The story of the insulting sexist menu featuring a "Julia Gillard dish" went around the world last week and of course, as this Guardian report proves, it was neither the first, nor will it be the last, time that a woman politician has been the victim of sexism. [Our old friend Silvio naturally appears in the Guardian article.]
However, an appallingly sexist and racist comment aimed at Italy's first black cabinet minister, Cécile Kyenge, the Minister for Integration, did not make international headlines. A quick internet check revealed that the British Daily Mail and the Toronto Sun had the story but I did not find it elsewhere in English. I report it here because every now and then, in Italy, a public figure makes a remark which simply could not be uttered, much less written, in Britain and when I first read about it the incident rendered me speechless.
On Thursday Dolores Valandro, a Lega Nord Councillor in Padua suggested, on her facebook page, that Minister Kyenge should be raped, "so that she would know what it feels like." [This was in response to an online article about crimes allegedly carried out by immigrants.] Cécile Kyenge said that such language was an incitement to violence and that all Italians should feel ashamed. Prime Minister Enrico Letta quickly agreed with the Minister and condemned the remarks, as did Dolores Valandro's own party, who said they would expel her. Laura Boldrini, the Speaker of the Camera dei Deputati [Lower House] also expressed her outrage and said that the original remark was made worse by the fact that it came from a woman with a political role.
Dolores Valandro has since apologised and her facebook page has been taken down. Cécile Kyenge, speaking from Genova's Suq [multicultural] Festival today, said that she would always meet the language of violence with the language of non-violence. All Italians I have spoken to about the incident have expressed their shame that a remark such as the one made by Dolores Valandro on Thursday could be made by a public figure in their country.
