Yes, I am a woman, but I must admit that I have never experienced discrimination in my political career.
To be clear, I’ve definitely had to deal with attitudes of mistrust, and I’ve often felt people observing me and thinking, “Let’s see how this one copes.” In addition to being a woman, I was young and had decided to embrace the Right. So, according to an odious and false radical chic bias, if we’re not deemed “unpresentable,” then we must be subpar. Yet, looking back now, overcoming the expectations of those before me proved less challenging than I had expected.
In time, I half-seriously, half-jokingly adopted the words of Charlotte Whitton, Mayor of Ottawa in the 1950s: “Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” Perhaps this resonated because meritocracy has always been a cornerstone for us. Those who must fight to earn every inch of their space cannot afford to base their choices on last names, bank accounts, or the education someone could afford. For us, the saying “one is equal to one” really holds true. This is not to say, as the Five Star Movement might put it, that “one is worth as much as another because no one understands anything anyway,” but rather in the sense that everyone starts from the same point. No favoritism, no bias—how far you go depends solely on what you can prove.
I’m sure that, over the years, some have wondered, deep down inside, “Where will we end up with a woman leading us?” But if they did, no one ever let it show. On the Right, being a woman has never been a barrier to achieving the highest roles. In fact, it was the Right in Italy that helped the largest number of women to emerge and secure prominent positions. Before becoming President of Brothers of Italy, I was elected to lead the youth movement of National Alliance, in the only true Congress in which that party has ever been celebrated. That’s the key: I was elected. By contrast, those on the Left pay a lot of lip service to equal rights for women but often reduce the presence of women to being a concession by men. Matteo Renzi exemplified this when, as he launched his new Italia Viva Party (Italy Alive Party, talk about optimism . . .), he proclaimed it to be “the most feminist party in Italian history” because he had chosen Teresa Bellanova to lead it and Maria Elena Boschi as head of the Chamber of Deputies. That is not how things work for us. On the Right, whether you’re a man or a woman, your position must be earned through your skills—not handed to you by someone already in power. And if women rise, it’s not because some man made it happen.
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That said, I did have some challenging moments. Moments when I, too, had to confront ridiculous stereotypes. One instance that stands out was when I announced I was expecting my daughter, Ginevra. For the first time, I genuinely believed people might think I was unfit for an important political role because of my growing belly. In those days, the Center-Right was searching for a mayoral candidate for Rome. At the time, the city was led by a marvelous commissioner, following the distressing scandal surrounding Ignazio Marino—the surgeon-turned-mayor whom the Democratic Party had once fervently supported for the Campidoglio (Capitol), only to abandon him with ruthless cynicism after his expenses scandal. It was early 2016. I had learned just two weeks earlier that Andrea and I were expecting a baby. On the afternoon of January 30, I participated in Family Day at the Circus Maximus in Rome—a massive and deeply moving rally.
In a mix of happiness and euphoria, and feeling embraced by the warmth of the people in attendance, I instinctively shared the news with a reporter who was interviewing me. She looked at me in disbelief, aware that I was giving her a scoop. “Really?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied, “God willing, the next time I’m here, it’ll be as a mom, too.”
A few hours later, the news had spread, and a wave of controversy and vulgar sarcasm exploded, amplified—as always—by the tremendous power of the internet and social media. The insults soon followed, ferocious and relentless. I’m used to being insulted—sometimes to such a degree that I’ve become immune to the nastiness—but not this time. Reading comments that someone hoped I would miscarry was deeply hurtful. Not for me—I’ve never been intimidated by keyboard warriors—but for the defenseless life I was carrying, which had unwittingly triggered such hostility. In that moment, I felt as though I’d failed my very first mission as a mother. I can still vividly recall the comic actresses who regularly appeared on RAI TV, the fixtures on talk shows who couldn’t resist recycling offensive, hackneyed lines. For those self-proclaimed progressive thinkers, those modern, liberal women, I had no right to announce my pregnancy at a pro-family event simply because I was unmarried. I have often heard similarly ridiculous claims: if you’re unmarried, you shouldn’t defend the traditional family. It’s as absurd as saying that if you’re young, you shouldn’t address issues affecting the elderly, or if you’re human, you shouldn’t advocate for animal welfare. That said, there were several moments of solidarity from political leaders expressing their support. I particularly remember Roberta Pinotti, then-Minister of Defense for the Democratic Party (Partito Democractico, PD), who sent me a pair of baby booties, along with a heartfelt message, quoting Dante, that essentially said “don’t bother with them, just look and move on” (non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa).
This excerpt from I Am Giorgia: My Roots, My Principles by Giorgia Meloni has been published with permission from Rupa Publications India.