USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Interesting: 7 women-- including a black woman -- in new Italian government

ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/03/italian-women-power-new-prime-minister

 

 

 

 

Italian women rise to positions of power under new prime minister

Enrico Letta continues the political revolution that began under Mario Monti by naming seven women in his 22-member cabinet

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• • John Hooper in Rome
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 May 2013 09.37 EDT
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Josefa Idem, Italy's minister of sport, and Cecile Kyenge, the Congo-born minister for integration, sit after the swearing-in ceremony for Enrico Letta's new cabinet in Rome. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

Josefa Idem is not easily rattled. An international canoeist who won an Olympic gold and five world championships, she knows what it is like to face a daunting challenge.

But, after taking a call from Italy's new prime minister, Enrico Letta, asking her to be a member of his cabinet, she told her followers on Twitter: "My hands were shaking". The German-born Idem, 48, who took Italian nationality after marrying her coach, entered politics 12 years ago and was elected to the senate for Letta's Democratic party (PD) in February's general election. She is one of seven women in Letta's 22-member cabinet – the highest proportion in an Italian government.

The new left-right coalition, which began work on Tuesday after surviving the second of two votes of confidence in parliament, has completed a revolution in the status of women in Italian politics that began with the previous government of the former EU commissioner, Mario Monti. Before that, women were central to Italian politics but not in a way that did much to advance their cause.

Arguably the most important woman in the closing months of Silvio Berlusconi's 2008-11 government was Karima el-Mahroug, otherwise known as "Ruby the Heartstealer", the Moroccan teenage runaway whose friendship with the septuagenarian former prime minister contributed to his departure from office. Berlusconi also appointed women to his cabinet. But one was a former showgirl and glamour model while another had a habit of appearing on TV chat shows wearing hold-up stockings under a microskirt.