Yahoo News Italian TV programme axed after portraying Eastern European women as submissive sex objects
A popular Italian television programme has been axed after portraying women from Eastern Europe as submissive sex bombs who turn a blind eye to their husbands’ infidelities and love doing housework.
The chat show caused a furore after listing the supposed advantages for Italian men of marrying Eastern Europeans, including “They are always sexy, they don’t wear tracksuits or pyjamas during the day” and “They let the man take charge”.
The programme, “Parliamone sabato” or Let’s Talk About Saturday, claimed that women from East European countries “forgive infidelity”, “recover their figures after giving birth” and “learn housework from a young age, making them perfect housewives”.
It was part of a segment headlined “From the East with love – are they husband stealers or perfect wives?” But the programme, which aired on the national public broadcaster RAI, provoked outrage from viewers, commentators and politicians, who said it was profoundly sexist and demeaning to Eastern European women, hundreds of thousands of whom have settled in Italy in recent decades.
Romanians make up the largest population, but there are also many Albanians, Bulgarians and Serbs.
Laura Boldrini, one of the country’s most prominent female politicians, said: “This is a shameful list. It is offensive and unacceptable that women should be represented as domestic animals who like being submissive.”
Mara Carfagna, a former TV showgirl who became a minister in the government of Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-ridden former prime minister, called the show “despicable”.
The programme, led by veteran presenter Paola Perego, had traded in “stereotypes” about Eastern European women, said Ms Carfagna, who remains a member of Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.
Monica Maggioni, the president of the public broadcaster, apologised for the programme, calling it “a surreal representation of Italy in 2017”. She added: “It is a crazy mistake, unacceptable. I personally feel involved as a woman.”
The show was aired on Saturday but indignation over its tone and content was such that on Monday evening RAI announced that it would be axed. "People make mistakes, and they're duty-bound to apologise, but apologies sometimes aren't enough," said Antonio Campo Dall'Orto, a senior executive. He said the row would “hasten” the review of daytime programming on the public broadcaster’s flagship RAI1 channel.
