Pegado a las viejas maneras

Me disponía a subir las fotos de la Festa dell'Unità de ayer, pero antes vi el post de irenita, donde comenta el artículo titulado Naked Ambition de Adrian Michaeado, publicado en la revista Financial times, y no puedo no mencionarlo, porque habla de varios aspectos de la mentalidad italiana, que a mas de un extranjero que vive por estos lares, no cuadran.

Algunos fragmentos del artículo:

If you are home before the 8pm news on Rai Uno, Italy’s main television station, you will discover it is preceded by a quiz show called L’Eredita (“The Inheritance”). In the middle of the programme, four ritzy women interrupt the competition to dance. “My jewels!” the male host exclaims. The dancing has no connection to the rest of the show; Rai Uno explains on its website that the “girls… with their presence and beauty, cheer up everyone watching, particularly men

“Italy has had a long history of feminism,” says Parati, who has studied Italian culture and written books on gender issues. “It is different from Anglo-American feminism [and] based not on a search for equality but rather on putting an emphasis on difference… Joining a man’s world may be practical, but does not solve the fact that you end up trapped in a system that can contain and invalidate the difference that women’s otherness embodies

Women in Italy, she believes, are held back not by chauvinism but by rules and customs that inhibit their participation in work. Mothers complain of a lack of nurseries and kindergartens. Schools for older pupils finish at lunch time. The children have to be collected, they have to be fed, they have to be taken to afternoon activities. “A woman will never earn as much as she will pay a babysitter,” Frati Gucci says.

It quickly became clear when my wife and I arrived from the US that there are cultural issues for women that go beyond school hours and acceptance of part-time work. A household functions with difficulty in Italy if all its adults have full-time jobs, and it is invariably the women who make sacrifices to ease the strain.

One female criminal lawyer (who prefers not to be named) argues that the lack of recognition of a modern woman’s needs is even visible in hospital obstetrics units. There are not many hospitals in the Milan area where women giving birth can have an epidural, and some units prefer to offer no pain relief at all. Hospitals emphasise that birth should be a natural process, though the lack of choice that entails can leave foreigners imagining they have stepped back in time.

But something is missing from this portrayal of Italy as backward and chauvinist. You could argue that Italians are not interested in “catching up” with other countries. Leo Burnett’s Barrera says: “Italy is behind in the role of women in society but it’s superficial to say that advertising reflects that … We have a different level of correctness: nudity is also a matter of women wanting to portray their beauty. Female politicians appear on television in short skirts because they want to show that they are well-preserved and beautiful. "

Bonino concedes: “My feeling is that the women’s rights movement does not exist any more."

Bonino no es la unica a pensarla asi...

Podria resumir este artículo con esta frase: "stuck in old ways", es decir, pegado a las viejas maneras.

Les recomiendo leer el artículo completo.

P.D: Disculpen que los fragmentos estan en ingles, pero me da flojera traducirlo :P