Italian women

As well as being a comic ride through the turbulent months leading up to my wedding, this book also aims to say something about the surprisingly serious subject of Italian women. There are several things about Italy’s womenfolk that set them apart. Statistics show they have fewer jobs, produce fewer children, have less political representation, and do more housework than their peers in the UK and the rest of Europe. On the other hand, they have one of the highest life expectancies in the EU, enjoy an exceptional level of health care and – at least according to one survey – have more sex than anyone else.

They are also among the most carefully dressed and diligently groomed women in the world. Any tourist in Italy will have noticed the amount of time and effort women here spend on their appearance. The goal is always pure, unreconstructed femininity. Sometimes the result borders on the vulgar, sometimes it’s sexy and sometimes it’s beautiful. Whatever the end product, there's no denying the hours that have been put in perusing the mirror. And for a young man arriving in Italy from Birmingham, Manchester or Croydon, the effect is dazzling.

Unfortunately, this ‘beauty duty’ is the by-product of a bunch of factors that add up to something not far from oppression. In every possible way Italian society tells women they have to look young and sexy to have any value. This is not surprising when you consider that the country is and always has been run by men. Women hold 2% of boardroom seats in big Italian companies and 17% of seats in the national parliament. They only got the vote in 1946.

Then there is the enormous pressure from the media. Television is brimming with slim young women in underwear, whose job is to smile and gyrate their hips. The few women with proper roles, such presenting a show or reading out winning lottery numbers, get away with donning revealing evening gowns. The model being thrust at women by TV probably reached its apotheosis during the 1990s with a cult show called Non è La Rai.

The concept, like all winning ideas, was daringly simple. It was this: get about 100 adolescent girls wearing relatively short skirts into a studio. That was it. The next step was to turn on the cameras and to broadcast whatever happened live. The only thing that needed taking care of was the cameramen, who had to be trained to lie on the floor so they could give the nation a view of teenage thighs and buttocks during the dancing.

There was a vague format of games, songs and dances to give structure but basically it was just 90 minutes of teenage girls excitedly showing off and competing for attention. Initially there was a male show host, but he was dropped after the second series because he seemed superfluous. The show provoked some debate, especially when the girls found themselves dancing to a popular disco track of the time called ‘Short Dick Man’. The sight of hordes of excited girls jigging about and grinning wildly as the sound system blared out ‘I don’t want no Short Dick Man!’ will stay with me for a long time.

And then there is advertising. Of course, advertisers everywhere exploit the female body. But in Italy everything, from razors and telephones to holidays and homes, is advertised with female breasts. Sergio Rodriguez, creative director at Leo Burnett Italy, the ad agency, explained the situation in a recent interview with the Financial Times. Comparing advertising methods in Italy and the UK, he said the difference was that ‘in Italy, when you don’t have to use women, you use women.’

The other model offered women here is the mamma, the mother. Italians have always done a strong line in mothers and surveys show that even today practically all young women want kids. In fact, so-called Dinkies (Dual Income No Kids couples) hardly exist. But of course, to be a mother, you have to get a man. Once you’ve got him, you have to keep him. In both cases the approach you need to take is clear.

So that’s the model – superbabe or foxy mother. When women struggle to find jobs, lose them after maternity, never get top positions anyway and find little space in national politics, they’re not left with much to do with their lives. Except to try to look good at all times. ‘It’s part of their resignation to the fact that there’s no point trying to achieve anything else anyway,’ social scientist Elisa Manna told me in an interview.

Throw into the formula a host of internationally renowned fashion designers and a relatively affluent society and the result is an extravaganza of femininity that leaves young Englishmen feeling quite dazed.

Out of curiosity I went looking one day to see what Mussolini thought about women 80 years ago. I found his view neatly wrapped up in a speech.  It is what you read at the start of this page. Looking at Italian TV and advertising, I struggled to see any progress in national mores.

All of these observations are worked into the narrative of Bellissima!. Without preaching or lecturing the reader, the book shows its narrator gradually assembling a picture of Italian women as he argues with his girlfriend, talks to friends and aquaintances, watches television, writes articles and observes the family of his bride-to-be.