Britain has its third female prime minister and Italy is likely to get its first. That’s progress, right? Well, only if you can ignore their policies
What a fine few weeks for feminism it has been! First Liz Truss became Britain’s third female prime minister and now Giorgia Meloni is expected to be Italy’s first ever female prime minister. The former is a deeply unserious person who used to be most famous for a viral rant about cheese before gaining global recognition for helping to crash Britain’s economy in record time. The latter is the most right-wing Italian leader since 1945: a bigot with a history of homophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-choice views who represents a post-fascist party and hasn’t definitively distanced herself from fascism.
Scrap all those inconvenient facts, though. It’s not their policies or their moral compasses that matter: the most important thing about Truss and Meloni is that they are women. Sisters are doing it for themselves, and all that. (“It” being far-right politics and crashing the economy.) Like it or not, representation matters: you can’t be what you can’t see. I might not agree with Truss and Meloni’s policies but I can put my lefty political leanings aside for a moment and admit that they are both inspirational trailblazers. Little girls can finally grow up secure in the knowledge that they have what it takes to help drive the pound to record lows. They can go to sleep at night knowing that authoritarianism isn’t just for the boys. That’s progress, isn’t it? That’s worth celebrating, right?
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
