Government, the revolution is pink: legislature under the sign of women

The nineteenth legislature began under the sign of Venus. Decidedly. And not just because with Giorgia Meloni’s move to Palazzo Chigi, the taboo of having a woman as prime minister was broken, after thirty male presidents who alternated in sixty-seven different governments. An absolute novelty positively hailed both by the right, as was widely expected, and by the left, who were congratulated on seeing, for the first time in republican history, a mother at the head of the country. A first time that, although expected, given the result of the polls, it overturned the ceremonial of Palazzo Chigi for a few hours, opening lexical, journalistic and ideological disputes about the correct declension to be adopted to appeal to Mario Draghi’s successor. A debate was immediately derecognized by a note signed by the secretary general of Palazzo Chigi who clarified that the name to be used was only that of “the President of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Meloni”. But while Giorgia Meloni was getting ready to ring the bell in the hall of the Council of Ministers, on whose walls you can admire the two 17th-century tapestries that depict the stories of the life of Alexander the Great, other leaders or, as Tonia Cartolano rewrites, also titled his recent book, other “leaders” (Santelli, 2022) took over the entire scene, which in the past was almost always dominated by the male presence.

This is the case of Licia Ronzulli, who after her failure to join the government team strongly contested by the Brothers of Italy and her retreat as leader of Forza Italia at Palazzo Madama, has already fallen into the role of the main interpreter to give voice to the counterpoint regarding the melodic narrative. And the first interviews go precisely in that direction. Formerly, as mentioned, this part was also the prerogative of men. After all, we all remember the continuous distinctions, in the years of the PDL, brought by Gianfranco Fini, then President of the Chamber, to the choices of Silvio Berlusconi who presided over the Council of Ministers. As well as, to take another step back, how not to remember the wear and tear of another president, Fausto Bertinotti, who from the highest headquarters in Montecitorio launched daily attacks against Romano Prodi, at the time also in Palazzo Chigi. Likewise, the famous “Enrico, stay calm,” uttered by Matteo Renzi, secretary of the Democratic Party, to hypocritically warn Enrico Letta of his impending eviction as head of government, is still fresh in our memory. In short, that of the internal counterpoint to parliamentary majorities is a long and full story also full of hilarious anecdotes, but above all marked by a totally masculine dualism. A story that today ends with the armed alliance signed by Ronzulli with Meloni.

But that this is the legislature of the revenge of equal opportunities is also confirmed by widening the look at what is happening in the other political forces and at the women who will mark their way in the coming years. So much so that if “until now – as stated by SkyTg24 journalist Tonia Cartolano – we were almost surprised and scandalized by those women who reached positions of responsibility, today luckily all this becomes less news”. The Democratic Party, again to stay in the ranks of the first times, elected Debora Serracchiani and Simona Malpezzi to lead the parliamentary benches of the House and Senate. A revolution in relation to the past, in part also forced by the need to give a signal to the community before Meloni’s settlement in Palazzo Chigi, which strengthens the weight and feminine caliber of this legislature.

Alongside the two leaders of the group, always to stay in the dem house, an increasingly broad space of consensus and visibility is being taken, particularly in the opposition to the acting President of the Council, there is another woman or the new Emiliana deputy Elly Schlein . The former vice president of Emilia Romagna, already during the electoral campaign, attacked Meloni frontally on the issue of feminism, mocking one of her most famous speeches: “I am a woman, I love another woman, I am not a mother, but I am no less a woman for that. ». To complete the picture, however, there are other parliamentarians who may have a very secondary role in this legislature. It starts with Raffaella Paita, leader of the group of the third pole of the Chamber, then comes Barbara Floridia chosen to lead the patrol of twenty-eight senators of the Conte 5 Estrelas Movement and Senator Mariastella Gelmini, chosen by Carlo Calenda to lead the position of Assistant Secretary and National Spokesperson for Action.