Italy's PM appoints female ministers based on youth & beauty

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John Flynn

Italy's PM appoints female ministers based on youth & beauty

Post by John Flynn » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:14 am

Italy's Matteo Renzi accused of appointing female ministers based on their looks and age
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Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, left, flanked by Reforms Minister Maria Elena Boschi
His age, family life and political inclinations may be sharply at odds with Silvio Berlusconi but Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister, has been accused like his playboy predecessor of appointing female ministers based purely on their looks and youth.
In an echo of the accusations often levelled at Mr Berlusconi, who appointed a former glamour model to his cabinet and consorted with showgirls and models, a grande-dame of Mr Renzi's Democratic Party claimed that some female ministers had been appointed more for their beauty than their brains.
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"I believe some of the ministers were chosen because they are young and also good-looking," said Rosy Bindi, a stalwart of the centre-Left party and now president of a parliamentary anti-mafia commission.
Mr Renzi, who is just 39, became prime minister in February after leading an internal party coup against his predecessor, forming a government that was remarkable for its youth and high proportion of women. Of the 16 members of the cabinet, eight are women.

Ms Bindi has herself been judged on her looks in the past – five years ago, during a political confrontation, Mr Berlusconi said on a national television show that she was "prettier than she is intelligent" – implying that she was neither.

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Rosy Bindi


Her remarks about young female politicians were interpreted as being particularly aimed at Maria Elena Boschi, the minister for reform, whose looks have excited admiration from male Italians but envy and resentment among some women.
At 33, she is the youngest member of the cabinet. Her outfits, particularly the figure-hugging trouser suits she favours, are regularly pored over by the Italian media. But she has surprised her early detractors by doggedly pushing through parliament a complex plan to reform the senate, the upper house of parliament.

She is not the only young, photogenic minister in Mr Renzi's government – there is also Federica Mogherini, the foreign minister, 41, who was recently designated the European Union's new foreign policy chief, and Marianna Madia, the 34-year-old minister for public administration.
Female ministers angrily rebutted Ms Bindi's criticism, saying that they should be judged on their political achievements, not their figures and faces.
"I believe that we will be judged on how good we are, not how good-looking we are," Ms Boschi said. "We need to respond to the needs of ordinary people and that is what we are doing every day."

Mr Renzi recently launched a "1,000 day programme", promising over the next three years to introduce reforms to cut bureaucracy, encourage entrepreneurship and extricate Italy from its grinding recession.
Alessandra Moretti, another politician from Mr Renzi's party whose looks have attracted attention, also spoke out in support of her colleagues. "They've demonstrated that aside from their physical appearances, they are competent. In politics some people are afraid of a strong woman who is also good-looking," said the MEP.
Ms Bindi's remarks were "an old-fashioned way of looking at things," said Debora Serracchiani, the deputy secretary of the Democratic Party and another politician noted for her looks and youth.
"Beauty has nothing to do with it. The ministers were chosen because they are competent and capable," she told La Repubblica on Sunday.

Mr Renzi's supporters said his attitude to women bore no relation to that of Mr Berlusconi, whose sexist jokes, relationships with teenage lingerie models and "bunga bunga" sex parties contributed to his fall from grace and his expulsion last year from parliament.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... d-age.html

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