Indegno Indeed

On February 13th of this year, approximately 500,000 Italian protestors took to their cities' streets and squares, many of them carrying placards that bore a picture of Silvio Berlusconi, topped with the word "indegno". Check your Italian dictionary, and you'll see that the word means "dishonourable". An apt description for a prime minister content to do nothing to better conditions in his country for half of its population. Instead, he spends his time feathering his own nest, chasing skirts and providing rent-free apartments for underage prostitutes.
The World Economic Forum's 2010 Global Gender Gap Report puts it all neatly into a nutshell, when they rank Italy in 74th place, behind Paraguay, Ghana and Kyrgyzstan. For any who doubt the report, it's backed up in spades by two details. One is the fact that only 46% of Italian women hold a job compared with the European Union average of 59%. The other is the fact that Joumana Haddad, a writer from Lebanon, actually expressed indignation at the way she saw Italian women being treated by their country. Given that Lebanon itself is not exactly a bastion of gender equality, Haddad's feelings speak volumes about the inequality rampant in Italy. Haddad's resume more than qualifies her to pass an opinion worth heeding. In addition to being the founder and editor-in-chief of JASAD magazine, Joumana Haddad is head of the Cultural page in the "An Nahar" newspaper, and the Administrator of the IPAF literary prize. She has published several poetry collections which have been translated and published abroad. She has also interviewed international writers such as Umberto Eco, and speaks seven languages. Her accomplishments go on, so suffice it to say, when she passes an opinion, there are many disposed to listen.
Such a source of pride for Berlusconi and his supporters. The country he leads, and the way in which he leads has just been dumped on the dung heap by Haddad. She speaks for many, but it is unlikely Berlusconi cares. He is too busy looking for his next romp between the sheets, too busy seeing the world through the filter of his pathetic version of masculinity. At a time when women perform 66% of the world’s work, but earn just 10% of the income, it is deplorable that a developed country such as Italy should be contributing to these sad statistics, rather than helping to ameliorate them.
Indegno, indeed, Berlusconi.