that plastic surgery is the "western woman's burqa".

Using examples from history, literature, the lives of the famous, her own life and letters from her readers, Alberti demonstrates that women in the West are being denied a fundamental human right - the right to age naturally.

For me, one of the saddest episodes in the book is the true story of a woman of fifty-four who agrees to a meeting with the man she loved at eighteen. The two meet, go to a hotel and the man roughly makes love to her. In the morning she wakes up in his arms and he is looking at her. Then he, who is eight years her senior, says,

"It's the first time I've had an old woman in my bed".

The cruelty of this man is unbelieveable and I cried as I thought of the woman making preparations and going to buy herself beautiful lingerie with a heart full of hope. Reading such an account, a woman d'un certain âge is likely to feel that she has only two choices: if she has the means, to undergo all the age-defying treatments on offer, even at the risk of her life, or to give up the idea of love and companionship with a man forever.

But surely there must be another way? Can we not be who we are? Yes, we can, says Alberti and we must:

"Cambiate età ogni giorno. Siate nonne a quindici anni, fidanzate a ottanta. Ma non siate mai quello che gli altri vogliono."

"Change your age every day. Be grandmothers at fifteen or fiancées at eighty. But never be what others want you to be."

I found this a fascinating and thought-provoking book, as subversive as de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age. It is not yet available in English but, sisters, I urge you to demand an English edition!

The Coming of Age


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SILVIO DOES IT AGAIN

This is an article of mine published in Italy Magazine today.  I am reproducing it in full here because I am outraged and it will be "old news" by the time I do next week's round-up of this week's stories. I would like to ask my sparring partner James and his anti-feminist friends how they can claim that feminism was never necessary when a twenty-first century, western leader can make a remark such as the one described here:
 

BERLUSCONI INSULTS FEMALE POLITICIAN

During a visit to the private Università Telematica Ecampus in Novedrate [Lombardy] yesterday Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insulted Democratic Party President Rosy Bindi for the umpteenth time. Referring to some female students, who had been invited by email, Mr Berlusconi said,

“Here are some beautiful girls who have graduated with maximum marks and they don’t look like Rosy Bindi”.

Later signora Bindi issued the following statement:

“I congratulate the students who have graduated. As for the Prime Minister’s remarks, I will only note, sadly, that among the many signs that his rule is coming to an end we now have this repeatedly wearing evidence of his vulgarity.”

Last night Mr Berlusconi denied that he had said anything vulgar, adding,

“I said that to enter politics it is not necessary to look like Rosy Bindi. I didn’t say whether it was better to or not. Of course we’d all prefer [women politicians] to look like the Madonna”.

Last year Mr Berlusconi told Rosy Bindi, on live television, that she was “more beautiful than intelligent”, causing nearly 100,000 Italian women to sign a petition declaring that the Premier’s sexism was an insult to both women and democracy.

What would you have replied if you were Rosy Bindi?

FELLINI AND THE FEMINIST

This is an article of mine which was published in Italy Magazine on Monday:

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Well, who’d have thought it? Admittedly, Federico Fellini was well known as a ladies’ man but feminist academic Germaine Greer does not immediately spring to mind when one imagines his partners. And yet why not? Perhaps it was inevitable that two of the most unconventional people of their time should have been attracted to each other.


Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Greer recalls meeting Fellini in 1975, when someone suggested her for a part in Casanova. It was fifteen years after La Dolce Vita and five years after the publication of The Female Eunuch. Greer, then aged 36, arrived at Cinecittà perspiring in the summer heat. She was wearing a flimsy dress and no underwear. Fellini at 55 was fascinated and asked her to read the script with a view to playing Madame Chatelet .

The two began to discuss the script and Fellini went to see Greer at her Italian home, packing his pyjamas in an overnight bag. They continued to talk about the script and Fellini, already suffering from a heart condition, made his own supper of a plain risotto. They went to bed but throughout the night Fellini made calls to his wife, the actress Giulietta Masina.

Days later Fellini gave Greer a present of electric light for her tiny house, sending his own workmen around to do the wiring. They did not see one another often, largely because of Greer’s work commitments, but they continued to discuss his films and Greer seems to have acted as a sounding board for the director. She has never forgotten him and calls him “a many-sided genius”.

MY SATURDAY

First thing yesterday morning - "first thing" to this owl being about 11 am - the fruitseller who calls me bambina waved while I was out with Simi. I waved back to signal that he could bring me some of his goods and he crossed the road to ask what I wanted. Five minutes later, he had delivered these plus a crate of oranges for juicing:

Next stop was the deli where Mr B cut some speck into cubes for me:

Lunchtime and I'm in Raffaele the hairdresser's, for he doesn't close on Friday or Saturday lunchtimes. He had put a tray of dolci out in honour of International Women's Day on Monday. Take a close look at the yellow and white cakes on the right. The yellow decoration has been made to look like mimose as these are a symbol of International Women's Day in Italy. I thought they were real at first.

Hair done and I walk down to one of the larger supermarkets to buy treats for Simi. The cashier informs me that it's the last day for collecting points so I have to choose a "gift". I chose this stoneware casserole and luckily, it was in stock. I am rather pleased with myself as it's the first time in nearly five years that I've managed to redeem any points from that particular supermarket, which I don't use often. Now what shall I make in the casserole and where am I going to store it?

It's 4pm by now and most of the smaller shops have reopened. On the way back I call into my local bookshop , where they have managed to get for me Riprendetevi la faccia ["Reclaim your Face"] by Barbara Alberti. Alberti's thesis is that western women are not allowed to age any more, such is the pressure on us to have plastic surgery or other invasive treatments. She calls plastic surgery "the western woman's burqa". I am very much looking forward to reading this book.

5pm and two students arrive for a private lesson. By 6pm we are done and the long, Italian evening has begun. Simi and I have more walks, eat, then flop down in front of the BBC-less TV.

FOR THE SAKE OF DEMOCRACY

I am very late tonight and it is because I have spent most of the afternoon and evening finding out more about this, to which I was alerted by this twitter friend. The situation has both upset and appalled me: upset me because brute force has been used against peaceable women and appalled me because it is happening in the 21st century; appalled me, also, because feminist groups in the west have apparently paid little attention to the case.

To sum up the relevant events as briefly as I can, the journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein was arrested in a Khartoum restaurant in July, along with 12 other women, including non-Muslims, who were "indecently" attired in trousers. Some of the women were prosecuted immediately , lashed and fined. Lubna insisted on calling a lawyer and wants her case to go to full trial. Later she resigned her UN status, which would have given her immunity from prosecution. She feels that she is fighting for all Sudanese women. If convicted, Lubna could be flogged 40 times. Her trial today was adjourned. I understand that only the French Govenment has condemned the initial floggings.

Lubna's "indecent" or "disrespectful" attire was this:

As I understand it, this is perfectly acceptable female attire to most Muslims. But even if it were not, men cannot dictate to women what they may and may not wear and I don't care whether the man in question is The Pope, a Muslim cleric, a fashion designer or Joe Bloggs down the road. Interestingly, the US Embassy to the Holy See seems to think the Vatican has a "no pants" rule for women, whereas the Vatican itself claims it doesn't!

When men impose dress rules upon women and mix these up with their own ideals of "purity", or of a "woman's place", using "religion" or political doctrine to justify them, nothing but unhappiness for both sexes can ensue.

What is the first thing an extreme right-wing faction does after taking power by violent means? It gains control of the media. And what is the second thing? It attempts to control its nation's women. Women are told in no uncertain terms that they cannot wear trousers [Chile], that their place is in the home [Mussolini, Franco] and from there it becomes clear that they have no rights. Dictators fear the power of words and they also fear women.

Why? Long before 9/11 and its consequences I read a book called The Harem Within by Fatima Mernissi. Much of this book consists of charming tales of the author's childhood in 1940s Fez but always she is questioning the concept of the harem and wondering why it is the men, not the women, who walk freely. In a footnote she explains that "domestic" harems were really extended families who continued the tradition of secluding women. She writes:

"What defines a harem is not polygamy, but the men's desire to seclude their wives."

Be secluded or completely cover yourself: women have to be hidden in some way and all this, the men would have us believe, is done to "protect" women. Think about it for a minute: how can a state defend polygamy and claim to be protecting women? Mernissi writes:

"The fundamentalist press's defence of polygamy and divorce is in fact an attack against the right of women to participate in the law-making process. "

[Bear with me, reader - I'm getting there!]

And:

"But that historical heritage [that of early Islam's anti-slavery stance] did not influence the position of some of the conservative Arab leaders who resisted the slavery ban by camouflaging it as an attack on the 'umma', the Muslim community, which is exactly what they are doing today with women's rights. They know too well that they cannot promote democracy without liberating women. Their resistance to women's rights is in fact a rejection of democratic principles and human rights." [My italics.]

I have thought that that was the key since I first read it in 1994. Therefore it is for democracy and for human rights that I ask you, today, to support Lubna Ahmed Hussein. There is a campaign on facebook and advice on other measures you can take here.

Finally, do take a few minutes to listen to this interview with Lubna. I am quite proud that it was a BBC woman journalist who asked the $64,000 question!

Thank you.

SOME THOUGHTS ON WEIGHT LOSS

For the evening of this International Women’s Day, I thought I would write a few words about an issue that bothers nearly all women, in the west – WEIGHT. Most of you know that I spent the last three months of 2008 being ill and consequently shed quite a lot of the stuff. I am now down to the 52.5 kilos , or 8. 27 stone, that I was in my twenties and early thirties. Well, I am 52.5 kilos in the morning but 53 – 54 kilos at night and the fact that I’m weighing twice a day shows I’m already unhealthily obsessed with the issue, does it not?

I did not react to this weight loss in the way lamented by Kim Chernin in Womansize - The Tyranny of Slenderness:
“When she was discharged from the hospital, with the condition undiagnosed but possibly abdominal cancer, my friend came home. There, the first thing she did was to rush into the bathroom and go over to the scale.
‘I’d like to tell you, ‘ she said to me, ‘that I’d willingly gain back the five pounds rather than go through that horrible pain again. But I honestly don’t know whether that’s true.’ ”
Nevertheless, I was happy to be slender again and I’ve lost a stone more since coming home, without dieting.

In case any of you out there are thinking it’s all right for me to preach at 52.5 kilos, let me remind you that I have been there and here I am with lovely, slim Liz in 2007:



But I don’t think I looked too bad most of the time. [On my birthday in 2007]:



I would also point out that, quite apart from the inconvenience and expense incurred in having to throw out or give away most of your wardrobe, being very slim at 59 is very different from being that way at 29. For weight, dammit, does not always come off where you want it to. I’ve been lucky enough to have retained something resembling a bosom, but this time my arms look awful and my face is gaunt. “You look better facially when you are chubbier”, said a “friend”. [Did she have to use that word? What’s wrong with “plumper” , “rounder” or just “a bit bigger”?] Getting attention from men is not hard in Italy if you are any shade of blonde, whatever your age, and sometimes I think I got more of it when I was “rounder”. “Most men like something to get hold of”, my father used to say. That’s probably true, but try telling that to a woman about to subject herself to the torture of a beach! I cannot find the exact quote by Oprah, but she did once say something like,
“There’s only so far your personality will take you – on a beach.”
I sympathise with that view, but we are not talking here about the desire to lose a few pounds in order to look better in a bikini. Thinness has become almost a religion to some and we solemnise the cult by according it religious language, talking of certain foods as “sins” for instance.

As a child, I was very small but what Raquel Welch once termed “the equipment” was well installed by the time I was 13 and I soon discovered that when it comes to our bodies, women can’t win. We are supposed to have breasts, right? If we are not voluptuous in that region, we risk elective surgery. Yet when we are, we go through hell: the British Home Secretary shows a little cleavage and there is public uproar. If Ms Smith were 20 years or so younger and uneducated, presumably it would all be all right as then she might make page 3 of some of our national newspapers one summer day together with the caption, “Cor, what a scorcher”. My own hell in this regard was the Woolworth’s store in Kingswood, Bristol, where my friends and I would go to buy Miner’s makeup and trinkets on a Saturday. A boy from the year above ours at school was nearly always there and he would usually make some remark about my breasts in order to ensure that my weekend was a tearful one. On one occasion he excelled himself: “There’s something on your shoe. Oh, I forgot. You can’t see past your tits, can you?” That was the day I started hiding my breasts and the barb hurts as I recall it even today.

There I am above at 14. [Sorry about the length of the photo and I cropped out the guy who was with me.]

Now, take the same girl a few years later when Twiggy’s was the body shape we all wished to emulate and you have a ready anorexic. With my curves and thighs that refused to reduce whatever the rest of me did, the Carnaby Street look didn’t suit me and I didn’t wear a pair of denim jeans till I was 28 and 7 stone!

Yet all this is a twentieth century phenomenon . It began when most people in the west finally had enough to eat. It went on to make the lives of millions of women miserable and to make millions of dollars for the diet industry. “Take this powder to replace one meal a day.” “Try these Slimmer’s chocolate biscuits” [which are nothing more than ordinary chocolate biscuits]. “Take these appetite suppressants during the day”. The small print on all of these reads, “Only works as part of a calorie-controlled diet”. So are women too stupid to read the small print, then? Of course we’re not! We’ll just clutch at any straw that might help us to look like a size 0 model – which we never will, as most of us are [a] not hooked on drugs which will make us look ill and therefore skinny and [b] unable to afford the gym fees, personal trainers and lifestyles of these women.

In a little-noticed section of the book that accompanies Jane Fonda’s original “Workout” tape, [oh, yes, I “went for the burn” in those days, in an effort to stay 7 stone!] the actress-activist admits to episodes of bulimia. I could hardly believe this when I first read it. Jane Fonda?! An intelligent political and feminist activist? And she’d done this before the ideal body shape changed from Marilynesque to that of a female who “makes clothes look as if they’re still on the hanger”, as one designer put it. If Jane Fonda could fall for this “thin” nonsense, I realised, then any of us could – and did!

So I have one question, readers: WHY? Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied in this way? It is surely the last tyranny exerted over western women. Why don’t we just PUT A STOP TO IT?

Do you want to look like a dress on a hanger? I don’t! I’ll do my best to stay slim but I’m not going to take laxatives, get obsessed any more or deny myself the odd chocolate. When I showed my very heterosexual Sicilian hairdresser a picture of Nigella he did not exclaim, “Gawd, she’s fat” or “Worra pair of knockers” . He smiled and said, “È una bella donna - She’s a beautiful woman.” And this wise lady still has much to teach us.

I’m not claiming that being clinically obese is good for you or suggesting that we all go out and eat chocolate covered in lard. However, I am saying that the amount of suffering caused by the few extra pounds that most women carry is totally disproportionate to the importance of that weight. As this International Women’s Day draws to a close, couldn’t we give ourselves a gift? We are constantly being told to celebrate diversity. Let us celebrate it in OURSELVES.

PATTI PRAVO AND ME

When I first came to Italy, nearly 40 years ago, the family I lived with would jokingly call me by two nicknames, “Pat” without a vowel at the end being impossible for them to pronounce.

So sometimes I was “la Patti suora” [“Pat the nun”] for, as I was young and blonde and Italian men used to follow me around, the grandfather of the family thought that, for my own safety, I should become resident in the convent opposite the house! But I would pretend to concur, laugh with him and cajole him and by the end of supper every night he would agree: “Va bene, niente suora”. [“OK, not a nun”.] Actually, I used to watch those nuns going to pray in the early hours of the morning, when the whole city was silent, the sun was just coming up and an Italian “heat mist” lay upon the town: the silence was punctuated only by the bells of the convent and I used to imagine the peaceful life the nuns had. However, reader, I lacked the sense of obedience that would have been required and soon I lacked another essential qualification!

The other name that the family bestowed upon me was “la Patti Pravo” because of my name and again, because I was blonde. Now, Patti Pravo, unlike me, had and has quite a deep voice and I’ve always wondered why men, whilst claiming to love femininity, really go for this: consider the women they find sexy – Pravo herself here in Italy, Bacall, even Thatcher [the latter having been professionally trained to lower her voice]. Could it be that what is really attractive in our times is androgyny? Does this not explain why models no longer have curves but have to make clothes look as if they are “on the hanger”? Twiggy, I notice, is these days on the cover of mainstream women’s magazines like “Good Housekeeping” looking feminine and curvy but it was not always so. There was a time when, if you had a few unfashionable curves, you were deemed undesirable. Thus very feminine women lost out, especially if they were cursed, as well, with that old “disadvantage”, a brain.

All this is a preamble to telling you how much I have always liked the song in the second clip below, for here, in a [just] pre-feminist era, we have a feminine woman telling a man, in no uncertain terms, that she will not be treated as a plaything and discarded “among the 10 other dolls who no longer please you.” Sing it again, Patti!

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

A Sardinian man resident in Germany has received a reduced sentence for rape - because he is Sardinian. The man, who was insanely jealous, tortured his Lithuanian girlfriend for 3 weeks, forced her to take heroin and to sleep with him and another Italian at the same time. The details are here in English.

The German judge made the ruling almost a year ago but the Italian documents have only just been released. Reducing the possible sentence from 15 years to 6, he gave as a reason "a different cultural and ethnic background ". As you may imagine, politicians, feminist groups and most Sardinians are up in arms and even the man's mother, to whom he has declared, "I only hit her" has said that if her son committed this crime, he didn't deserve a reduced sentence.

As for the girlfriend, I am sad to have to tell you that she wrote in her diary that she still loved her abuser: this is not love but obsession and it is a sentiment indicative of a woman who feels powerless.

Now the man, who has been beaten by other prisoners in the German jail, has asked to serve his term in Italy and the German President of the Tribunal has remarked that all circumstances had had to be taken into acount when sentence was passed: the man had a history of drug use, might have been at some risk medically, he had confessed and had no previous criminal record in Germany. Could it be that the original judge erred on the side of a strange interpretation of political correctness, then? The Tribunal President says that, in cases of jealousy, nationality is not an issue because relationships founded upon it exist in all countries.

But what on earth did the sentencing judge think or know of Sardinians? Did he research them or call in experts? It doesn't look that way to me: it looks as if he based his decision on age-old misconceptions. These may have been founded upon racism or ignorance; they certainly were not founded upon any sense of justice.

CLOUDS, CASTLES AND COLLATIONS

A quick diary of my trip back to the UK:

Let’s start with arriving at Catania on Wednesday 3rd: I always get off the bus at the airport as it’s easier to find a taxi there than at the town stop when you are laden with luggage. “50 €”, declared the driver when we arrived at my hotel. “That”, I informed him, “seems a lot to me. I live here and I know what the prices should be.” “Oh, 30 €, then”, said he, apologetically, then shook my hand but still looked as if he was expecting a tip. What he got was a lecture about not judging by appearances: “I may be pale and blonde but I am neither unfluent in Italian nor stupid”, said I and with that I swept off. Hopefully he’ll be more careful next time! Silly man – had he asked for 30 or even 40 € in the first place I’d have given him 10 more, as I was in a benign, holiday mood. Then a wander around Catania, a city which has always treated me kindly, in the evening and back for a wonderful meal in the hotel restaurant: You see it above, beginning with an orange salad flavoured with fennel, dressed with olive oil and garnished with anchovies and toast. No, I still don’t eat fish and could have ordered it without, but I wanted to see how they would use the anchovies. This is such a simple idea and so easy to copy. I don’t normally care for fennel, though it is much beloved of the Sicilians, often, in season, taking the place of fruit at the end of a meal, for it does clear the palate. I do like it like this, though. As a second course I partook of veal scaloppine served with a mushroom sauce and finally treated myself to this semifreddo of almonds. I seem to be known at the hotel now, so got my liqueur and coffee free, which sort of made up for the naughty taxi driver! One thing that struck me was that I see the same maître d'hôtel and other waiting staff there year after year; there doesn’t seem , in hotels at any rate here, to be the quick staff turnover that we have in Britain.

Next day at the airport you could, as ever, immediately tell who was British, for the women wore clothes of understated elegance – every one of them dressed at least partly in beige – whilst the men seemed ill at ease in the lighter apparel of late summer. And however well turned out, British women don’t “walk tall", telling the world they know they look good in the way that Italian women do. I also noticed the impatience of the British, strutting around as if we still ruled the waves and some even turning quite nasty when told that an airport shop would not open before 8 am. A couple of years ago that would have annoyed me too but now I look on with amusement and pazienza. Help! I might be acquiring the latter!! There is a smart new terminal at Catania: it lacks places to sit before you go through security and there is no bookshop after the x-ray machine but otherwise it is a much better place to wait in than the old one, apart from the facts that the bar has nothing remotely recognisable to a Brit, American or even a Frenchman as breakfast fare and they have started to charge for trolleys. Why?! If the busiest airports in the world can survive without introducing such a fee, I don’t see the necessity at Fontanarossa. Where do they think anyone is going to take the unwieldy things?

The flight was on time and I got my Cardiff bus but, with the Laurel and Hardy of National Express driving, although we left Gatwick on time, we were 45 minutes late out of Heathrow, for Messrs L & H weren’t very good at checking who had reservations and who was on standby. Bring back the dragon hostesses, who were “jobsworths” as far as what hand baggage you took on board but who would have sorted this in an instant! Then we hit the traffic so it was 7pm before I could text my friend Christabelle, with whom I was to stay, with the magic word, “bridge!” [meaning crossing into Wales] and I was an hour late getting to her – and a gin and tonic. [You can see Chris and me in picture 9.]

The first thing I noticed in Britain was how much closer to you the clouds seem and the second was the tapestry of green. Yes, I cried! And I also cried at the majesty of Caerphilly Castle [near Christabelle’s house] and I unashamedly offer you a photo of it in the middle of a blog about Sicily.

On Friday I walked around Cardiff, took a photo of an English breakfast for Raffaele the hairdresser, who doesn’t believe my description of one, and neither, come to think of it, does Gina, who, although she has spent plenty of time in the UK, asked me the day before I left if we ate “fresh green” beans in the morning. John Dickie is correct when he writes, in Delizia, that "the very notion of frying anything so early in the day is enough to make most Italian stomachs turn". Then I met a friend who, arriving in her car, asked, “Where do you want to go?” “Tesco!” said I.

Saturday brought the highlight of my trip and the real reason why I went at all: the annual Cheltenham Literary Festival. I had to get up at 5am in order to get there in time for the midday lecture I had booked as there was railway engineering work between Gloucester and Cheltenham causing delays. Here the true genius of the British is revealed : stage a prestigious event and then ensure maximum difficulty for the travelling public in getting to it. The talk was by Germaine Greer - I hear you groaning now, James! – and as mornings and I don’t get on I was not a happy bunny, until she spoke, that is. I can honestly say she is the best speaker I have ever heard, on any subject, anywhere and it was well worth the effort to attend. She has written a book on Mrs Shakespeare, to whom she believes history has been unfair. After that, I wandered around elegant Cheltenham, bought a few more books in the tents and had lunch in an Italian – of course! – restaurant. This was pleasant and reasonably priced for Britain, but I wondered why an Italian establishment listed pasta dishes under antipasti, unless it was to discourage the British from ordering them as a main course, which they never are in Italy. Then a rush back to Christabelle’s for dinner with friends there.

Sunday and I met a former teaching colleague for coffee – I am finding that I can no longer take the British “long” coffee or brodo [broth] as a friend here calls it – lunch and a shopping expedition. I was shocked to learn that so many of the people I worked with in one particular school have forms of cancer, have had breakdowns or are otherwise ill. I can only suppose that the stress of such a situation catches one up and I truly feel for all of them. How lovely it was, later, to read the papers as papers and not as online editions! The very process is so different.

Monday was the big day when I at last met Liz and Shirl [photos 6 and 7] and some of the details are already on our lunch blog [and it was clever Shirl who put the link to that in my sidebar!] I am going to post there again tomorrow. We got on famously, as I knew we would and I had a lovely time. Kind Shirl gave me the “make-up” fridge magnet which you see above, a little book of “friendship” quotations [in the last picture] and some chocs which I can’t show you – guess why?! I don’t know why but I navigated [with clear instructions from Shirl’s husband, Pete] Liz to Shirl’s place in Bristol, then got her lost back in Cardiff on the way to Penarth where I was to meet Christabelle and my former neighbours for supper! Sorry, Liz! This couple have just adopted a dear little girl of two and here’s a secret : I’m scared of 2-year-olds and the like, because I haven’t had children and was not used to little ones in my own family, so I don’t know what you’re supposed to say or do around them! Give me a hall of unruly teenagers, however, and I’d be fine. However, this little girl is especially delightful and has already learnt to say “Cheers – together!” so she is being well taught. My friends cooked me this stunning shepherd’s pie and had crumbled a little of the Sicilian oregano I had brought them into it. Just what I needed!

British early dining - although not as early as American evening meals – was a shock to my system throughout the trip, though. Here it is not unusual to dine as late as 10 or even 11pm and certainly no one would think of it before 9. That suits me, with my “owl’s blood” as my Dad used to call it.

On Tuesday I met my friend Jo the artist for a leisurely lunch in Cardiff and afterwards we wandered around Borders, where, the Dodos will be pleased to learn, Jo asked me, “Now, what book can I buy you for Xmas?” and I pointed to theirs. I’ve been wanting it for a while and I’m sure it will cheer up my winter. Jo had also brought me some more "Welsh" fridge magnets and you will see that they have joined the conglomeration on the door above. [That’s the best photo I could take – sorry.] In Borders I also bought an inflatable daffodil – how did I live without one for so long, I wonder? – and, as you see, I got my “Klippits” from Lakeland!


And suddenly that was the end, for I was travelling back to London for an overnight hotel stay on the Wednesday. [I can no longer do the midnight coach plus a 1200 mile flight plus a further 2 hours to get to Modica in one go.] I have to say the loo at Cardiff Bus Station remains disgusting: people grumble about the facilities here but, although some of the contraptions may lack a seat, they are not dirty. At Gatwick I noted, anew, the impatience of the British: “Huh! You wait around for 2 hours and then you have to spend 20 minutes walking to the gate”, huffed one of my compatriots when boarding was announced. I thought: “You are obviously fit and on holiday; you are going to a lovely place; what’s the matter with you?”

In Cardiff I even passed the man’s house several times on my way to and from from London and en route to other places: it doesn’t hurt any more and I’m not even sure I could pick out which one it is in the row now. It’s just a memory. "Forgive yourself", said Shirl on Monday and I rather think I will. I also managed to walk by what was my own house – or the building society’s – and it seemed somewhat forlorn. I could have coped with that better had the present occupier made some alterations to the outside!

The visit was tinged with sadness not only because of the former colleague situation I have mentioned, but because there is one friend who is not well and who has deteriorated so much that I fear I will not see her again. Admittedly, parting is always difficult, for who knows what the future holds for any of us? But it was a little harder to leave my father’s land this time.


However, it seems that in Britain, if al-Qaeda doesn’t get you, bedbugs on the London underground will, so on the whole I am glad to be back, with Simi, on my other island. I have returned to a temperature of 25 C but the women have decided it is autumn, apparel – wise, and I am glad of that. There just comes a moment when I want to don my blacks, shoes rather than sandals and tights! “Welcome home!” my kind neighbour who always brings me packs of mineral water when he visits the supermarket shouted from his balcony last night. “Do you need any water?” And at lunch time yesterday I was given a very big box of torroncini as a ben tornata present by the manager of the Altro Posto. Most importantly, Simi is here: I got into the apartment at 7.30 pm on Thursday, unpacked a bit, but then found myself wandering around sighing, “I want my baby!” until she arrived, as beautiful and as full of energy and wagginess as ever, at 8pm with “Mr Enzo”. Then I knew I was home! Oh, yes – I cried when I landed upon the soil of the “land of lands”, too!