In English it is called ‘Mansplaining’, in Prodiano it translates with a pulled hair towards a journalist. The gesture of Romano Prodi accompanied by the phrase: “I know very well, I believe me, I am not a child” was robbed by the Italian left as “paternalist”. No, not “sexist” would have been said if Matteo Salvini, Ignazio La Russa or the good soul by Silvio Berlusconi had made this gesture. No, the left reserves the accusation of “harassment” only for a center -right exponent, while the former premier and former president of the European Commission – the only one who has defeated Berlusconi – is untouchable.

It is so untouchable that Elly Schlei, as usual, did not utter a word while Laura Boldrini distanced himself from the ‘professor’ only after seeing the video transmitted by La7. Prodi, then, stuck on the story, remained on his positions: “I have nothing to clarify – he said – you know what excellent relationship I have with journalists, but if you want to create the accident against an old professor do as well. Time clarifies many things”. And he added: “He exchanged affection with aggression”. And this is precisely the core of the matter: when a leftist man is faced with a woman shows ‘affection’. And that’s it.

If Prodi does it, he is affected, if Salvini does it is sexism

Despite decades of feminist battles, in fact, leftist women struggle to reach positions of power. Before Elly Schlein no woman had ever led the main center -left party, whether called PCI, PDS, DS or Pd. And the current secretary of the Democratic Party also recently denounced a certain sexism towards him. “I was criticized, in colleagues men of 20 years more nobody would have ever dreamed of saying what has been said to me,” Schlein recently said whose possible role of premier candidate was recently questioned precisely by personalities such as Luigi Zanda and Romano Prodi.

It is no coincidence, in fact, that in Italy and Europe the so -called crystal roof was broken only as a center -right leader: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel and Giorgia Meloni. But not only. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Labor have always expressed male leadership and premier, while the current head of conservatories is Kemi Badenoch, a woman and moreover in color.

Women in government with Prodi without wallets

If you look at the composition of the first Prodi government (1996-1998) it is noted that there were only three minister women: Anna Finocchiaro for equal opportunities, Turkish Livia to social solidarity and Rosy Bindi to Health, the only Dicastery with a wallet.

The second Prodi government (two-year period 2006-2008), on the other hand, under 26 ministers boasted the presence of 6 women and of these only two were ministers with portfolio: Turkish Livia to health and Emma Bonino who, in addition to the delegation on community policies, also held the one on international trade.

Even in the past, therefore, Prodi gave women more ‘affection or esteem’ than power. Of course, we are talking about another era and in the subsequent center -left governments the women had more space, but the controversies on the poor female representation hit the left also recently with Mario Draghi Premier when the Democratic Party sided only men in the government team.

More esteem that power

In reality, historically, it was the center -right that gave women more power not only with the rise of Giorgia Meloni to Palazzo Chigi, but also with the election of Maria Elisabetta Casellati to President of the Senate, the first woman to hold the second highest position of the state. In light of all this, therefore, even more to smile, rethinking the words that Debora Serracchiani addressed to Giorgia Meloni: “Her policy wants a step back to men”.

A real boomerang, exactly like Prodi’s gesture against Mediaset’s journalist.