\n<\/p>\n
Since Giorgia Meloni, Italy\u2019s first female prime minister, announced over social media last month that she was dumping her longtime boyfriend<\/a>, Italians have hardly stopped talking about it.<\/p>\n They have obsessed over the leaks of audio and video tapes revealing Andrea Giambruno, a television news anchor who is also the father of the prime minister\u2019s young daughter, making lewd threesome and foursome jokes and apparent propositions to female colleagues.<\/p>\n Were the leaks politically motivated, as Ms. Meloni has insinuated? Had Ms. Meloni\u2019s Dear Giambruno letter humanized her as an Italian Everywoman, or reinforced her tough, no-nonsense reputation? Was the breakup bad or good for her political career?<\/p>\n Far less attention has been paid to Mr. Giambruno\u2019s behavior, which the public discourse has taken for granted as part of a culture of sexism and harassment that is commonplace for women at work in Italy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Giambruno\u2019s employer, Mediaset, owned by the family of the late Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who made \u201cbunga bunga\u201d a boudoir name, gave him a week of paid \u201cself-suspension\u201d before bringing him back on the show \u2014 for now, off camera.<\/p>\n In the land that #MeToo forgot, feminists and critics of Ms. Meloni had hoped that the prime minister might use the occasion as a long overdue teachable moment, a rare opportunity to reckon with the country\u2019s patriarchy and its legacy of Catholicism\u2019s traditionalism, Berlusconi\u2019s hedonism and the failure of successive governments to create social services that could support more women to enter, stay in and excel in the work force.<\/p>\n Instead, on those points, Ms. Meloni has been silent.<\/p>\n That has been a disappointment for some in a country where women say they are still greeted with chauvinism by employers who see themselves as \u2014 and are often treated as \u2014 all powerful benefactors and patrons, regarding them as objects of amusement or flirtation.<\/p>\n Women in various professions in Italy say workplace harassment is the norm. A recent edition of L\u2019Espresso magazine documented<\/a> widespread harassment in the advertising industry. A recent survey found that 85 percent of female journalists reported being subjected to some form of harassment during their careers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tatiana Biagioni, president of the Italian Association of Labour Lawyers, who has worked for decades on workplace discrimination and harassment cases, called the leaked recordings of Mr. Giambruno\u2019s behavior a \u201csad chance to talk about what normally happens in the workplace, because this is not an isolated case, it is a full-blown reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis is an underwater river that makes the world of work toxic in this country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As it stands, the employment rate for women in Italy \u2014 little more than 50 percent \u2014 is the lowest in the European Union or among the Group of 7 major economies. Women\u2019s lack of participation is a drag on the economy and contributes to a plunging birthrate<\/a>. A Bank of Italy study found that if just 10 percent more women worked in Italy, the country\u2019s G.D.P. could grow about another 10 percent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question of women is the central, No. 1 knot that must be faced,\u201d said Linda Laura Sabbadini, <\/strong>a director at Italy\u2019s National Institute of Statistics. \u201cToday the emergency of Italy is not the birthrate, the birthrate is the consequence of the low employment of women and the low development of the policies of social services.\u201d<\/p>\n Women are hardly visible at the top of big businesses or major news organizations. Less than 25 percent of Italian professors are women. Less than 5 percent of Italy\u2019s streets or squares are named after a woman<\/a>, and half of those are saints or martyrs or the Virgin Mary. More common are antiquated images of women, including a sexy tutorial<\/a> on the public broadcaster for women on how to shop for food.<\/p>\n Ms. Meloni\u2019s place as the first woman to gain Italy\u2019s highest position of power \u2014 and her very public breakup from a man making crass come-ons in the workplace \u2014 makes her responsibility toward women inescapable, some feminists argue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe\u2019s becoming the first feminist of Italy without really wanting it<\/a>,\u201d said Riccarda Zezza<\/a>, an author and businesswoman who specializes in issues of women in the workplace.<\/p>\n Elly Schlein, the first woman to lead the Democratic opposition, said in a recent interview that it was incumbent upon Ms. Meloni to address such questions. \u201cThat there is now the first woman as prime minister of the country doesn\u2019t help all other women if she decides not to help them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Meloni has herself acknowledged that responsibility.<\/p>\n In her first major speech to Parliament, she spoke about how breaking \u201cthe glass ceiling\u201d caused her to ponder \u201cthe responsibility I have toward all women who face difficulties in asserting their talent or, more trivially, the right to see their daily sacrifices appreciated.\u201d She has called women \u201can untapped resource\u201d to be less reliant on immigrant labor and has talked about dealing with misogynistic comments in Parliament. She said in a recent interview that she once ran for mayor of Rome while pregnant \u201cbecause they told me I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n But she has also long made clear she is not a politician seeking to become a feminist icon.<\/p>\n The leader of the Brothers of Italy party, Ms. Meloni is steeped in a hard-right political culture that has exalted women as traditional mothers and has opposed quotas to increase female representation in business and politics. She has rejected the feminine article \u201cla\u201d before her title as president, insisting on the traditional masculine \u201cil.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Meloni has for decades attributed her success in politics to her personal hard work rather than the progress won by organized women\u2019s movements. \u201cI have never believed, for example, in women\u2019s politics,\u201d she said in a speech<\/a> in March in the Chamber of Deputies Women\u2019s Hall.<\/p>\n So, it was less than surprising that, when faced with an issue that women\u2019s politics has decried for decades, she called it a personal matter and went mum.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing in her statement that says \u2018I stand in solidarity with the women who are harassed at work, and I don\u2019t condone that kind of behavior,\u2019\u201d said Giulia Biasi<\/a>, an Italian writer focused on feminist issues.<\/p>\n Silvia Grilli<\/a>, the editor in chief of the women\u2019s fashion magazine Grazia<\/a>, which dedicated a recent issue<\/a> to, and produced a short film<\/a> about, the harassment of an Italian actress, said the case of Mr. Giambruno served as a reminder of how widespread such behavior is, and that it had as much to do with power as sex.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there was even an intention to have an erotic relationship\u201d with the woman Mr. Giambruno was speaking to on the tape, she said. \u201cIt was only and exclusively to put her in her place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Exactly why Italy has lagged in women\u2019s advancement has been a field of study for historians, scholars and economists. Being the seat of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years has played not a small role, some say.<\/p>\n \u201cCatholic culture and philosophy is certainly one of the elements that inhibits independence of women in this country on the individual and collective level,\u201d said Renato Fontana, a sociology professor at Rome\u2019s Sapienza University.<\/p>\n In the 1970s, Italian feminists made some progress as they harnessed the advancement of women\u2019s rights across the West. Divorce and abortion became legal. Pay became somewhat more equal. In 1971 a law required the construction of public nursery schools, which studies showed were critical for long-term academic success.<\/p>\n Still, by 1977, Italy had only a 33 percent rate of female employment, and the country dipped under the replacement rate of births. In the 1980s, when the country\u2019s debt ballooned, politicians chose to cut back on a social services that would benefit women and employ them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Instead, Italy relied on those women to care for the young and the old in their own homes, a policy that fit well with hard-right parties, like the ones Ms. Meloni grew up in, which held deeply traditional views of the Italian family.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started with this idea that women belong to the family,\u201d said Ms. Zezza. \u201cWe really never got out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n