Italian attitudes to women

[startpoint]

Hello Lunamoor, here is a question which may intrest you. I read an article in the Observer newspaper on the way the Italian media treats women. How is it that they think it is ok to treat women as mere objects of male desire and that in order to appear on TV they have to wear ever more reveling cloths? There seems to be an aceptance of Berlusconi's treatment of his wife by Italian men and that this is something to be expected. I must confess to having a crush on Berlusconi's wife, what was he doing? She is very beautfull. I am hopefull that the activists such as Lorella Zanardo will stand up to such treatment

[lunamor]

Tarni, I think you're on the point, and Startpoint's observation about Italy is just one example of a very common Western trend: the always increasing sexual objectification of women: ( o Y o ) & (_|_) (T*ts & Ass) is everything - why else is everybody running to a plastic surgeon? It's just more exasperated (and exasperating) in some places (like Italy).

[startpoint]

Tarni, no need to apologise. I agree with your viewpoint. why can the media not treat women as equals who have a intilect and have lots to give besides mere cleavage as some males seem to think.

[ilmizio]

Startpoint, just a bit of history to better understand how we got here.
Before 1975 in Italy television was a public monopoly. There were only 2 public channels (RAI), TV broadcast was strictly controlled by the christian-democrat (DC) long time ruling party, and was extremely prudish and sexuophobic. Even in the popular saturday evening TV show, women dancers had to wear thick pantyhose to hide their legs, and there was a clerk armed with a ruler and tasked with measuring skirts' length, to ensure they weren't too short!
In the view of the politicians of that era, the purpose of TV was to spread and strenghten a "national" culture and language, in a country where analphabetism was still present and most people spoke their dialect rather than italian. So television in that era was very "cultural", maybe a little boring, but of better quality than today.

In the second half of 70s, after the monopoly expired, local tv stations began to sprout everywhere in the country, and began to give the audience "what the public tv won't ever show", so skirts bean to get shorter and cleavages started to appear.
Thanks to his political acquaintances and his belonging to an illegal masonic lodge (called P2) mr Burlesconi got rid of all his competitors and rose to control all private networks in Italy. By mid-80s Burlesconi's channels began to show more sexy and less dressed girls. To counter this, the public tv started to emulate the private channels, and the race to trash began... til reaching the lowest peak of today.

As for the acceptance of Burlesconi's behaviour towards his wife, what most foreign observers fail to notice is that due to his almost total control of media, most italians don't even know exactly what's going on... they think that ms "Veronica Lario" (her real name is Miriam Bartolini) asked divorce because she has an affair with her bodyguard (which is not true)

[startpoint]

Thanks, I was aware of some of the history as The Observer has ran stories before now on Italian TV and it's treatment of women. It is nice to have an Italian view on it as The Observer can not cover it in as much detail.

[baby12]

Hello how are you doing hope you are doing good there my name is Nora am new on here and i want to know more about you....

[baby12]

Hello how are you

[bayridgebabe]

Baby this thread is from abt 2 months ago, why don't you go to the introduce yourself thread & say hello there. Doubt that many of these people are still posing on the forums

[sonia]

Actually this thread is from September 2009.....!!

[bayridgebabe]

LMAO Sonia, maybe it should be CLOSED already!!! hello wnw r u around? When you are can this thread please be closed as Tarni is no longer among us (praise the load for that) + this is old a$$ thread lol