Women Politicians In Italy

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: after what happened to little Yara, the judges should resign."

"Something tells me that the team of Sallusti and Santanchè will prove to be more active, imaginative and dynamic than the team of Feltri and Belpietro. In any case, it will be interesting, given that Sallusti relates to Pavolini in the same way that Feltri relates to Badoglio."

"We need to condemn them harshly; all racial laws should be condemned. However, I would never say that fascism is absolute evil, because for me, fascism is not absolute evil."

"Over the course of my career, I have been pursued by several women, and I am flattered by that."

"Our individual freedoms – the privacy of our conversations, our post and our homes – are being increasingly curtailed. Nowadays, we're all worried about talking on the phone..."

"Daniela Santanché hates going out and going to parties."

"For a Catholic, absolute evil is the Devil, not Fascism."

"[...] Never before has so much money been spent on armaments. Of course, war makes things worse, as it encourages everyone to allocate even more resources to that area. Why is this happening? It is happening because there is more fear – fear which, instead, should be driving renewed efforts to persuade the warring parties to move towards a negotiated end to the conflict [...] The ongoing war in Ukraine and its economic, food and energy consequences have highlighted our shared vulnerabilities. We have all discovered that we are weaker when war is raging around us, not least because, in the face of the fear and the costs brought about by the conflict, not everyone can resist the temptation to act alone to protect themselves better, even at the expense of others."

"Berlusconi has allied himself with the worst kind of traitor, Gianfranco Fini."

"Berlusconi has given me several gifts: bracelets, necklaces and various tokens of affection on public holidays and on my birthdays. He is a generous man who cares about people; there are few like him. We are still friends. For a right-wing woman, this is a very important value, but unfortunately, Silvio has now descended into the political circus."

"Everyone is calling for everyone to resign. Berlusconi over the Rubygate scandal, Bondi because a rotten wall collapsed in Pompeii, Rosi Mauro over the way she managed the Senate chamber, Calderoli..."

"What's the point of tapping a mobster while he's talking to his mother? It's an abuse of power."

"Even if they make mistakes, law enforcement officers are never murderers."

"(Referring to Pier Ferdinando Casini) [...] if you try to be moderate at all costs, in the end you become modest."

"Fini has become a party functionary, like so many others."

"The only thing that is certain is that Berlusconi has genuinely been persecuted."

"When it comes to gender-based violence, we should also reflect on the problem that weighs on our country, namely that we have rightly accepted the presence on our territory of citizens who are fully entitled to be here – because they hold residence permits and because they work and are part of the workforce we need. At the same time, however, we do not need to import into our country cultural models that are unacceptable and contrary to our public order."

"From the very beginning, from the very first moment it took office, the government led by Prime Minister Meloni has made our country's international position clear, choosing to show solidarity with Ukraine and acting in perfect continuity, without ambiguity and without hesitation, with the previous government."

"Fini disappointed me because he's afraid of women, because he doesn't believe in meritocracy, and because he makes you feel like he's the only intelligent person around."

"I am also here because I could no longer put up with the views of those who – in order to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the financial and media community – go so far as to describe the twenty-year period of fascism as "the absolute evil"."

"Regarding the media reports about his business activities... Some newspapers are spreading huge lies, which is why we are going to file our own lawsuit for damages [...] I hope that in a few years' time, I will have a tidy sum, and that with my damages, I might be able to help someone who needs me more. (13 July 2023)"

"I am one of the few female politicians in Italy who is not a tool of men. I am free and independent in my thinking. In fact, I think I'm more capable of using Berlusconi than the other way around."

"If they had used the same resources and technology for the search as they did to investigate the Olgettina girls, perhaps Yara would still be alive."

"Yara's community needs to know that even if they catch the monster, he'll only serve a third of his sentence, because we've basically forgotten about life imprisonment by now. Not to mention temporary releases – perhaps the first one to attend his father's funeral and the second to visit him in hospital, eh?"

"Silvio Berlusconi has no respect for women; his life shows this day after day. He told that young woman in precarious employment to marry a billionaire: that is not the solution to precarious employment. Voting for Silvio Berlusconi is the most pointless vote women can cast."

"(About Muhammad) He was polygamous; he had nine wives, [...] the youngest of whom was nine years old. He was a paedophile. [...] In our culture, he was a paedophile."

"(About Oriana Fallaci) [...] left to her own devices as she imagined a better world."

"We have left Silvio Berlusconi alone for too long in his denunciation of the 'iron axis' between judges and left-wing journalists. And we've left the journalists alone for too long. True journalists like Feltri, Belpietro, Ostellino, Ferrara, Fede and Rossella."

"(Regarding Gaddafi's visit to Rome) When a Head of State visits think we need to show the respect that we sometimes lack a bit: I don't know if there were acrobats, dwarves and dancers on that occasion, because I wasn't there, so I can't know."

"I do politics, and I am only willing to respond to political arguments. I've never made personal issues out of anything, never gossiped, and never resorted to backbiting."

"For the sake of intellectual honesty, we must recall who, in Italy, prior to 2012, negotiated, agreed upon and then approved the ESM, which was subsequently reformed. All the European preparatory work prior to the establishment of the ESM took place between 2010 and 2011; in office at the time was the Fourth Berluscon Government, supported by the Lega, the then Popolo delle Libertà party, and that section of Popolo delle Libertà which would later become Fratelli d'Italia."

"We believe that, when technologies cause psychosocial harm linked to the loss of the unborn child's genetic parental identity, this is not progress but regression, a form of barbarism. This is the case with assisted reproduction, which creates an unacceptable disconnect between social parentage and biological parentage – a rift between genetic parentage, gestational parentage and educational responsibility– with inevitable and irreparable psychological harm to the unborn child. Nor should it be claimed, as has been said many times, that the concept of parenthood is evolving today towards new horizons, because parents' horizons are different from those of their child, especially when we consider that the couple today is increasingly unstable and therefore in need of well-considered and, so to speak, 'orthodox' choices. You only have to look at the statistics to see the alarming figures. Nor should we accept the provocative claim, which I often hear repeated here and in public debates, that Italy is full of 'children of assisted reproduction' because they are the result of a woman's relationship with the milkman on duty. We believe that, when science is called upon to make up for nature's shortcomings, we should not imitate nature's excesses and degenerations, but rather preserve as natural a character as possible for the parental role, thereby avoiding the chaos of socially unprecedented and hard-to-define figures."

"The circular economy should not be a slogan; it should be something that is sustainable for industry and the market. I can tell you one thing: I have never seen regeneration and vitality in an area where industries have abandoned the site, so we need to regenerate the area; we need to make it compatible with the industries that continue to operate there."

"I'm not into grey tones; I'm all for black or white."

"The key milestone in this historical, political and legal journey is that we have come to understand that violating women's physical, mental, moral and economic integrity is a violation of human rights."

"We have come to understand that the scope of gender-based violence extends to reproductive violence, an issue we should consider in light of all the struggles our country has gone through on reproductive rights. We have also drawn up a convention on violence in the workplace, which covers not only the workplace itself but also attacks on sexual integrity."

"[...] In my view, specifically with regard to violence against women, there is a public order problem that no one is noticing, namely the introduction of unacceptable family models into a democratic system like ours."

"[...] Teachers are the first point of contact for a child experiencing violence; therefore, teachers need to be prepared and trained to recognise such signals – they need to be able to decipher a pattern, an issue, or a psychological attitude that is not right. The question is: are they capable of doing that today? From my personal experience, unfortunately, I have to say no, not least because the cumbersome procedures and the complexity of getting a report to its intended recipient are such that the system is effectively at a standstill."

"(About the Cirinnà Bill of Law) These problems are the result of a devious political strategy. In words, they said they wanted to create a new legal entity, a union between people of the same sex; in practice, they mimicked traditional marriage to the point of creating a hybrid."

"The age of globalization offers opportunities and knowledge, but at the same time carries with it the risk of new forms of marginalization—a risk that cannot be ignored or underestimated, starting with the real economy and starting with the workplace."

"Please forgive my emotion, but for me, the decision you have made to elect a woman to the Presidency of this Assembly for the first time represents a responsibility that I cannot hide behind any formal preamble."

"Despite the debate over the different roles that will be defined in the next stages of the institutional framework, all the political parties represent the community as a whole."

"America and the world need Trump. This is a time for identity, for borders, for exclusion – not for panic-stricken inclusion..."

"Islam is a terminal cancer for the West; it must be eradicated before the metastases spread to Italy."

"Fascism was a period in our country's history, and today, anyone who opposes the cultural hegemony of the left is labelled a fascist, so just think how many times I've been told I'm a fascist. I'm proud to be a fascist, because I'm in good company."

"To build my career, I've never made compromises; I've never given in – in other words, I've never sold out."

"There is none so deaf as he who will not hear. Disclosing wiretaps that relate to an individual's intimate and private life, rather than to the criminal offences for which the wiretapping was ordered, constitutes an unacceptable violation of that individual's privacy and rights."

"(About Giorgio Napolitano) I think he's the worst President of the Republic ever."

"They took it out on the volunteers who were looking for that poor girl, when in fact they are heroes. They even accused the community of Brembate of maintaining a code of silence, without realising that people in the North Italy are like that – they keep their grief to themselves."

"We need the TSO here; put a straitjacket on her."