Mara Carfagna
Stelle a destra

The upcoming 2010s will likely be remembered, in the collective consciousness, as the years of the great women's issue, marking, in my opinion, a decisive rise of women to positions of leadership and prestige in society, the economy, and, obviously, in politics: thus will occur the fulfillment of the difficult emancipation begun with women's suffrage in the early 20th century, with the sexual liberation of the '60s and '70s, and with the arduous path of revisiting feminist issues that, for better or for worse, characterized the following four decades, during which it was necessary to combine the "achieved" freedom with equally important values such as "autonomy" and "responsibility" of women in the contemporary world.

In such a context, the book by the current Minister for Equal Opportunities, Dr. Mara Carfagna (Salerno, 1975), turns out to be not only an interesting overview of the women who made history in the late '90s, but also a useful key to understanding the possible ways through which some women, having freed themselves from the yoke of the familial and patriarchal society of the past, contributed to shaping a different way of exercising political power, in which the aforementioned values of decision-making "autonomy" and "responsibility" regarding the decisions taken have given true meaning to conquered female freedom.

The added value of the book is given by the personality of the author, a brilliant and courageous personality capable of overcoming the old clichés of stale misogyny, according to which a beautiful woman (such as Mara Carfagna undoubtedly is, with a brief past in the entertainment world) cannot automatically be intelligent, capable of holding her own in parliamentary debate, or of effectively directing the policies of her Ministry.

This book thus constitutes a scathing response to those, especially in the left-wing faction, who have instrumentally pointed out Mara Carfagna as a person incapable of high-level politics, representing the electorate's demands, simply because of her background in television entertainment, or, worse still, simply for being a woman of class, charm, and style, subtly suggesting that the aforementioned outward qualities cannot be accompanied by a similar ability to penetrate and investigate politics, and, above all, political history.

Regarding the content of Mara Carfagna's essay, it can be observed that it is a biographical review of "exemplary" women, capable, by virtue of their personality and abilities, of changing the course of their lives and times, leaving their mark on the eras they lived in, sometimes even in the contemporary world.

Thus, we move from the insightful portrait of Margaret Thatcher, a woman who, more than Elizabeth II, embodies the pinnacle of the English 20th century, even in its contradictions, to more recent figures who seem inspired by Thatcher, like Ukrainian Yulia Tymoshenko, German Angela Merkel, the exotic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Rachida Dati, Tzipi Livni, reaching the Americans Condoleezza Rice and Sarah Palin, potential candidates for President of the United States at the end of the Obama era.

The distinguishing feature that unites all these women, highlighted by the essay's title itself, is being women of the "right," meaning far from the trite libertarian-feminism values like those of Erica Jong that, in the '70s, seemed to almost nullify the driving force of female liberation into a sketchy canon of the Amazon-woman, "free" in a single dimension, as "sexually free," in fact resolving freedom into a value, rather than a premise for the affirmation of new values capable of invigorating the contemporary world, and of delivering a concrete message to the new generations, of sons and daughters.

Women who certainly do not retreat into the false-myth of the domestic vestal à la Hera or Hestia, repudiated by the feminist movement, but neither do they escape into the new, and opposite, false-myth à la Athena or à la Artemis, that is, the warrior without blemish and fearless, of no man and of all men together.

I would say rather that these are women immersed in the concrete world, capable, certainly with difficulty but also thanks to the cooperation of a male world (and it is curious that the world they grew up in is a male, conservative world, apparently far from the communes of the '60s and the seemingly renewing demands of a certain left), of thinking in terms of problems and, above all, of solving, without ideological superstructures or resorting to false myths and false ideals, all the problems that everyday life can pose.

Stars "on the right," therefore, as north stars for the young women of the new millennium, and, probably, for Mara Carfagna herself and her excellent pen.

Mara Carfagna who, I believe, will become, along with Mariastella Gelmini, Michela Biancofiore, Giorgia Meloni, a reference figure in the Italian world of the early 21st century, a "star," like Nilde Iotti in the late '90s, with the advantage of living in a world where one does not have to be Togliatti's companion to shine, with one's own light, in the political sky.