Two visions of Italian womanhood
Elly Schlein at Bologna Pride in 2015 (Photo: Francesco Pierantoni, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr)
“I am a woman, I love another woman and I am not a mother, but I am no less a woman for this.”
In an election that was otherwise a devastating loss for the Italian Democratic Party (PD), and ushered in Italy’s most right-wing government since Mussolini, rising star Elly Schlein was keen to remain hopeful.
These words, spoken at a rally in Rome at the close of the PD’s election campaign, are a clever rebuttal to a similar message given by now-prime minister Giorgia Meloni in 2019: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian.”
Schlein - a committed socialist, feminist, and anti-racist - was recently elected leader of the PD, unexpectedly beating the respected president of Emilia-Romagna Stefano Bonaccini. Previously an MEP, she left the PD in 2015 out of protest to the increasingly rightward leadership of then-prime minister Matteo Renzi, a direction that Bonaccini was likely to continue.
She then went on to do what many saw as impossible in blocking the far-right from taking power in Emilia-Romagna, the historic powerbase of the PD, when her small party Coraggiosa (Courageous) supported Bonaccini’s presidency in the regional election. Schlein herself received over 22,000 votes, becoming the most-voted councillor in the region’s history, and was subsequently appointed Bonaccini’s vice-president.
The media has drawn comparisons between Schlein and other politicians, ranging from Italy’s AOC to Italy’s Corbyn, due to her apparent ability to galvanise disenfranchised young people, a key demographic in the Italian electorate. However, it is her juxtaposition with Giorgia Meloni which will define Italian politics for the next few years. Women now lead the two principal coalitions in a country which only just elected its first female prime minister, and, politically, the two couldn’t be more different.
In a homogenic political environment, both represent a break from an establishment dominated by older men. While Meloni is by no means progressive, it would be wrong to label her entirely anti-feminist, and it is true that her success in politics despite her background is an achievement. This doesn’t mean, however, that she represents a shining beacon in women’s rights: she opposes so-called “pink quotas”, is ardently anti-abortion, and devoted above all to traditional family values. She simply represents a different ideal of what it means to be a woman in modern Italy; while not entirely restrained to the gender roles of the past, she is still impossibly linked to these values.
Elly Schlein, on the other hand, is the quintessential anti-Meloni. Openly queer, internationalist at heart (being half American and having grown up in Switzerland), and a vocal anti-racist, she is perfectly positioned to be Meloni’s antithesis. This is the fault line upon which the coming years of Italian politics will be fought: two contrasting archetypes of the modern Italian woman.
As well as being women, the two leaders stand out for their remarkably younger age compared to most other Italian politicians. This is another key aspect which will decide the country’s political landscape. Bucking the trend of most other Western democracies, young people in Italy aren’t a guaranteed demographic for the progressive left: in September’s election, 32.9% of young people aged 18 to 35 voted for the centre-left coalition, compared to 30% for the centre-right and 20.9% for the populist Five Star Movement. They are, however, the most disenfranchised age group, with a low turnout of 57.3% compared to an already historically low national turnout of 63.8%.
This could represent an opportunity for Schlein, who, alongside her commitment to social issues, is offering economic hope to a country with the fourth highest youth unemployment rate in the EU. One key policy of Schlein’s leadership so far has been advocating for the minimum wage, which has been a policy of the PD for years but was never able to be put into place when the party was in government.
Elly Schlein has already proven herself to be a woman of her word, doing what other left-wing politicians have struggled to do elsewhere by ruthlessly unifying her party. She has taken the fight to PD president of Campania, Vincenzo De Luca, a populist autocrat who represents to many the political stagnation of the party. By “draining the swamp” of cynical career politicians, perhaps Schlein will succeed where Jeremy Corbyn failed.
After years of identity crises and being blamed for technocratic, impotent governments, this new direction is a perfect opportunity to revitalise the Italian left and offers a genuine alternative to the lacklustre centrism which has been so thoroughly crushed at the ballot box. It is vital now that Elly Schlein lives up to these expectations.