Italians behaving badly
Italian Manager’s best hobby in danger
The Italian Court of Cassation is defining what is permissible touching at work through a number of lawsuits being brought by female employees against their managers with wandering hands. But while cafés and bars buzzed with the latest court ruling on which parts of women’s’ bodies are fair game, two prominent female politicians slugged it out trying to get to the bottom of the issue.
Last week the court ruled that managers are allowed to touch the bottoms of their female subordinates but only if “the touch is brief and non-repetitive”. A defendant charged with sexual harassment for giving a “pacca” (=slap) on a woman collegue’s bum, claimed his gesture was intended” to remove some hair from the plaintiffs back’.
Breasts however are definitely out of bounds, according to the same court in a different suit brought by students against their teacher. The teacher was convicted of having a “libidinous attitude” and was sentenced to 18 months of prison and has been banned from teaching. The court refused to accept the defendant's claim that the girls did not object to his touches by saying that the students had no time to react to his lightening fast strikes.
In February 1999 the same Court of Cassation ruled that to rape a women clad in jeans was not a crime as jeans were worn so tight that the accused needed the assistance of the women to remove her jeans. The case shocked the national and international media and in the Italian Parliament created cross party unity among women politicians. Signorina Alessandra Mussolini –MP and granddaughter of Benito Mussolini – was on the front line of protests leading debates against the ruling and general attitudes of macho male rule makers. She found support among all female MPs, at that time. Last week instead, engaged in a heated debate on the latest ruling of bum-slapping, Ms Mussolini accused the Minister for Women’s Rights – Ms Katia Belillo - of the government’s lack of action in protecting women’s rights. The debate degenerated in to a cat fight when Ms Bellilo said: “You shut up because your name is Mussolini;” and Ms Mussolini replied with a swift kick to Bellilo’s shin. 56 per cent of Italians watched the scene on their famous talk show “Porta a Porta”. This moved the public attention away from the real women issue. More focused on the problem were instead the women in Brussels, especially the women Ministers in the Netherlands, who have declared they would give a “brief and non-repetitive touch” to male Italian ministers at each official meeting until serious measure are taken in Italy to change the court decision.
Now attention in Italy is focused on the latest case where an accomplished Casanova manager of northern Italy is facing a charge of sexual harassment for kissing a colleague’s neck. The case hangs on whether the kiss was destined for the mouth – legally defined as an erogenous zone, or a cheek – a safe zone. The defence asserts the kiss accidentally ended up on the neck of the plaintiff.
Touching women is such an entrenched thing that there are specific words in Italian to denote the location and intensity of the touch - to the bottom or the breast, bottom slap or prolonged caress. “Palpare” is a word only used for breast, and a “pacca” can only be given on the bottom.
