The Women's Protest: A Success with Many Shadows

Abstract

On 13 February 2011, more than a million women (and many men) took to the streets of Italy’s major cities to “make themselves seen and heard,” in response to an appeal by an informal network of associations as well as individual women called Se Non Ora Quando? (If Not Now, When?). The demonstrations came about as a result of the latest sex scandal (and abuse of authority) involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which had erupted a few months previously. This was due to the revelation that Berlusconi had telephoned the Milan police headquarters in the middle of the night, asking them to hand over to a “trusted person”— Nicole Minetti, a Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Liberty) regional councilor—a young foreign girl not yet 18 years old, known as Ruby, who had been accused of theft by a friend