Sexual harassment in Italy: So if you think it’s real awful in the United States …
(I’m on assignment this week and wanted to address the sexual harassment issue that once again is all over the world thanks to accused sexual assailant Brett Kavanaugh trying to snivel his way onto the Supreme Court. However, I reread my blog from last fall on sexual harassment in Italy and many of the points are still fresh. Below is a look at it again.)
I remember my first trip to Rome. It was 1978. I was 22 years old and backpacking around the world. It was at night and I sat outside the Termini train station writing in my journal. I looked up. I saw two young women sprinting toward me, their backpacks bobbing up and down behind their long hair.
“CAN YOU PLEASE WALK US TO OUR HOTEL?” one yelled in American English.
“Why? Are you lost?”
“NO!” Then she pointed behind them.
Three men were running toward us. They’d followed them from the time they disembarked their train and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t have to ask what was the question. I walked them to their nearby hotel without incident. They were visibly shaken. Even I was, and I had just spent three years in a randy college fraternity.
The sexual harassment epidemic that is encompassing the United States like a new STD isn’t confined to the U.S. In 2014 the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights surveyed 42,000 women encompassing every EU country. It reported that one out of every three women had experienced some kind of sexual violence. That includes sexual harassment.
What’s true in the U.S. is true all over the world: Men are pigs. The stories I’ve heard, I’m surprised universal courtship isn’t club her in the head, drag her into a cave, shtoink her and then go draw on a wall.
Here in Italy, local elements complicate the issue. The Catholic Church. The media. The government. Sexual mores are steeped in tradition of a strong mother figure. A male population is weaned on female stereotypes that haven’t changed while women’s independence has. It’s a petri dish of sexual ambiguity where society is not accommodating a growingly angry female population.
How much sexual harassment goes on in Italy?
“A lot. Too much,” Cinzia Mammoliti, a law graduate specializing in criminology, forensic psychopathology and criminal psychology who counsels women victims of violence, wrote me in an email. “There always was, especially inside the home and on the workplace. Italy is a nation where chauvinism still reigns and no matter how much progress there is with equal opportunity there is still a lot to do.”
A 2015-16 survey conducted by Italy’s National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT) revealed that one million Italian women have been victims of sexual blackmail. This isn’t, “Heeeey! Want to go get a glass of wine after work?” This is hanging sex over their heads during a job interview in a country with 11.3 percent unemployment. It’s threatening their current job in exchange for sex. Italy even has a phrase for it.
Molestia sessuale. No translation necessary.
This came to mind this week as I read about the fallout from the Italian national soccer team’s inexcusable pratfall in World Cup qualifying. Carlo Tavecchio, the 74-year-old troll and head of the Italian soccer federation, had just resigned in disgrace.
Then the disgrace got worse.
A former federation executive told Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading newspaper, that one time Tavecchio called her into his office.
“I went into his office to talk about football,” said the woman, who used the pseudonym Mary. “He did not even give me time to ask, ‘President, how are you?’ He looked at me and said, ‘You look well. I can see you have an active sex life.’ Then, ‘Come here and let me touch your breasts.’
“I was embarrassed. I tried to tell him to stop. But his only answer was to close the curtains of the office.”
She told the paper he continually harassed her and she finally quit. She came forward only when she learned he’d resigned — not fired — and could still take a job elsewhere in the federation.
American women’s public bull rush atop their #metoo platform has transformed into Italy’s #quellavoltache (#thattimewhen…). Italian actress Asia Argento and Filipina-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez were among the 100-plus women accusing disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein of locomotive libido. Fabrizio Lombardo, head of Italian operations for Weinstein’s Miramax company, allegedly sent women to Weinstein’s hotel and then sent intimidating messages, according to La Stampa newspaper. Lombardo denied it and Weinstein claims all the sex was consensual. That’s understandable. All women want sex with a guy who looks like a fat mob goon after a three-day binge and a train wreck.
Weinstein wasn’t the only one.
Argento told La Stampa that an Italian actor-director once told her to come discuss something in his trailer where he pulled out his penis. She was 16.
Italian showgirl Miriana Trevisan recently came forward about an incident 20 years ago in the office of director Giuseppe Tornatore. She told Claudia Torrisi of 50 50, an Italian gender and human rights blog, that he “put me against the wall and started to kiss my neck and my ears and touched my breast aggressively. He may not recall it, but I do.”
She once went into the office of an unnamed Italian TV personality and discussed a potential job. She told Torrisi, “He said I had to be nice to him because we could only talk about work if we were close.” He tried to kiss her but she said no and left the office. On the way out, she saw his assistant who said, “You still have your lipstick on. I think we will never see you again.”
Italian men, however, aren’t nearly as aggressive as they were when I lived off pizza by the slice here nearly 40 years ago. Women say they leer more than touch. However, I still hear horror stories. My American friend, Loren, 38, has had it.
“I saw one of those freaky guys who decides to whip it out,” she told me. “The first time was five years ago. He just whipped it out near Largo Argentina. He purposely looked at me like he was getting off on it.
“Talking about touching you inappropriately, that happens a lot in buses. I told you about the bus experience where some guy rubbed it against me. It was a hardon. You could feel it. It was just disgusting.”
My girlfriend, Marina, said she’s never experienced sexual harassment at her travel magazine but she walks around practically with a STOP sign hanging over her neck. However, what has happened to Loren has happened to her. She won’t get on a public bus in Rome without me.
In many ways it’s worse for American women in Rome than Italian. Some American women come over with the fantasy of, as my actor-friend and fellow-expat Tom Shaker once described, “falling in love with Francesco at Trattoria Yo Mama’s Ass” and then go home and tell their cubicle mate in Anaheim about it.
“Some,” however, doesn’t mean “a lot.” Still, some Italian men see American women more approachable than their Italian brethren who aren’t nearly as sexual as they dress. One frustrated Italian guy once told me at an aperitivo, “The problem with Italian women is they just don’t drink enough.”
“What I find abusive is I’ll find an Italian man will talk differently to an Italian woman rather than an American woman,” Loren said, “thinking the American woman is eager and willing and available for sex.”
Past laws, since improved, haven’t helped much and today the media still doesn’t. After Argento came forward, she became the villain rather than Weinstein. Libero, a Milan-based newspaper, lambasted the accusers, writing, “First they give it away, then they whine and pretend to repent.” On Argento, Libero wrote, “Surrendering to a boss’ advances is prostitution, not rape,” going on to say that sexual blackmail is “a rite of passage for actresses.” During a radio interview, Libero editor Vittorio Feltri went even further.
“Because there was no physical assault, it had to be consensual,” he said. “Besides, she should be thankful he forcibly performed oral sex on her.”
Sure, Vittorio. Lick this.
Keep in mind Italy’s history. It has sucked on a mother’s breast since Romulus and Remus, Rome’s founders, fed off the wolf’s teat. Women have been treated like third-class citizens — behind men and men’s pets — in every walk of life. Women weren’t even allowed to vote in Italy until 1946. Until the 1960s a man could kill his wife and call it murder of honor. Rape was considered a crime against morals, not against a person, until 1996. Sexual violence didn’t even used to cover harassment.
“Italian women are still suffering from an old point of view and an equally outdated education that still sees them as just brides without an income, who can be supported and happy only if married with children,” Mammoliti wrote. “There (is) just a small number of women that feel they are more than this and that feel accomplished even if they do not have a family depend on them. This way of thinking, in turn, makes women more fragile and easily attackable.”
Then came Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Trump without a nuclear weapon, who was charged with having affairs with everyone from a teenage belly dancer to underaged prostitutes. He introduced the term “bunga bunga” into the Italian language.
“We have 20 years of a government who basically sexualized every aspect of life,” said Loretta Bondi, a board member of Casa delle Donne (House of Women), a political, social and cultural space for women in Rome. “It’s difficult to basically uproot those kinds of perceptions.”
The Italian woman isn’t as passive and subservient as you think. Bondi, 60, joined her first women’s movement at 16. More women are earning college degrees than men. In more than five years over two stints in Rome, I’ve yet to meet an Italian woman who dreams of staying home and raising kids.
“Let me assure you that women, Italian women, have managed throughout these years to turn perception, turn legislation that would’ve remained stagnant without women’s actions,” Bondi said. “There are a lot of ways you perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination. It’s not just devising very good laws. If you don’t start from the very roots of this phenomenon, chances are that the struggle will continue to be uphill.”
What must change in Italy is women should start idolizing people like Argento. The media onslaught made her flee to Berlin but she struck a blow for Italian women everywhere. They need a guiding light. According to La Stampa, only 20 percent of women talk about sexual harassment. Only 0.7 percent come forward. Who can risk losing a job when they’re so hard to find?
“Sex is still a taboo topic,” Mammoliti wrote, “and in Italy a lot of women are afraid to come forward because of the shame that is attached to it and also because they are afraid to be blamed, which is not such an improbable outcome.”
I asked Bondi her thoughts on the theory that women like Argento have no right to scream foul after a five-year sexual relationship.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Violence can happen at any time of a relationship, even before a relationship is formed. How many women have been killed by their own husband? The fact that you have had any relationship with a partner or a boss doesn’t justify any form of violence.”
This flood of anecdotes figuratively castrating public figures has done more good than any law. It has made men reflect. I looked back on my past and asked myself … was I ever guilty? Fortunately, I have a lifetime fear of rejection. A bachelor my whole life, I always waited for a sign from the woman, even in college. I am terrible at picking up women. I sought phone numbers, not one-night stands. I always had a policy never to date anyone from work. The reason is a simple one that strikes at the heart: mine. If it doesn’t work, you have to look at them every day. Work is tense enough.
That’s why the lack of shame of the Harvey Weinsteins and Kevin Spaceys of the world baffles me. Rejection to them is no more than lint from a dry cleaner. Well, look where that got them. Two stellar show business careers are over, their legacies a disgrace.
Strong women are the reason. And men? It’s not over for us. You’d better think twice before you touch.
“It’s an excellent thing that’s coming out,” Bondi said. “Nothing will help if these issues are wrapped in silence. It does take a lot of courage to come forward, to press charges against a boss, a friend, or somebody who exercises that kind of power. I admire the women who came forward and should not only be encouraged but supported.
“And certainly not degraded.”
November 24, 2017 @ 10:24 am
You’re a great writer – I envy and applaud you. This is one of your best posts. If you’re anywhere as decent in real life as comes across in your writing, you would make a great friend. Auguri.
November 24, 2017 @ 11:30 am
Thanks, Ru. What a compliment. I am a good friend. And I can cook, too.
November 24, 2017 @ 2:34 pm
“Donald Trump without a nuclear weapon” I love it! Keep up the good words.
Jack
November 24, 2017 @ 3:30 pm
Rome was the only city in Italy where I felt uncomfortable traveling alone. Very interesting perspective.
November 26, 2017 @ 7:03 am
Yes! They don’t see it as 99 rejections. They see it as 1 win and that encourages them to keep trying.
November 25, 2017 @ 3:54 am
Thanks, Julie. One question I’d like to ask all these men — and not just Italians — but … Does this method ever work? Does exposing themselves, grabbing a woman’s butt or forcing themselves onto them against hotel doors ever induce a woman to go, “Take me!” Who says yes? Who even said yes to Donald Trump? I hear some men say, try it 100 times and one will say yes. They want to walk around with 99 rejections? I don’t get it.
November 25, 2017 @ 3:55 am
Thanks, Cuz. Glad you’re reading me. I haven’t had much of a response from Italian men yet. I thought they’d’ be gathered below my terrace, torches in hand. But most of them agree they’re neanderthals.
November 26, 2017 @ 6:59 am
What still surprises and repulses me here in Rome is how men manhandle me at the GROCERY store! They use their whole body. I used to stand at the short end of an aisle where nuts were shelved. Not any more cause when I stopped there, there was always a huge guy wanting through even though there was No space for two people.. But that never stopped any man, without a word they just kept walking, throwing me up against the shelving while they rubbed and pushed their way past me. Why? Never an Excuse me, never a May I pass? If I see someone in a tight spot, I walk around the aisle to an open end. Not these guys. I stopped buying nuts.
Just a few days ago I was at the banana box. I wanted one banana. In no time some guy’s huge butt pinned me up against the banana box as it slowly grated its way across my own bottom. I couldn’t move until he was finished cause again there was Not enough space for two people in that spot. Instead of walking around to an open aisle, he saw nothing wrong with using his butt to apply hard pressure to mine as he passed me so he’s walking sideways across me. Again, no Excuse me, no May I pass? I didn’t see him coming. That got my High English going and no other man dared venture near the banana box until I left with my one banana.
I find this behavior so crude and gross, no manners at all. I learned that the word Scusi or Scusa is for the Americans. I’ve Never heard an Italian say Scusi or Scusa. Once at the grocery store an Italian woman who spoke English came up to me and told me to stop saying Scusi or Scusa, marks you as a dumb American she said, those words are not used in the Italian language.
I’m not going to stop bananas. I could go around the box and stop at the short end of the box. I’d be out of the narrow aisle. I’m just repulsed at how physically invasive these guys are in public in seemingly innocuous situations! I can’t stand it and will be on my guard from now on with screams, pushes and kicks.
November 27, 2017 @ 2:04 am
Thank you very much for your great article. I am Italian, female, and lived in Southern Italy for the first 30 some years of my life (after that I relocated abroad, something I had always wished to do since I was 8). I’ve been sexually harassed, although never raped, thank heaven, since I was about 10, in every place and by males of any age (starting from 11 and up to very old men), even by respectable-looking men in tie and suit, and bystanders, when there were around, have never ever tried to stop this. I was too ashamed to react when I was a teen and my only defense was to try and avoid these situations. I never dress in a provocative way, if that is a good reason to sexually harass anybody, like they want to make us believe. If we had to write all the episodes of harassment in the newspaper, they would have to print some big volumes every day. I think it is disgusting and it is not getting any better.
November 29, 2017 @ 12:41 pm
Yes, now I would do it but at the time I was too shy. I’ll tell you a funny story I’ll never forget: in my hometown Bari, one of the favorite places for these disgusting beings are the buses. The line I used to take, the number 2, was particularly infested by an old guy, whom at the end everyone knew. One day, it was his unlucky day. He entered the bus and there were some older ladies from Bari Vecchia (the old town), who recognized him and started to yell at him in barese: “U pueeeerc (you pig), vid c te ne va da doo, schfuuss (go away from here, you bastard!)”. As a matter of fact, he took off immediately, all red in his face. Those ladies definitely knew what they were doing! 😀
February 21, 2019 @ 9:39 am
I lived in southern Italy for a year and a half when I was 23 to 25 years old (1986-88). I was a tall blue eyed blond from America and I did not blend in southern Italy, not a bit. Early on in my stay there, I was in Taranto on a bus with my working companion. We were standing and I was holding onto a pole to steady myself. There were about four 40 something year old Italian men on the back of the bus near where I was standing. One of the gross, disgusting men came behind me and before I could even blink my eyes had his hand up my skirt grabbing my crotch.
I couldn’t believe what just happened, how in the world did he feel the Liberty to approach me let alone touch me, but most revoltingly touch me the way in which he did… Grab the hell out of me between my legs .
My companion and I got off the bus, and to this day I’ve ever forgotten what happened to me there. It took a long time for me to even speak up about it. Why? Why? Why? Why in the world was I hesitant to say something to the people that I worked with there? I will tell you why.
Because before I went over to that country to do service work, volunteer Christian work, I went through a series of trainings which included cultural classes and Ambassadorship classes on the ins and outs and the do’s and don’ts when living in Italy. In a nutshell, we were told that such Behavior was part of the normal culture of Italy and if something were to occur, to not make a scene, to just ignore and walk away… And that’s it!!!
Again, I say… Why? Why not say something? Why not do something?
That wasn’t the only incident. Later, when I was transferred to Bari, my working companion and I were on a very crowded bus trying to get to an appointment, or home… I’m not remembering now just exactly where we were headed.
While on this crowded bus, as it stopped at the different stops along the way, the bus got more and more jam packed like sardines in a can. This very short Italian man began to rub his penis on my thigh. I told him to stop. He just stared out the window like he was in a some sort of a trance. What a freak!. That was it, I couldn’t take it I pushed my way out of the bus at the next stop and my companion followed. I was so angry, so shaken. I would never get on another overcrowded bus like that again.
Clearly this Behavior starts Young, the older Italian men teach the younger how to mistreat,… no not mistreat,… Assault women. Once my working companion and I were walking to our church, 2 adolescent teenagers were on a bike. 1 on the seat paddling and the other standing on the back wheels that’s supportive passenger . They started riding towards us and before I could even see what was coming, the young man standing on the back grabbed my breast hard, almost like punching me, as they rode by… Laughing like it was some sort of a game. It Not only was an assault sexually, it was an incredibly painful experience. Overtime I developed a lump in that same area where I was punched and grabbed and to this day my mammograms always include an ultrasound … at times I would have to be scanned twice a year instead of annually because of that suspicious spot.
My working companion, who went through the same cultural and ambassadorship classes that I did before we came to the country, and who was also a tall, blue-eyed blonde said was American too, and did nothing except to say.. Are you okay? I quietly cried from physical pain and emotional humiliation trying to suck it up and continue while we continued walking towards the church in which we were serving.
In the third and last City and which I worked, on the island of Sicily in Catania I was standing at a bus stop with my working companion one evening. We had a very long day decided we were going to take the bus back to our apartment instead of walking home (as long as it wasn’t crowded). While standing there a young adult aged man drove up in his car, parked in front of us, pulled out his very large penis and started fondling himself. He was just standing there looking at us and other women walking by and masturbating. What a freak! If something like that happened in America the man would be arrested for indecent exposure (at a minimum I would hope). But therr in Italy, it was seen as part of the evenings regular happenings I guess. I looked to my companion and said “keep looking over there, and let’s walk home”.
Lastly in that same city while sitting on a bus, on the single seat side of the bus a young man in his twenties, again in one of those weird Italian male trances, while standing and staring out the window like he was affixated in some other world, began to rub his penis on my arm and shoulder. I had had it, I was going home soon and I had nothing to lose. I should have stood up and made a huge scene. But instead I spoke quietly and directly to him and I said, ”What are you doing? We are not animals, wake up!!! ”
What blew my mind, was what he did after that. He stayed in his weird Italian trance and just moved on, shuffling his feet sideways and began to rub up against the young woman sitting in front of me, close to my same age. What the freaking hell?! I couldn’t wait at that point to be no longer a part of the daily living in that culture!!
Well I’m much older now, still tall, still blonde, but no longer young and naive and someday I will be returning to that country for the first time since my service work there in my twenties. I have grown to be a very strong, independent, and quite honestly a bit of an angry woman when I have any sense that a male is trying to dominate me in any way mentally, emotionally or physically. To this day I cannot stand in a line, for example in a grocery store, where a man is standing behind me and face forward with my back to them. I HAVE to stand sideways for fear I will be grabbed, touched or rubbed up against by the man standing behind me. I’m not talking about standing in line in Italy I’m talking about standing in line in my homeland of USA. The sexual assault I went through in Italy has had I lifetime last thing affect on me.
Nothing has happened to me like that here in the USA as happened in Italy. But should something like that happened to me, when I returned for the first time to Italy oh, you can be guaranteed I will not be passive, not for one second. Like the woman who made the comment above, I will be the yelling, screaming, making a scene, type of person who lets a man in that country know there is no way on Earth I will put up with the disgusting, vile, revolting, Beyond freakish behavior from ANYONE!! No, no more passiveness. NOT EVER!!!
November 27, 2017 @ 2:20 am
Thanks for the nice comment. From a male standpoint, the most effective way to combat this is to humiliate them in public. Yell at them to get their hands off you, that they’re ugly and the only way they could ever touch a woman is what they just tried. That will make them think twice the next time.
December 7, 2017 @ 12:37 am
I lived in Verona, Italy in the early 60’s, my Dad was stationed there in the Army. The Italian men would stop their cars and stare at my sister and I, we were young girls. I’ve been back to Italy several times as an adult and have been pinched and gawked at as if they’ve never seen a female before. I just accept it as part of their culture but I do feel bad for Italian women who have to endure this behavior their whole lives.
Thanks for writing such an interesting article, I really enjoy reading your adventures!
December 7, 2017 @ 12:56 am
Thanks, Christine. As I wrote, I think Italian men have curbed their behavior a bit. My old girlfriend said they mostly just leer. But buses? Don’t get on a crowded bus. Since I wrote this blog, I can’t count how many women have told me they’ve been pressed against in buses. My question is, how do men get aroused on a bus? It’s the least romantic place in Rome.
February 21, 2019 @ 9:38 pm
Incredible, terrible, horrific story. Will reply when I get time this weekend …
March 2, 2019 @ 2:55 pm
I find that the Italian culture values women for their sexual appeal more than their intellectual ability. The chauvinistic and sexist employment discrimination culture in Italy does not help get rid of that at all. Male Italians who run businesses have sexually exploited naive women by having them go to different countries for fake job opportunities just so their male buddies can manipulate the ignorant girls into doing dirty deeds for them. I know this by knowing people. It is sick.
March 3, 2019 @ 11:51 pm
I agree with you in that Italian culture exploits women’s looks, especially on TV. But where in the world did you hear Italian women are shipped off to other countries for fake jobs? Are you talking about sex slaves? I’ve never heard of that. Women come here as sex slaves but Italian women aren’t that naïve. My Italian girlfriend, a radical feminist, has never heard of that; my journalist friends have never heard of that. But one thing I will say about the Italian culture’s overemphasis on looks: At least people try to look good. It beats the hell out of the U.S. where two-thirds of the people — both men and women — are overweight, half of those being obese. Maybe if there was more pressure on appearance in the U.S., there wouldn’t be so many fat slobs. I love living in a country with beautiful people, people who care about how they look. In the U.S., so many people don’t give a damn.
March 14, 2019 @ 12:31 pm
I am talking about the evil mafia in Italy that has replaced the evil Roman Empire that was supported by the evil Roman Catholic church made by Roman thugs in order to abuse and disempower women for the women to become raped livestock in order to birth out males for warmongering sociopathy to help strengthen the Roman Empire’s immoral filth that it was. The powerful mafia in Italy does some of the things that the evilly powerful people in the Roman Empire did such as rape women and bring them to different countries in order to be sexually exploited again regardless if the women are naive or not. The mafia arguably tries to keep people like you from knowing about it, especially if your girlfriend is a radical feminist. On the other hand, because of the Italian mafia being closely linked to the Italian government that instills fear into women if those women confront abuse, those same women will have a harder time telling the world that they have been abused for fear the mafia will blackmail or kill them. Italy used to be a warmongering Roman Empire country (which is why it collapsed because it was pissing people off), now it has become an evil mafia country (now I wait to see if the mafia collapses, too). Otherwise, the U.S. is run by sociopathic capitalism, which has caused people to become overweight/obese, depressed, lonely because of the individualistic culture it has, killed if they try to confront U.S. government abuse that hurts average people versus the very corrupt 1%, etc. There is an evil multiculturalism happening in the U.S. because of bribery and money only, not for justice. Mercy happens here in the U.S. more than justice. George Carlin has proved how the American culture is garbage that only benefits rich people, not families, not decent people, and not average people who want to be healthy, critical thinkers, and right in their actions instead of being nice doormats to the lowest common denominator. The U.S. has a corrupt healthcare system, a corrupt education system meant to corrupt the youth to make the average people become dumb enough and smart enough work slaves to benefit the rich sociopaths ruining their health for money, etc. Physical health is correlated with sanity. Your mental health is affected by how much pain your body is dealing with, how obese you are, how overweight you are, etc. Ancestors have to be careful about their habits and what they ate and drank if they want to have a higher likelihood of a healthy genepool that is capable of making a healthy and reasonable society. But, American culture doesn’t want that. No, it wants to overinduldge at the expense of the health of the genepool. Italians on average do a better job of making a genepool to create beautiful people by habitually eating and drinking in healthy amounts. Also, Italy has good weather for agriculture to help people thrive. Those things are really why Italians have a higher likelihood of being healthier than other people in other countries where there is not enough sun exposure or a lack of certain vitamins, minerals, protein, etc. in foods or drinks. The reason why so many people in the U.S. don’t give a damn is because American culture doesn’t give a damn about family values, justice, health, a justifiable amount of compassion, etc. If it did it would let parents have paid parental leave, the gender pay gap would be gone, BDSM that is in the spectrum of sociopathy and psychopathy would not be tolerated, pedophilia caused by religious sociopaths/psychopaths would be eliminated, crazy satanic celebrities would stop being worshipped, and the crazy Californian culture of stupidly high taxes, Bloods, Crips, Hollywood, the supposed Illuminati, etc. would all be gone.