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Despite having apologised and despite Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s attempts to put an end to the controversy that erupted during the week, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani’s comments about choosing a life partner on the basis of criteria such as the length of the skirt she should wear continue to spark negative reactions against the minister, crossing national borders and turning him into the subject of memes shared on social media.
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During a speech at an event organised last week, Tajani said he would advise marrying serious women who wear “longer skirts”. “Perhaps less eye-catching, but more reliable, more serious, someone who will be a good mother, who will remain faithful to the love she seals with marriage,” the foreign minister went on, explaining that he would always choose “the pretty, serious, credible one, who keeps the family together, who is there, who you know will always have an answer and is there when you call.”
After facing a torrent of criticism, Tajani apologised. “I am very sorry that some of my remarks, taken out of a much more wide-ranging speech, have been misunderstood. I apologise if some people felt offended by what I said, but I have never intended to offend women, I have never done so in my life, either in private life or in public,” Tajani said on the sidelines of his visit to New York for the UN General Assembly. But it was not enough.
The criticism of Tajani
The minister’s remarks have been roundly condemned by opposition parties, trade unions and the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI). Female senators from the Democratic Party, Italia Viva, the Greens and Left Alliance, the Five Star Movement and the Autonomies group gathered at Palazzo Madama wearing skirts.
“This is an act of freedom to say that we are free to dress as we wish. We believe that women’s freedom is measured by every act of freedom, including the length of a skirt or any other choice that women want to make without being judged by men,” said Italia Viva group leader Raffaella Paita, who came up with the idea.
“His words are proof of the intrinsic and unconscious patriarchy, so much so that Minister Tajani then tried to justify himself and apologised, but his justification is even worse. They do not realise what they are saying because it is ingrained in them. Instead we need to show that those remarks are unacceptable,” said Simona Malpezzi of the Democratic Party, who posted the group’s photo.
The initiative also came in response to comments by the leader of Futuro Nazionale, Roberto Vannacci, who, weighing in on Tajani’s words, said: “Between a woman in a long skirt and a woman in a short skirt, I always prefer a woman without a skirt,” added the former general. “I do not care about silly criticism. I love women, a gift of the universe,” Vannacci later wrote on social media, posting images of the statues of the Venus de Milo and the Venus of Candia, both half-naked.
Many other opposition MPs also posted pictures of themselves wearing skirts, as did some men, including Florence city councillor and Democratic Party member Andrea Ciulli, who shared a photo of himself created with artificial intelligence in which he is wearing a skirt, with the caption “The length of a skirt does not measure a woman’s worth, her freedom does”.
“Tajani is now a meme, he is no longer a minister,” said former prime minister and Italia Viva leader Matteo Renzi, piling on the pressure. Memes depicting the minister in women’s clothing have been circulating, and have also been picked up by international media including CNN and the BBC.
Unions and CEI against Tajani’s comments
The CGIL union also issued a stinging response. “Pitting the ‘flashy’ woman against the ‘serious’, ‘reliable’ and ‘good mother’, even invoking the length of her skirt, revives an old model of society in which it is still men who decide how women have to be in order to be considered respectable,” the union said, adding: “Institutions have a responsibility: to remove stereotypes and obstacles to the full participation of women, not to reproduce the former and weaken the safeguards against the latter. Starting with making the full right to work effective by overcoming existing pay and career disparities. The quality of democracy is also measured by the power that women can really exercise.”
The CEI’s secretary, Monsignor Giuseppe Batur, responding to a question about the remarks made by Tajani and Vannacci, said: “Every word, every way of looking at women must be filled with respect and admiration; for us Christians the first place where the Word became flesh is a woman’s womb, and for those who have faith this forever shapes the way we look at women.” “Through our gaze we enter into a relationship with others; towards men, women, children and older people we must show respect, and towards women that respect must be at its highest, given the extent to which they can be the object of superficial glances,” Batur added.
Meloni and the majority defend Tajani
Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein in recent days called on Prime Minister Meloni to comment, but Meloni downplayed Tajani’s words and urged people not to “blow them out of proportion”, saying they were just an “awkward phrase”. “I have already answered, I would not exaggerate and I do not think we should make it the main topic of Milan Fashion Week,” Meloni said while attending an event during Fashion Week in Milan.
Tajani was later defended by other members of the government, including Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, who wrote on X: “Tajani did not tell women how they should dress, he explained, as a father, what kind of partner he would recommend to his son, on the basis of his own upbringing and values. Anyone who feels offended, in one case or the other, is naturally free to say so. But the fact that an opinion jars with someone does not necessarily mean that it limits their freedom. Deciding instead to silence someone else means failing to respect their freedom.”
“You talk about women’s freedom, but why not fight for those women who are prisoners of their husbands and cannot take part in the life of the country? For religious reasons you accept that there are slaves in Italy, including polygamy. Consistency would require you to join us in fighting against the burqa,” said Stefania Pucciarelli of the League.
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