by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Pia Locatelli is an Italian politician who is strongly engaged with Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. She was thoroughly involved with female movements all around the globe, besides being a member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Group and the Italian Chamber of Deputies, as well as being part of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She is one of the most prominent global voices today on female rights and has shared her experience in this Exclusive Interview:

You didn’t go into politics straight away, first you were a teacher, then you worked in your family business, when did you have the call for entering the political arena and why?

I was born in a political environment because my father was a Mayor for sixteen years since my birth. All my family had always been involved in local administration, because some years later my sister became a Mayor. But they were Christian Democrats, I had a leftist orientation and it took me sometime to decide which party of the Italian left I wanted to join. I decided to become member of the Socialist Party in 1974 for one main reason: in PSI (Partito Socialista Italiano) a person came before the party, in the Communist Party it was vice-versa. I strongly believe that people always come first. I joined this part during the year that supported the referendum for the law on divorce. I was also involved in the women’s movement, because I’m one of twelve children (nine sisters and three brothers) and despite we loved each other very much, I could see there were differences in the treatment of the genders.

From 2011 you are part of the Committee of the Nilde Iotti Foundation, what do you feel is the response in young women to this exemplar female politician. Is she still taken as a role model?

Yes she is, also within Parliament. Similarly today’s female role model is the current President of the Chamber of Deputies in Italy, Laura Boldrini. It’s true that Nilde Iotti was more experienced, because she had been participating to the life of the Chamber through her long liaison with the National Secretary of the PCI, Palmiro Togliatti, before becoming the first woman who was President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies for three consecutive legislatures. But I can understand how intense it must have been for Laura Boldrini to start from scratch, despite she had worked at the UN. I think she is doing tremendously well, because this is a very difficult term, and we owe it to her if some topics – such as violence against women – have entered the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies. The first thing we did was to ratify the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence against women and for this I feel very grateful towards her.

So in your opinion what is Italy’s current situation as concerns sexism?

Italy is a very complex country and also interesting for this reason. But I feel that sexism is a problem in our country. From my international perspective – since I had the chance to travel the world seeing women’s conditions in various countries – I have the feeling that women worldwide go through the same experiences. It’s a common process. There is a collective marathon, but in some countries women are at the beginning of the marathon, whilst in other countries women are closer to the goal.

Did you have the impression that because of a historical heritage one of the major obstacles is self censorship from women?

Indeed. Madeleine Albright used to teach to her female students not to wait for someone to give them the floor. She told them to grasp it. As women we have to dare. We spend too much time pondering whether what we are thinking is relevant or not. In the meantime a man comes along and speaks our thoughts that people then find extraordinary and we missed our chance. Self-censorship comes because women are victims of an older culture. Younger women fortunately are less affected, but what I fear is that while they are less constricted in these prejudices and stereotypes, at the same time they are not as aware of the traps that lie ahead.

Do these traps relate to an exasperation of female emancipation?

There is a trend especially in politics or top management to behave like men. That is the model to follow. So we must stand up to make communities understand that it is one model, not “the” model. There is also another model, that demonstrates you can be brilliant, smart, intelligent, problem-solving…as a woman. Companies are now discovering that diversities are convenient. Diversity is always enriching.

Is it easier today to talk openly about injustices on women? A month ago you compared the murder of Shaimaa El-Sabag (a young activist and poet in Egypt) to Giorgiana Masi’s killing in the seventies (who was manifesting for the referendum on divorce)…

Today for the Arab Spring the contribution of women was mentioned, and I met some of these brilliant women. But usually when the situation stabilises women disappear, because the prevailing patriarchal model always comes back. Turkey for instance is an example of this: the women after having conquered a certain degree of emancipation have been retrograded to being obliged to wear again the yaşmak headscarf and not being allowed to laugh too much in public. Fortunately the reaction on social media was the circulation of images of women smiling intensely. This return to sexism is a preoccupying situation, but today we talk about it so there is a major sensitivity towards the topic. I’m not sure if this will bring changes, but in order to address a problem, it has to be known, so this is surely a step ahead.

What do you hold most at heart on your upcoming agenda?

To destroy stereotypes so that all people can express their talents and their social life. I made a parliamentary motion to have a Minister for Equal Opportunities, which so far has not been accepted by our Prime Minister, since he has appointed many women as ministers. This is good, but besides women ministers we also need a supervisor who ensures that laws are considering gender in policies. We did have it in the past with Mara Carfagna, who is not in my party, but she did try to work thoroughly on the issue, despite she was Minister without portfolio. So we definitely need someone to act as the government watchdog as regards equal rights between men and women.

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