Berlusconi’s harem culture sends a signal that seduction counts more than an impressive CV. “Our only form of protest is changing the channel,” says Concetta di Somma, a 30-year-old aerobics instructor. “But when even the weather girl is showing her cleavage, if you protest with the clicker, you miss the news.” Underrepresented in government and corporate life, women have little hope of changing the system from within. “It’s a male-dominated society from the church on down,” says Marina, a 57-year-old jewelry-store owner who asked not to use her last name for fear of hurting her business. “Women look like whores in advertising and on TV because that’s what men want to see. Men make the advertising, make more money, and thus drive how the products are displayed.”
Documentary filmmaker Lorella Zanardo recalls meeting with a top bank manager in Milan recently. On his desk in clear view was a calendar with each month represented by a bikini-clad babe. A magazine with a seminude woman sprawled on the cover was displayed on his coffee table. “This is a man who has to decide how many women will be in decision-making positions in his company,” she says. “How does he separate these subliminal messages from reality when he makes these decisions?”…
The cumulative impact of all this has made the workplace an unwelcoming if not downright hostile environment for women with even moderately serious ambitions. Only 45 percent of all Italian women work outside the home, the lowest rate in the European Union, and that rate has been stagnant for the past five years. By comparison, 80 percent of Norwegian women and 72 percent of British women work outside the home. When Italian women do have jobs, they earn on average 20 percent less than men, and they hold only 7 percent of Italy’s corporate-management positions, versus an average of 33 percent in Scandinavian countries.
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